Originally released in 1991, Getaway Laptop Entertainment 6 Pack was tailored for on-the-go play on early PC laptops. Designed to run smoothly on monochrome LCD screens with keyboard or mouse control, the suite includes Solitaire (Klondike and Las Vegas variants), a Scrabble-style game called Word Salad, and a competitive Dominoes game against up to three of nine AI opponents. Also included are Cascade, a pattern-matching dice puzzle; Stuffin’ the Briefcase, with 63 spatial packing challenges; and Totem, a colorful Mastermind-style code-breaking game across 20 levels. A utility named Profiler rounds out the package, allowing users to benchmark their system performance. Optimized for low-power travel use, each game features a clean 640x monochrome interface, PC speaker sound, and in-game help. A separate EGA/SVGA color version was also available for desktop or color laptop users.

The monochrome version of this product is really one of the best examples of what the early era of portable computing was like.  For a short while, the emerging laptops (probably as heavy as three current laptops) were limited to monochrome LCDs — partially for affordability, and partially because of early battery life issues — so some software vendors made games specifically for that market.  To drive it home, this bundle also included a System Profiler utility so you could benchmark your computer to see if it was powerful enough to run the software. The color version of the product though is much better… although realistically the current market for these types of bundled games packs is probably not as encouraging as the idea of taking one or two titles from this collection and releasing them as stand-alone mobile apps.  We’re already doing that with Stuffin the Briefcase.  Let us know if you have interest in any of the other games, or the whole bundle.