Osprey - Acorn Electron

Osprey, released in 1984 by BOURNE for the Acorn Electron, was an educational turn-based title backed by the RSPB.

The aim of the game is to manage an RSPB Osprey reserve and ensure that breeding pairs of Ospreys are successful in rearing some chicks. To do this, the player must manage a team of wardens (represented by the white stickmen in the image). By placing an allocation of wardens in various locations, the player seeks to minimise disturbance from visitors to the reserve. The visitors are a bit of an unruly bunch and have the maddening habit of honking their car horns whenever they turn up at the reserve. This results in a loss of Osprey breeding pairs. Other threats include bad weather (a random element and out of the control of the player) and the evil egg thief.

The egg thief periodically appears out of the left side of the screen and races up and down the side of the tree, stealing eggs, looking for all the world like a nasty spider. If there are enough wardens by the foot of the tree, the thief can be successfully chased away. Of course, as this is a game about balancing resources, placing more wardens by the tree means there are fewer to direct visitors towards the car park. Visitors will then park their cars along the road by the tree and, with their inexplicable desire to honk their car horns, chase the Ospreys away. Even once visitors are pointed towards the car parks, they still honk away all the time. I assume that the horns represent general disturbance by visitors, but as a child I found it difficult to understand why someone would drive into a nature reserve and then repeatedly honk their horn. It seemed like bizarre behaviour to include in a video game. But then again, four years ago I was driving in Tasmania and spotted a wombat by the side of road, happily munching on vegetation. As we were in a national park we were travelling slowly, so I stopped the car to watch; so did the driver in front. However, he leaped out his car and chased the wombat up the hill where it disappeared, shouting, 'Koala! Koala!' as he followed it. He returned to his car but not before turning to look me in the eyes, a proud and happy grin on his face. He mouthed 'Koala!' once more, then drove off.

I can't remember whether Osprey could be completed - as an educational title, I have the feeling that it couldn't. The RSPB's aim was to show how difficult it is to manage a reserve, and I think I failed miserably every time I played the game: no breeding pairs were left. It is a very limited title: each turn consists only of assigning wardens to one of three locations, followed by a minute's action where the player must watch the consequences of their decisions. These consequences then affect how many breeding pairs and how many wardens remain on the reserve.

Looking back it's certainly an interesting concept, but one which would probably be reserved as a flash game on a corporate website nowadays. As a full price game, it seems astonishing that the player only really has one action to complete in the game. The graphics were very crude, with limited animations. Sound was reasonable for the Electron - satisfying bleeps and bloops, and a loud honking noise for those dreaded horns. The Ospreys themselves were animated, and would occasionally dive into the water for a fish, accompanied with a small blipping sound. I would argue that for the RSPB's intentions to raise awareness about Osprey protection, Osprey the game was not really a success. Certainly there is very little mention of it anywhere on the internet. However, as a child I played the game and now I volunteer for the RSPB, so perhaps there's more to the legacy of the game than first appears.