Kevin writes:
Long ago I decided to try to play each of the
Infocom
games through to completion without resorting to hints or walkthroughs. Here's a brief status report, presented
in roughly the order I played them:
The first computer I ever owned was a Commodore 64. It was a Christmas gift from my parents.
I was excited to get it, partly because the Zork guys had started a company and were writing new games
that could be played on personal computers. Infidel was the first Infocom game I bought, and is
still one of my favorites.
I still have the maps and notes I made while playing Zork on the Pitt mainframe. When Infocom
released the game in three installments for home computers, it had changed a bit (mostly for the better),
but was familiar enough that I completed it easily.
I bought this game for my dad's Apple IIe. I was sure everyone would enjoy text adventures as
much as I did. I don't think Dad really liked it, but I sat down with a friend and played it in
a couple of hours one evening. Easy.
This was another hard one for me. But I really liked the premise. In general, I'm a sucker
for adventures where you are trying to discover the story. A favorite.
Infocom teamed up with Douglas Adams to do a text adventure
based on his Hitchhiker's Guide books. This game was very fun and very funny. I found it
difficult at times, because some of the puzzles involved guessing the punchline to the jokes.
The last in a trilogy that is set in the same world as the Zorks.
The last cube puzzle seemed a bit unfair, but all in all a great game and a great series.
This one really frustrated me. It took me forever to win this game, although I had solved
every puzzle. It turned out that I was fighting the language parser as I was trying to
present the detective with the evidence. It's a good game and a good story. Just be sure
to be thorough in presenting your evidence!
This is the first Infocom game I played on a PDA. This one does a great job
of supporting multiple paths through the game. The player character is a
woman, which is an interesting change. I especially liked the four
different win conditions!
The drill bug in this
game ruined it for me.
I can't believe I was the first person to try "open safe with drill", but it wasn't listed on
The Infocom Bug List at that time. I also thought the mine puzzle was unfair and silly. The
Sao Vera path through the game is less buggy, but only slightly less annoying. This game just didn't
seem to be as thoroughly tested as other Infocom offerings. Not their best effort, in my opinion.
I played this one on a PDA too. I liked the short chapters, which made it easy to leave the game
for a bit, then pick up where I'd left off when I was able to get back to it. This game is
well-crafted and innovative in many ways. Most of the puzzles require the player to guess the
correct play on words or idiomatic phrasing.
By the way, there seems to be a bug in FrotzCE that causes the "ajar" puzzle to be
unavailabe in the final chapter. However, the game pronounces you the winner with 13 of the
14 points, so it's not fatal.
This one's an
H. P. Lovecraft-inspired horror story, set on a college campus. The writing
is good (as always) and manages to evoke a feeling of non-specific dread.
Some of the puzzles are pretty elaborate, requiring several steps to solve them.
This one took me a few years to finish, because I only played it on and around
Halloween each year! One interesting thing about this game is that it includes audio.
Overall, this is one of the good ones.
Moonmist is an intro-level mystery story, set in a castle in Cornwall. It offers
several variations on the basic story; based on the player's answers to a couple
of questions at the start of the game, the details of the mystery change. But
the core of the story remains the same: a friend has invited you to come investigate
some ghost sightings and attempted murders. It reminded me of every episode
of "Scoobie Doo".