Reviews by Drew Cook
infocom
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The Circus That Nostalgia Forgot, November 9, 2023For lack of a better term, let us borrow one from renaissance studies: Ballyhoo is what I would call a "problem" game. At times it is darkly funny. Elsewhere, it is just dark. Glum, even. The protagonist doesn't want to help people, it seems, they want to be recognized for helping people. Some of its jokes don't land; not gracefully, anyway. The mid-late 1980s was a different, edgier time, and Ballyhoo is a product of it. The puzzles sometimes feel unmotivated or nonsensical. Often the idea seems simply for the player to mess around with everything until something good happens.
I'm not alone in saying and thinking such things. Reception of Ballyhoo has remained stably ambivalent these many years since its release in 1985. It's a lukewarm outlier in an incredibly hot streak, even by Infocom standards. Consider this chronological order of parser game releases:
- Wishbringer
- A Mind Forever Voyaging
- Spellbreaker
- Ballyhoo
- Trinity
One of these games is clearly not like the others, but does that make it bad? From a textual point of view, I would say that Ballyhoo is quite good, actually. Jeffrey O'Neill is a gifted prose stylist: wry, playful, unagressively self-referential. He understands the conventions of the form and engages with them in novel and interesting ways. This is a text that has literary ambitions, yet never taps your shoulder to see if you noticed them. A Mind Forever Voyaging and, to a greater extent Trinity, really can't help themselves in this regard, with their quotations and press releases. As clumsy as Ballyhoo can be, it often seems efortlessly (or at least casually) literary in a way that I appreciate. This is a text, firmly rooted in pulpy crime fiction, that never seems to need to announce itself.
The story, such as it is, involves a kidnapped girl, a greedy businessman, and angry clowns.
Despite some messiness, there are some fine technical and craft moments to be found. There is, perhaps, the most interesting framing for a time travel puzzle that I have ever seen. There is a wickedly funny puzzle-joke about public radio.
Importantly, Ballyhoo runs on a subjective clock. Time only advances in-game when certain actions or story beats have completed. Previous Infocom mystery games ran on an objective clock. With an objective clock, time advanced with each user action, and the world responded in kind. At this late date, the objective clock is largely absent from interactive fiction. The subjective clock, on the other hand, is a staple not only in IF but in many game genres. Whatever one makes of O'Neill as an author, this contribution has become so common that few ever recall that, like everything else, someone had to do it first.
Will you like playing Ballyhoo? Circus settings, especially ones with this level of prose quality, are incredibly rare in the commercial era. In that sense, it offers a lot in terms of novelty and variety. The writing, as I've already said, is very good, and stylistically unique among all other Infocom games. The puzzles are mixed, though some strong, innovative ones are to be found. Finally, the feelies are excellent, with more great writing by O'Neill and evocative illustrations that summon an ambiance of faded nostalgia.
Ballyhoo is not going to be the game that changes your mind about Infocom, but it is a must play for fans and parser history buffs. The Invisiclues are available, and, as always, I encourage their use should the puzzles lose their glamour.
A final note: Ballyhoo was also history-making in that it was the first Infocom game in which a protagonist could be a woman explicitly rather than implicitly. That is, players have often tried to see themselves in Infocom protagonists, but it was usually unclear what Infocom's intentions were with regard to protagonist identities. Sometimes, it was hard to tell whether a character was inclusive or merely vague. Ballyhoo gives the player a clear, unambiguous choice with regard to gender.
Sadly, O'Neill didn't do anything very interesting with the choice, but the moment remains one for the history books.
In any case, there are enough historically notable features to make Ballyhoo worth one's time, and, thanks to O'Neill's prose, there is a great deal more than that.
An innovative and fascinating game, November 7, 2023I'm trying to work my way through the Infocom catalog, posting my thoughts on a gaming forum all the while.
Deadline was, in its day, a technical marvel. Nothing in Zork I or II could have prepared players for its intricate machinery. The suspects roam the map, living out their respective days, and these people can actually talk about more than one thing! They sometimes alter their schedules based on what the player does. The protagonist can catch them lying by confronting with evidence. They can be tailed or hidden from. You can even send items to a crime lab for analysis. Deadline is, in other words, a game where you get to do cool detective stuff.
The mystery itself is of the locked door kind, a type familiar to anyone who has read a bit of genre fiction. It is rewarding to unravel, too. There are multiple people deserving of the player's suspicion, and multiple playthroughs will likely be required before the player can focus on the killer.
It makes for a type of "groundhog day" effect; the player will have to spend time learning the characters' schedules and narrowing the investigation.
I have heard others say that Deadline is unfair, though I didn't find it so. Much will depend upon the player's actions when discovering a specific clue. Some find the appropriate action unmotivated, while others had no such problems. I have seen competent and experienced players stand on both sides of the fence, so your own experience of Deadline's fairness will likely be idiosyncratic.
It was one of the first Infocom games I played as a boy, but I never solved it then. That would come years later, taking me two years. It was a game I put down and later returned to, again and again. I usually thought of new things to try while in the shower or driving. It's that kind of experience.
Deadline is the first game of its kind. Other games labelled as mysteries really weren't. Not like this.
I don't think that awarding a rating to Deadline would be very productive. It is a foundational work in terms of both story and programming. I'll start rating games with Starcross if/when I get there.
A Tale of Six Rather Unoptimized Robots, September 17, 2023Of all of Infocom's folio release titles, Suspended is the least-reviewed and second least-rated here at IFDB. I have seen it referred to as a "management and optimization" game, and I think the intended meaning is that Suspended is not "real" IF.
I don't agree.
This is because most of Infocom's early games have major management components. In Planetfall, consider the juggling required to get all potentially useful items from one complex to another. If you don't think these matters are serious in Planetfall, try carrying a ladder someplace while hungry or tired. Zork II likely requires at least two playthroughs: one where you learn what to do, and one where you do it before your lamp runs out. To solve Deadline, you will likely plan and then follow a strict schedule, making sure to be in exactly the right places at exactly the right time.
Suspended is different in that it is open about its management components. Quite open. In fact, the folio's manual dedicates real estate to "strategic planning." I appreciate it when a game lets me know what I am in for, provided it can deliver in an interesting way.
Speaking of the folio, I believe Suspended is the game that suffers the most in its transition from folio to grey box. The folio's featureless, white face, masking a terrified visage crowned with electrical leads, is instantly compelling. While Infocom would never really embrace graphics, they certainly seem to realize how effectively the right visuals can induce potent emotional responses. The folio manual is better, too, and I encourage new players to retrieve all package materials from the Museum of Computer Adventure Game History before starting.
In Suspended, you play a cryogenically frozen person that must, should an emergency occur, be roused from slumber. Awake as you suddenly are, it is your task to stabilize the "Filtering Computers" responsible for controlling weather, food production, and mass transportation for the entire planet of Contra. Casualties mount by the minute, and should you take too long, you will be killed and replaced by a clone.
The protagonist never leaves the cryochamber. Instead, they interface with six robots that both act and perceive on the player's behalf, and these robots constantly feed the player information. Each has different sensory abilities, so they have different names and descriptions for objects they encounter. Their descriptions of rooms differ as well. In the first playthrough it would be wise to send every robot to every room, just to see what all of them say. I really enjoyed this dimension of the game; it is a bit like the parable of the blind men and the elephant. The game world is small, but you get to see it six different ways.
I have also seen it said that there isn't a story here. I believe the documents included create a strong sense of place which is reinforced by certain observable events. I also think Suspended is the only Infocom game with what I would call enduring narrative propulsion. Starcross begins with a clear sense of forward movement, but once you reach a certain point there are no time constraints. In Suspended, you have to deal with the evolving situation effectively or you will die. You have to do so by immediately mitigating problems while developing a permanent solution. The urgency never lets up. The plot, modest as it is, remains, er... suspenseful due to constraints, temporal and otherwise.
Just as in other early Infocom games, multiple playthroughs are likely needed before solving Suspended. There are traditional puzzles to solve--some of them quite challenging. I remember my satisfaction upon completing Suspended for the first time, only to discover that I had allowed so many casualties that the populace wanted to burn me at the stake! After a few more tries I was able to get the best possible score. That time, only 12,000 people died. Getting the best score was unusually satisfying, even compared with other Infocom titles.
I have seen at least one critic attempt to psychoanalyze the sort of person who likes Suspended. I don't think that's necessary, but I will say that not everyone will care for it. I believe players open to multiple playthroughs will enjoy it the most. Trying to get everything right the first time will lead only to frustration. The sort of person who would enjoy making a map from complex data (Suspended actually comes with a map, but it doesn't say what is in each room) and interpreting non-visual descriptions of places and things will probably enjoy mastering Suspended. Players who dislike learning from failure or using knowledge gained from previous playthroughs probably should give it a miss.
Suspended's gameplay scenario is one that only interactive fiction could handle well, given that most video games rely exclusively on visual and auditory stimuli. Sight and hearing are the least-utilized senses in Suspended.
It's worth noting that Suspended is Mike Berlyn's first Infocom game, and I believe Marc Blank recruited him for his writing chops. I suppose some might find it ironic that Suspended is so narratively non-traditional, but I think that perspective sells IF short. Surely we all realize now that IF is a much bigger tent than we may have assumed way back when, no matter which robot is in the room.
Sticks the Landing, August 24, 2023I suppose many people think excellence is a zero sum game. It sometimes seems that one must pick between Trinity and A Mind Forever Voyaging. They cannot both be transcendent, some must believe. Only one game can rest at the tip of Infocom's spear. It's common - expected, perhaps - to see someone enter a conversation about A Mind Forever Voyaging only to say "I like Trinity better." The opposite is true, as well. One of these games must soar at the expense of the other, these exchanges seem to prove.
Such partisans do not realize the full complexity of their situation, as there is, in fact, a third game worthy of consideration: Dave Lebling's Spellbreaker. It seems that it has escaped the notice of star-givers and list-makers for most of the past four decades, though its critical fortunes have changed over the past few years. In 2019, it made its first appearance on an Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time poll with a placing of 36.
Spellbreaker is the sixth and final game in Infocom's two consecutive trilogies taking place in their famed Zork setting. This world, alternately whimsical and dark, finally makes good on its many promises throughout the series. What has it been promising? Change. This concluding episode delivers in what seems a final and irrevocable way. Spellbreaker's conclusion feels rewarding and philosophically complex. It is the narrative equivalent of a shower, then dinner, after a long hike on a warm day.
As the third game in the Enchanter trilogy, Spellbreaker uses a familiar, well-loved magic system. The player casts spells to solve problems and open new areas to explore, which in turn leads to the discovery of new spells, and so forth. It is an addicting loop. For 1980s games, the Enchanter series is quite deeply and generously implemented. These are, for their days, mechanically generous games. If you haven't played any game in this series, start with the first (Enchanter).
Since this is the third and final game of a trilogy, the protagonist of Spellbreaker is a powerful Enchanter, both in political and magical terms. In fact, they are the most powerful Enchanter to ever live. As the game begins, magic across the kingdom of Quendor (is it a kingdom? There seems to be no king) is failing. Since magic is the center of life in Quendor, this is a dire threat. Food production, economy, even public safety depend upon it. When guidmasters from across the land are transformed into small amphibians by a shadowy figure, the protagonist gives chase.
This pursuit drives the Enchanter through what is arguably Infocom's most complex and varied geography yet. Somehow, miraculously, it is all part of a single, complementary pattern. This world is a marvel of design: surreal, dangerous, and fascinating. Dave Lebling's prose has the density of poetry. This is his finest writing and an underrated competitor to Trinity's excellent prose. The ending, which not only concludes a game or a trilogy but a six-game series, is impeccable: unexpected, ambiguous, thrilling. It seems impossible that anyone could stick such a landing, but Lebling makes it all seem rather effortless.
Why has its recognition been so long in coming? I think it is a harder game than many would like, but players have fortunately grown more comfortable seeking hints. It's art, not an ironman contest. Experience Spellbreaker on your own terms, but please do experience it. The writing alone is worth the trip. For those who enjoy puzzles, though, many brilliant, satisying, and, yes, difficult puzzles await. With only one exception, I found them as rewarding as they were fair. This is a game that filled its Commodore 64-compatible story format to the brim. There is no fat, and there are no misspent words.
One of the greatest works of interactive fiction ever made. I mean this sincerely.
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