Antic, v5(4)

~2 minute read

Aug 1986

product reviews

Ballyhoo

Michael Lasky

WARNING! This article contains spoilers. Avert your eyes!

Infocom, Inc.
125 Cambridge Park Drive
Cambridge, MA 02140
(617) 492-6000
$39.95, 48K disk

Everybody enjoys a good mystery, right? And the circus, right? Why not combine them for what should be a surefire hit? That's the premise of Ballyhoo, Infocom's newest all-text adventure game.

You're under the big top of the Traveling Circus That Time Forgot, headed by visionary Tomas Munrab (Barnum spelled backwards). The show is over and you loitered behind to see what goes on. Instead, you overhear a conversation about kidnapping Munrab's daughter, Chelsea. As you type in questions on the screen, you learn slowly but surely that this circus isn't all cotton candy and happy clowns. You investigate further, although danger lurks around every unknown corner. You've never been here before, so you must find your way around by painstaking trial and error. This is the ever-changing challenge of interactive fiction.

Infocom rates Ballyhoo as a "standard level" mystery, but it repeatedly baffled me. Characters give coy, cute and evasive answers when questioned. You need to be as tenacious as Sherlock Holmes to discover who kidnapped Chelsea and how to get her back. Remember, you're at the circus, which relies on flash and illusion to disguise its sordid underbelly.

Included in Ballhoo are a ticket, a balloon and a souvenir program. Read them all carefully for important leads. With the ticket, you can have a palm reading or a hypnosis session, and questions will be answered differently depending on your sex. The balloon will get you past Harry, the guard. As Harry anything you want about the circus and its inhabitants -- he enjoys talking.

When you stumble upon costumes and masks, try them on for size and disguise. Remember, you're an outsider, so play it cool. Act like you belong there. Greet everyone you meet. To get far beyond the sideshow, you must do seemingly outrageous things.

Like all Infocom's text adventures, Ballyhoo requires patience and endurance. This might not be the circus you want to run away with, but programmer Jeff O'Neill supplies enough escapist entertainment to make it seem as if you have.

This article appeared in
Antic
Aug 1986

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