Game Review: Suspect (1984, Infocom)

Posted on October 27, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

The time is Halloween, circa 1984. You are a newspaper reporter who has been invited to the annual Halloween costume party that is being thrown by your old friend, Veronica Ashcroft-Wellman. You show up, eager to find a story. You are dressed as a cowboy, complete with a lariat and a gun belt. Shortly after you arrive, Veronica goes to her office. Not long afterwards, Veronica is discovered dead. Around her neck is your lariat. Lying near her body is a bullet from your gun belt. You’re not only a suspect. In the eyes of the police, you’re the only suspect!

Infocom’s third and final murder mystery followed Deadline and The Witness. Just like those two games, you have a limited amount of time to explore your surroundings, find clues, and talk to the other people at the party. Run out of time and you’ll once again be approached by the trusted Sgt. Duffy. This time, though, Duffy is coming to take you to jail. The stakes have never been higher and the mystery has never been more complex. Not only is the house bigger than the houses in Deadline and The Witness but there’s also many more suspects, all of whom are in costume and all of whom move around at their own free will. Clues are not difficult to find but it can be a struggle to not only figure out how they link together but to also the convince the investigative detective that they are important. This is not an easy game to win. I played it several times and failed to solve the mystery every time. Finally, I did what anyone would have done in my situation.

I cheated.

I found a walk-through for the game and, following it step-by-step, I solved the murder and cleared my name. If I hadn’t used that walk-through, I probably never would have solved the case. This is not a game for casual text adventurers. This is for people who want to totally immerse themselves in a world and then spend hours working out a plan of attack.

It’s also an elegantly written game, with its fair share of Easter eggs for experienced gamers. Just count the number of guests who have come to the party costumed like characters from other Inform games. This game is tough but rewarding, even if you do end up having to cheat to win.

Suspect can be played at the Internet Archive.

Game Review: Suspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare (1983, Infocom)

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Welcome to the future. On the planet of Contra, an Earth colony is run by a self-maintaining system that is housed in a gigantic facility. The system is responsible for everything from transportation to keeping the weather hospitable for the colonists. You are at the center of the system. You have been placed in suspended animation so that your mind can serve as the Central Mentality that keeps the entire system from falling apart. It’s a job that’s meant to last for 500 years but the rewards are great.

Unfortunately, there’s been an earthquake and the complex has been damaged. Though you are still in suspended animation, you know that you have to repair the complex before the angry colonists shut you down. Since you’re in stasis, you have to direct five robots to do all the work. Each robot has its own “personality” and unique way of describing each room in the complex. You’ll have to figure out how to get the robots to work together before all of you get shut down permanently.

Suspended is one of the most difficult text adventures that I’ve ever played. Since each robot can only tell you certain things about each room in the facility, the game often depends on getting the right robots in the right room at the right time. If you can pull that off, the damage itself is often easy to fix but it’s not always easy to guess which robot will be useful in which situation. In typical Infocom fashion, there’s also a time limit to the game and making too many mistakes can make it impossible to get things done before time expires. For most players, winning this game will come down to trial-and-error and frequent saving. The game is so complex, though, that you feel really damn good when you actually manage to figure it all out.

Suspended can be found at various archival and abandonware sites online, including here.

Game Review: Ghost Town (1995, E.L. Cheney)

Posted on October 9, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

In this text adventure, you are a prospector in the old west. You’re trying to find the old ghost town of Brimstone. Though the town is deserted, it is rumored that it might be haunted. It is also rumored that the town might be home to a fortune in gold.

Ghost Town is a fairly diverting text adventure. The first few times that I played, I didn’t even make it to Brimstone. Instead, I wandered around the endless prairie and then I got trapped in one location by a snake.

Once you figure out how to actually get by the snake, you can move on to the town. It turns out that, despite the the rumors that the town is deserted, it actually is inhabited by a crazy lawman and he’s holding a woman hostage. It’s up to you to defeat the lawman, rescue the woman, and hopefully make it out alive.

As text adventures go, it’s basic but it’s not a bad game. I played it because I thought there would be actual ghosts but instead, it’s just a really evil sheriff. If you can overlook some misspellings and questionable grammar, this a fairly well-programmed game and one that has more than its share of interesting locations. It’s a game the rewards both persistence and an eye for small details.

It can be played at the Internet Archive. Good luck getting past that snake!

Video Game Review: Vacation Gone Away (2002, Milibus)

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Vacation Gone Awry is an old-fashioned text adventure where you wake up on the first day of your vacation in Germany and you discover that your family has disappeared!

Searching your three-room cabin doesn’t do much good. Your wife and your daughters are nowhere to be found. Even looking under the bearskin rug doesn’t reveal the trap door that I had been led, by years of playing text adventure games, to expect. Finally, I went outside, got in the car, and decided to just drive away.

Right, it’s not going to happen. Your family may have abandoned you but you abandoning them is not an option.

If you do go back to the cabin, you will eventually discover what has happened to your family. Like many of the puzzles in Vacation Gone Awry, the solution to this problem is to specifically look at everything. That may sound easy but the cabin is do detailed that it can be easy to get distracted. I wasted ten turns in the cabin’s bedroom, trying to open my wife’s makeup bag before I finally accepted that it wasn’t an important clue.

Once you discover what has happened to your family, you are free to once again get in your car and attempt to drive into town. However, while driving, this happens:

It seems that aliens have accidentally lost a piece of their spaceship and now a group of research scientists are on the verge of opening it up and killing everyone in the vicinity, including you and your family. You have no choice but to make your way through a blizzard, find the research station, and stop them!

Your enjoyment of Vacation Gone Awry will depend on how much patience you have for searching locations and solving puzzles. This is one of those text adventures where no door can simply be opened. Instead, you have to figure out how to unlock it. Finding the solution will often depend on not only carefully reading the descriptions of the location but also taking a closer look at things that you may have already examined. Especially when compared to more recent works of Interactive Fiction, Vacation Gone Awry is puzzle-driven instead of plot-driven.

It’s challenging but, if you’re a puzzle person, there is enjoyment to be found in the game. Vacation Gone Awry is available for free on several sites. I played it at the Internet Archive.

Good luck saving your family!

Video Game Review: Wolfman (1988, CRL Group)

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

In Wolfman, you are David. You wake up one morning in your tiny bedroom and you realize that something bad has happened.

A few commands later and you discover that you are covered in blood.

You are a werewolf! You’ve already killed and you know that it’s going to happen again unless you find a cure for your condition. For the rest of this challenging text adventure, it is up to you to figure out how to get out of town and find the cure. Along the way, you will have to find ways to fight off your urges to kill.

Assuming that you get David out of the village, the game will switch gears and you’ll play from the viewpoint of Nadia, a young woman who falls in love with David and who, for David to continue on his journey and ultimately be cured of his condition, has to spend the night with David without becoming his latest victim.

If you pull that off, the game then switches back to being told from David’s point of view as he attempts to solve the final few puzzles that will lead him to the cure.

Wolfman is one of the many horror-themed text adventures that were written by Rod Pike in the 1980s. Though the majority of the game is text, there are some graphics, mostly still shots of the werewolf’s victims. In 1988, the graphics were considered shocking enough to get it an 18 certificate from the British Board of Film Censors.

The first challenge of playing a game like Wolfman today is getting into the right mindset to play a 1980s text adventure. The game’s vocabulary and list of commands is impressive for 1988 but still extremely limited when compared to what we are used to today. I spent several turns trapped in my bedroom and growing increasingly frustrated until I finally realized that the game considered “look” and “examine” to be two very different commands.

Once you get passed that, though, it’s an engrossing, well-written, and challenging game, one that puts you right into the mind of both a werewolf and one of his potential victims. It’s available at the Internet Archive. And, if you’re like me and you usually have to cheat to solve the puzzles in games like this, a walk-through is available here.

Game Review: Deadline (1982, Infocom)

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Wealthy industrialist Marshall Robner has been found dead in his study, with the door locked. The autopsy says that he died of an overdose of antidepressants. Was it suicide or was it murder? And, if it was murder, who was responsible? That’s the mystery that you’ve been given a limited amount of time to solve.

In Deadline, you play a police detective who has 12 hours to investigate and solve the mystery behind the death of Marshall Robson. The game starts with your arrival at the sprawling Robner estate. Do you immediately start interviewing the suspects or do you look for clues around the grounds? Do you attend the reading of Robner’s will or do you search the study where he died? It’s up to you but just remember that the clock is ticking!

Written by Marc Blank and released by Infocom, Deadline is a classic text adventure from 1982. From the minute, you enter the Robner estate, you are interacting with suspects like Robner’s adulterous wife and his irresponsible son. Their actions and their responses to your questions are determined by how you go about investigating the crime and one of the joys of the game is seeing how people react to different approaches. (When it comes time to read Robner’s will, one character will either show up early or late, depending on whether or not you’ve shown them a key piece of evidence.)

The mystery is complex. I played through the game a handful of times before realizing that one thing that I felt was very important was actually just a red herring. The mystery can be solved but you’re going to have to play the game several times and experiment with being in different places at different times and showing different clues to different suspects. Or you can just type “Deadline Walk-Through” into Google like I eventually did.

Like many other good games from the past, Deadline can currently be found in the Internet Archive.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures In The Internet Archive #12: Voodoo Island (1985, Angelsoft, Inc)

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

For my next adventure in the scary part of the Internet Archive, I played Voodoo Island (1985, Angelsoft, Inc.).

Voodoo Island is an early text adventure from Angelsoft, Inc. Angelsoft was Infocom’s only serious competitor when it came to creating challenging and rewarding text adventures. Typically, both an Angelsoft and an Infocom game would require the player to solve puzzles and search for clues. What made Angelsoft unique was that the results of solving the puzzles were frequently randomized. You could solve a puzzle and still die, just due to the luck of the draw. That may be why Infocom outlasted Angelsoft by several years.

In Voodoo Island, you are the sole survivor of a shipwreck. You wake up on the beach, confused but with the feeling that someone has been watching you. The game’s introduction establishes Voodoo Island‘s tone early:

Spend enough time exploring the island and eventually, you will find a hotel. Exploring the hotel leads to scenes like this:

The first time I tried to play the game, it took me a while to make it to the top floor of the hotel. That is where I discovered not only Doctor Beauvais but also Sharleen, who the game describes as being “buxom” and “blonde.” Considering the target audience of this game, I assumed that buxom and blonde was going to be a good thing. I turned out to be wrong:

Your goal is to get off the island and avoid joining the living dead. It is not easy but I have discovered a few things that might help: examine everything, grab everything that you can, and remember that just because you don’t see something the first time you look, that doesn’t mean you won’t see something the second time.

Good luck!

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures In The Internet Archive #9: Final Soul (1995, CAT Productions, Inc)

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Continuing my adventures in the scary side of the Internet Archive, I played Final Soul (1995, CAT Productions, Inc.).

Final Soul is a text adventure that starts out with this message:

In Final Soul, you and a group of 12 friends have been invited to a haunted castle. All you have to do is spend one night in the castle and the “reward” will be yours.

No sooner have you arrived then the lights go out. When they come back on…

The rest of the game is a basic text adventure. You explore the castle, search for clues, and try to solve puzzles. It is a big castle but pressing “m” brings up a map:

The rest of the characters walk around the house, as well. You can try to talk to them, though some of the conversations are more interesting than others:

If I had to use one word to describe this game, it would be “goofy.” This is one of the goofiest text adventures that I have ever played and that is saying something. This is the type of game where, when you leave the coat closet, it makes a joke about you “finally coming out the closet.” If you type in a command that the game does not recognize, its response will depend on what room you are in:

Goofy though it may be, I still enjoyed playing Final Soul. The game is a mix of complex puzzles and corny jokes. It is hard not to like a game that has no pretense about being anything more than what it is. Playing Final Soul, I was reminded of some of the deliberately stupid games that I created when I was first learning how to program.

One final note: there is an official site for Final Soul, which has hints, a list of commands, and a walkthrough for people like me who struggle when it comes to solving puzzles.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures in The Internet Archive #8: Demon’s Tomb — The Awakening (1989, Silhouette Software)

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

For my latest trip into the scariest parts of the Internet Archive, I played Demon’s Tomb — The Awakening (1989, Silhouette Software).

One thing that I instantly liked about Demon’s Tomb was the opening screen, which lists all of the special features that come with this game:

I appreciated that this game comes with a “pretend to be working” mode. Sometimes, when a game is uploaded into the Internet Archive, it loses some of its features. (For instance, do not even try to save a game if you are playing it in the archive.) While playing Demon’s Tomb, I decided to see if the pretend to be working mode still worked.

This was the game, before I pressed F2.

After I pressed F2.

After I pressed F2 again.

The game itself is an Infocom-style text adventure. You start the game as Edward Lytton, a British archeologist who is exploring a burial mound that has been uncovered on the moors. Do not get too attached to Edward. At the start of the game, he is trapped in the tomb and you are told that he only has a few turns left to live. Before Edward dies, you can hide some of his possessions around the tomb so that they can be found later.

This is important to do because, after Edward dies, the game becomes about his son, Richard. Richard arrives at the tomb to search for his father and he discovers that opening of the tomb has unleashed an ancient demon. In order to defeat the demon and escape from the burial mound himself, Richard is going to need to find the things that Edward has hidden in the tomb. If you did not hide those things while you were Edward, you will not be able to find them once you become Richard.

This is a challenging but rewarding game and the only real way to solve it is through trial and error. Try something and, if it doesn’t work, do the opposite the next time you play. Or you can just go on google and search for a walkthrough, like I shamefully did once I realized that I was never going to be able to figure this game out on my own.

Demon’s Tomb is largely text-based but it does give you the option to press F1 and see pictures of what is being described. For example:

And my favorite:

If you are looking for a retro adventure game, I highly recommend Demon’s Tomb. It’s a shame that they don’t make them like this anymore.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrorific Adventures In The Internet Archive #7: The Lurking Horror (1987, Infocom)

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

If you are looking for a good, text-based horror film, allow me to suggest heading over the Internt Archive and trying your hand at The Lurking Horror (1987, Infocom).

The Lurking Horror is an interactive adventure game of Lovecraftian horror. You are a student who has one night to finish a big paper. During the worst blizzard in history, you make your way from the dorms to the computer lab. Since this is an Infocom game, nothing is easy but the end results are rewarding. Not only do you have to figure out the right commands to edit your paper but, once you do figure it all out, you discover that your paper is no longer your paper. Instead, your paper has been transformed into an ancient text.

I will give you one hint. When you first load up the paper, the game will literally beg you to read the entire paper. Even if you click on your in-game PC’s help key, it will suggest that you read the entire paper. Do not do it. If you start reading the paper, you will not be able to stop. Even if you say that you want to leave the computer room or that you want to turn off the computer, you will be told that “instead, you click the more box.” After four turns of reading the paper, something terrible happens to you.

Instead of reading the paper after you open it, try to talk to the hacker in the computer room. (In typical Infocom fashion, the hacker has several hilarious reactions. For fun, try typing “attack the hacker.”) The hacker has suggestions for how to retrieve your original paper. It will not be easy though. There are monsters in the computer lab.

Again, this is an Infocom game so it is not going to be easy. It takes a while to get the hang of it but stick with it and it will be worth it. For those who know their Lovecraft, playing The Lurking Horror will be a very rewarding experience.

One final note. In the game, when you turn on the computer, you are required to enter a login and a password. There is no way to discover the login or the password in-game. That information was only made available in the game’s original manual. I had to look up the login and the password online. For the record, here they are: