T-Zero

Baf's Guide

A peculiar game of wordplay and paradox, kind of like Nord and Bert crossed with Trinity under the direction of Douglas Hofstadter. The setting is a surreal land, dominated by a black obelisk that houses Count Zero's machinery of oppression. You must to put an end to his schemes through time travel. Many of the puzzles are more associative than logical, and in many cases rely on literary allusion. Lots of freedom, lots of good puzzles, one novel but mappable maze, a T. S. Eliot scene, a couple of drug references, and an approximate average of three or four puns per sentence (which, oddly, enhances the atmosphere). An irritating beep fanfare plays when your score increases. Allegedly, it can be disabled by the SOUND command, which, on my system, simply causes the program to break.

Notable nonstandard features include the commands "WHERE", which tells you the last location whre you saw an object or character, and "FIND", which puts you on autopilot bound for that location. These commands are not available from the beginning, but must be activated within the plot of the game. Normally, I would frown on such confusion of form and content, but it actually fits the self-referential tone of the work.

-- Carl Muckenhoupt

SPAG
T-Zero is an anomaly of IF. Released in 1991, after the heady Infocom days but before Inform and the renaissance of IF, T-Zero is a surprisingly modern game. Dennis Cunningham's puzzle-based work evokes a rich atmosphere in a land familiar and yet unknown. (Neil Yorke-Smith)

The plot goes from the mundane, to the prehistoric, to an Orwellian nightmare with landscapes that are as evocative as So Far's surreal worlds but held together more succinctly, with the common thread of slightly familiar settings that change notably over different time periods. (Francesco Bova)
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SynTax
The standard of writing is exquisite and the author has a turn of phrase which many text adventure writers would kill for. For example; if you try to cross the river in the wrong place you don't just get wet feet or drown or, worse, simply get the response, "You can't do that!" What does Cunningham come up with? "The rushing river runs in that direction, uncrossable, a rubicon of dreams." And, to describe a flock of terns flying above your head, how about, "They tirelessly twirl in a circular swirl."? Marvellous!
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A literary buff's IF game, July 31, 2009
Mixing references to pop culture ("goo goo gjoob"), classic literature and adding a time-travel element on top of it all, T-Zero is a very difficult work of IF to classify. It's about what you might expect to get if you were to combine a well-schooled English teacher, a mad scientist, and a professional comedian.

The puzzles in T-Zero shine like polished gems - which is a good thing as they are the mainstay of the game. "Nord and Bert" aficionados will have a definite head-start over other players, as will serious bookworms and those who paid attention in their English classes.

Nuttiness aside, the game can also be great 'serious fun' for the thinking man (or woman) with the occasional action sequence to spruce things up. Waiting patiently for the right time to come at certain places will bring great rewards...as will outrunning a giant boulder Indiana Jones-style.

From the ingenious use of certain mirrors to navigating the fiendishly nasty topiary maze (which took me over a year to beat), this game is anything but a zero!

My favorite IF text adventure ever., August 10, 2015
This game is full of literary allusion mixed with snark.

I play it every two years or so.

I actually registered it back in the day.

It's full of delightful word-play mixed with time travel.

It will work only under non-windozed DOS, it works fine in an emulator under FreeDOS.

It has the coolest maze (the Topiary) ever! Not your standard: "You are in a maze of twisty passages...."

There is an easter-egg type extra score awarded at one of the puzzles if your system thinks it is a leap year. Just sayin'

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