~3 minute readGames Gallery
Stationfall, Lurking Horror, Moonmist
Infocom's most recent all-text adventures cover a wide variety of interactive fiction experiences.
Stationfall picks up five years after the popular Planetfall adventure, when you were a lowly Stellar Patrol ensign who became shipwrecked on the planet Resida. While saving it from destruction, you met and befriended Floyd, a somewhat dizzy robot who'd often go off and play hide-and-seek. Now as a reward for your heroism, you're a lieutenant -- but things aren't a whole lot better.
Your new assignment is to pick up a load of forms from a nearby space station. Fortunately, you get to requisition a robot to take along. (Guess who?) You and Floyd discover the station abandoned: the crew had towed in a derelict spaceship containing a mysterious device -- which affected all the machinery aboard the station. Even now, you can no longer rely upon Floyd.
The game is written with the same light-hearted tone that made Planetfall such a delight. In-jokes and references to earlier Infocom games are commonplace. The puzzles are of average difficulty, and the one involving decoding an alien message is especially clever. Stationfall is a story full of challenge, humor and suspense.
You'll want to play The Lurking Horror if you prefer the creepy feeling of something not-quite-human under the bed. Infocom's first all-out horror tale is written in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. Unfortunately, it's rather disappointing.
You're working late in the computer center at G.U.E. Tech. When you accidentally access a file belonging to the Alchemy Department, you end up in the deepest recess of the school's basement. You must find your way out of a supernatural world filled with giant rats, demons and sacrifical rituals.
While well-written, Lurking Horror is as heavy as Stationfall is light, and that is its main problem. The text is dry and uninvolving. I yearned for the standard touch of Infocom humor. Rather than being a part of the sotry and feeling chills down my spine, I never lost the feeling that I was just interacting with words on a screen.
Moonmist is Infocom's first gothic romance. Your friend Tamara's letter from a castle in Cornwall was full of hope, joy and anticipation -- she's engaged to marry Lord Jack Tresyllian. But the next letter, just four days later, contains none of that joy. Tamara thinks someone just might be a ghost, so she wants you to come and help.
Deceased Uncle Lionel has hidden a treasure in the Cornwall castle. Any of the people currently lodging there might murder for the treasure. That, at least, would be a more down-to-earth explanation of the attempts on Tamara's life than a ghost -- or would it?
The Tresyllian Castle is the perfect place for such an adventure. Secret passages, doors and rooms add to the challenge and create an aura of mystery. In some games, once the mystery has been solved, the game goes on the shelf for good. Not so with Moonmist. There are four different versions of the game on disk, each with a different guilty party -- perhaps -- and slightly different plot details. Which version you play depends on your answer to a question upon arriving at the castle.
Most of the riddles in Moonmist are in the form of limericks or puzzles left by good old Uncle Lionel, who wanted to make the treasure-hunters work. The riddles themselves aren't difficult, but applying them to finding the treasure is a different matter entirely. Another interesting aspect of Moonmist is that you can play as a male or female character. Jack, Tamara and the guests in the castle react to you according to your sex. The game's parser is flexible and does a good job of letting you know what it doesn't understand. Save the game often. There aren't many dangers to your personal safety, but the blind alleys you could (and will) stumble into will waste precious time.
$39.95 each. Infocom, 125 CambridgePark Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140. (617) 576-3190.
This article appeared in
Antic
Feb 1988
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
