The Witness

(Warning: This review might contain spoilers. Click to show the full review.)This is literally the only Infocom game I ever solved entirely on my own. No help from other players, no rumored word-of-mouth, no Invisiclues - all me. And it took me less than 72 hours! I spent like $35 on this thing (for the Apple II version, to play on my old Franklin Ace 1000), back when I was 13 or 14 (in 1984), and I had it solved in under three days. Man, did I ever feel ripped off! Otherwise, its a solid Infocom title (albeit from the Mystery genre, generally not one of the more interesting ones).

The fact that its so easy may not actually be much of a minus these days; its kinda nice to download a game, spend some time on it, and then solve it. And you should be able to do that here. In fact, if you can't solve this, I'd say IF isn't your thing, and you're never going to be able to handle something like Zork I or Planetfall (both of which are far superior).

One obvious flaw: The game is so easy, in part, because there are so few suspect NPCs. There's Linder (the murder victim), his daughter, the other fellow (Ralph Stiles - I forget precisely how he's introduced into the game), and the Japanese gardener (plus there's an Irish cop). You know its one of those four...and you suspect its probably not the gardener (and you pretty much know its not the cop).

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