It may surprise Infocom fans [up to 10,000 of you] to learn that the word “planetfall” was coined/defined for space flight, even before the adventure game was written.
Hint: it’s a logical derivative of the seafaring term “landfall”.
"Following its 1980 release, Zork I became a bestseller from 1983 through 1985. By 1986, the game had sold 380,000 copies, with 680,000 sales for the trilogy overall, comprising one-third of Infocom's two million game sales"
The map is from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, a game from 25 years ago, a spinoff of the Civilization series, where a colony ship from Earth lands on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. In the game's narrative, the colonists use "planetfall" to refer to the landing event and date.
