~3 minute readCritically Speaking...Multi-Systems
Trinity
TRINITY (NA / ⭐⭐⭐⭐) is the second piece of Interactive Fiction Plus, the new line of text adventures that features an expansion of Infocom's original development system, allowing for larger program size and more extensive vocabulary. The world of TRINITY, a standard-level fantasy, is indeed vast -- larger than all three of the "Zork" programs combined, according to author Brian Moriarty. And it is a rich world that combines fantasy with real, historical events for the first time ever in a work of interactive fiction. TRINITY takes place in the near future and centers around what is probably the single most significant scientific development of our time: the unleashing of the power of the atom and subsequent development of atomic weaponry. While that sounds like pretty serious stuff for an entertainment program -- and it is -- the game contains enough magic, puzzles, humor, and downright absurdity to keep it from being heavy or depressing.
Sightseeing in London
The game begins on a pleasant day in London, where you are a tourist who is spending the final afternoon of your $599 package tour wandering through Kensington Gardens. As you soak up the atmosphere, British nannies push their perambulators through the park, pigeons flutter around an old woman feeding them bread crumbs, and children sail boats in a pond. You come across a sundial in one section of the park. (It looks rather like the sundial in your TRINITY package. If that isn't enough to tell you that the sundial is a very important element in the story, then you just can't take a hint!) Everything seems the picture of sunlit serenity, but it's not. The superpowers are about to start World War III, and a hydrogen bomb will soon be dropped on the city. Your only escape is through a mysterious white door that appears if you reach the right place at the right time. Enter that door, and you will step into a very strange realm where fact and fantasy intermingle, a field of giant toadstools with more white doors. This place, described by Moriarity as a "Grand Central Station of the universe," is a sort of mystical network where all the atomic explosions that have ever occurred are connected.
Atomic Explosion Sites
If you can solve the puzzle of how to open and close the white doors in the toadstools, you will be able to travel to the sites of a variety of different atomic explosions, and even live to return and tell about your experience! This is your chance to step into history at a number of critical points and influence the outcome of real events. The sites you can visit include Nagasaki, Japan, the steppes of Russia, an underground test site, a tropical atoll, the outer space "Star Wars" of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and, finally, the TRINITY site itself. You will arrive at the TRINITY site on the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at 5:00 am on July 16, 1945. It is 30 minutes before the explosion of the first atomic bomb in history, and what happens next is up to you.
Exceptionally Well Written
Like WISHBRINGER, Brian Moriarity's first effort for Infocom, TRINITY is exceptionally well written. It's as satisfying from a literary standpoint as it is from a role playing gamer's view. (Moriarty acknowledges intentional parallels to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland in his story and he underlines them with appropriate quotes scattered through the game.) The concept of TRINITY is unusual and daring, and Moriarty manages a delicate balance between the seriousness of his subject and the need to keep the player entertained. He has written a game that draws the player into the action beautifully. The prologue of the game in Kensington Gardens is somewhat easier to master than some standard-level programs from Infocom. By the time the game becomes more difficult, you are hopelessly involved in the story and couldn't possibly think of giving up. We recommend this one without reservation to anyone looking for something truly original in interactive fiction. (Solo play; Keyboard; Available for Amiga, 128K Apple II, Atary ST, Commodore 128, IBM PC/PCjr, and 512K Macintosh.
Recommended. (MSR $39.95)
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