Gold Rush!

General




The year is 1848. Jerrod Wilson is a young ambitious city slicker, born and raised in urban America. Caught in the trap from nine to five at the newspaper publisher in Brooklyn, New York, Jerrod longs for adventure. He's all alone in Brooklyn - his parents died many years ago due to an unfortunate accident and his brother, Jake, fled to the other side of the country after being wrongly accused of a crime long ago. How Jerrod longs to see his brother after all those years... Then the national news breaks out: Gold has been found in Coarsegold, California! The Gold Rush is on! People all over America travel to California in the hopes for a better future.

At the same time Jerrod receives a letter from his brother. He has struck gold and invites his brother to come and join him! Jerrod can no longer resist the urge: he sells his house, quits his job, empties his bank account and travels to California to find gold and his long-lost brother. But how shall he travel there, 2,000 miles away? Shall he take the Panama route by ship and travel through the treacherous jungle? Will he opt for the long and dangerous Cape Horn route and risk being caught in a storm or die from cholera? Or will he go across America with the wagon and risk being attacked by Indians and dare crossing the desert? Every route is different and presents its own dangers. And the danger is not yet over when Jerrod finally arrives in California. Afterall, everybody wants to find gold and they are not afraid of removing the competition. Relive one of America's most exciting eras and enrich your understanding of life on the American frontier.

Gold Rush is written and designed by Doug and Ken MacNeill. It is one of the last games that used Sierra's AGI engine. One of the special features in this game is that the player can chose between three entirely different paths to arrive to their destination, making the game highly replayable. The MacNeill brothers have also done a tremendous amount of research to keep the game as historically accurate as possible. The game is accompanied with an 88-page book about the 19th century Gold Rush to provide even more background to the player. The game was released for DOS, Amiga, Apple II, Atari and Macintosh. Gold Rush has also been remade by Sunlight Games, who also developed a sequel.


External links

- Gold Rush! at The Software Farm: home page of the MacNeill Brothers.
- Gold Rush! at Sunlight Games
- Gold Rush! at SierraHelp
- Gold Rush! at MobyGames
- Gold Rush! at Wikipedia