The Space Bar

The Space Bar is a video game in the adventure genre developed by Boffo Games, Inc. and published by SegaSoft, Inc. originally released in 1997. It is currently playable on Windows.

Armpit VI is a mining planet rich in the mineral known as Uptite, which can be refined into the very valuable Upshot. The planet is owned by a corporation called Amalgamated Vacuum, which runs its own Security Force. Alias Node is a member of the AVSF, and also the only human on the planet. One night, he and his partner Maksh almost witness the murder of a fellow member during the investigation of a robbery. The trail leads to the local bar, The Thirsty Tentacle. Unfortunately, the killer appears to be a shape-shifter capable of assuming the appearance of any of the multiple aliens in the bar. To make matters worse, Maksh has been kidnapped. Alias Node only has a few hours to find the criminal before he escapes on a space shuttle.

The Space Bar is a humorous puzzle-solving adventure game. Navigation is done by moving between pre-rendered backgrounds, which can be viewed from different angles using full camera rotation. Many areas and objects can be zoomed in and interacted with in a fairly detailed way through contextual menus. Conversations with characters contain recurring commands that allow the player to command them to perform actions, ask them about various topics, as well as assume different attitudes. In the tradition of old text-based adventures, each action advances the game clock by the equivalent of one minute. Certain events will occur and characters will appear depending on the internal time of the game. There is a general time limit of several hours in the game.

Alias Node possesses a unique ability known as Empathy-Telepathy ('emp-tel'), which allows him to enter the worlds of various alien bar patrons and control them there. Each of these segments plays out like a smaller-scale, self-contained adventure game, with inventory, logic and time-based puzzles. Controllable aliens include a shady character in conflict with the authorities, a teenage arboreal creature 'rooted' by his mother, a robot specializing in alien sports, and others. Their gameplay can also differ: for example, one of the aliens can use his tail to interact; the insect-like waiter sees the world through his multiple eyes, etc. Most segments also involve the unique application of lore and local rules, reading various documents for clues, etc.

Once an emp-tel segment is solved, crucial information is obtained that brings the protagonist closer to the goal of his investigation. It is possible to approach these sections in any order, but all of them must eventually be completed. Both in the bar itself and in the alien worlds, the player has access to a map at all times. The Alias Node log contains general information about the aliens and the ongoing investigation and lists the clues collected.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.