The graphics of this game had long been fascinating me, but I
couldn't figure out the interface—or so I thought. In truth
it just wouldn't run properly on my Duron, but pretended hard to
do so. Ironically, the first time I tried to play it on a 286 it
showed quite similar symptoms, I don't know why. Meanwhile it
behaves well. I've played it on said 286, and on a Pentium 120,
it runs well under Windows 98 and recognizes the Windows mouse
driver.
Sarakon is basically Shisen-Sho. In this game, usually played with MahJongg tiles, you can remove matching tiles if they can be connected by a line with two or less right angles that does not go through other tiles. For veterans of MahJongg it can be quite confusing that the tiles do not have to be on the edge of the playing field. If, for example, two matching tiles are directly beside each other, you can take them out immediately even if they are right at the center.
To this, Sarakon adds a third dimension.
Tiles are stacked
on top of each other too. Furthermore, the line must not leave
the playing field. Thus on some levels you cannot remove the
outermost tiles right away! Unfortunately, every level has a time
limit. I don't like to play a game like this against the clock.
You can play it in easy mode, which makes clearing the levels
little problem; I'd rather have tough levels, and no time limit.
Sarakon was written in assembler for the Atari ST by Stefan Preuss, Nils Heidorn (programming), Stefan Jeworowsky (sound and music), and Thorsten Mutschall (graphics). Thorsten Mutschall, incidentally, would later work for BlueByte and design the buildings for The Settlers III. The game was distributed by StarByte, who ported it to the Commodore 64. The developers themselves did an Amiga port. I could not find out who did the DOS port.
Most probably, Sarakon was released for Atari ST, Amiga and Commodore 64 in October 1990. It was reviewed in a German Atari magazine (ST Magazin) in that month. The DOS version is mentioned in The PC Games Bible (Robin Matthews & Paul Rigby 1992). It probably came out in 1991.
The DOS version can run in VGA, EGA or Hercules. Strangely enough it needs more memory when running in EGA than in VGA. The game is intended to be played with the mouse, but plays surprisingly well without one (move the cursor with the arrow keys, mark tiles with space), though it might slow you down a bit. But I wouldn't want to miss the music, which adds a lot to the atmosphere, so a sound card is strongly recommended.
Stefan Preuss later remade Sarakon first for NeXTSTEP, later for Windows as AcChen. Since the DOS version of Sarakon does not run well on modern computers, this should be highly welcome. Unfortunately, AcChen does not quite match the charm of the old game.
The game board graphics are the same, pixel-doubled and then blurred a bit, but the stones are more crudely drawn, the symbols less easy to tell apart. The music is missing, the sound effects are rather bad (I very much disliked the cynical laughter when you try to match two stones that aren't free). Like Tetris Break, the window has no border or title bar, but all the pop-up menus, including highscores, are Windows defaults.
Still, it's an easy way to experience Sarakon gameplay on a modern computer, and it even comes with a level editor! AcChen was ported to OS X by Don Yacktman, but I did not find a working download link.
