~4 minute readreviews
Bureaucracy
"Students who exchange digital watches with multiple partners increase their chances of contracting bubonic plague by 300%." This quote is from Popular Paranoia magazine, to which you'll probably want to become a subscriber after playing a few rounds of Bureaucracy, Infocom's latest excursion into interactive fiction.
This time, however, it may not be fiction. They really are out to get you, to make your blood pressure rise to the point of apoplexy, to shatter your complacency, to hold you forever in a gridlock of red tape, to make you a nonperson.
And all because you probably mishandled your change-of-address card.
Designed by Douglas Adams â- author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy â- Bureaucracy is said to have been inspired by an experience Adams once had when he found out his bank had invalidated his credit card. In this game, the offending institution is the Fillmore Fiduciary Trust, a savings and loan/bank card/moving and storage company, which seems to control almost everything, everywhere. You begin the game by filling out a software license which â- in mixing up the usual order of requested information, such as last name, least favorite color, name of previous friend, first name, and so on -â sets the tone for the game.
Although the parser will take this information and blend it into the story, you'll find it continually confusing your gender and, from time to time, confusing other items of information, given that modern bureaucracies are made possible by computers, and that computers are notoriously inept at processing information.
What is surprising is that your transfer to a new town and a new job hasn't gone quite as smoothly as you had expected. Because the change-of-address card has somehow gone astray, you find yourself in your new home bereft of all possessions save those few you carried with you. The moving and storage company experienced a glitch in the flow of information, but having been informed of the mistake, has promised to set things right within a week.
Perhaps it won't matter. In your possession is a letter from your new employer informing you of a training meeting in Paris. Following the training, you'll have a full week to enjoy yourself in the City of Lights, and all your possessions should certainly be in place by the time you return.
All you must do is visit the offices of Happi Tech and get to the airport to board the plane to Paris. This is, of course, an easy task to accomplish. It only becomes difficult when you find that, as a result of the mishandled change-of-address card, you have become a nonperson. You'll find yourself contending with a macaw, who may be guarding important mail that should have been delivered to your new home. There's also a contemptuous travel agency clerk who is more than willing to ruin your vacation, a deaf old lady with an elephant gun who may be part of a conspiracy, and other assorted characters, all of whom seem intent on making your blood pressure rise.
As Bureaucracy is played, your blood pressure is displayed at the top of the screen.... Any irritation, even that of misspelling a word or of using a word the parser cannot understand, will cause a rise in pressure.... Your actions in the real world directly affect your character in the game.
As Bureaucracy is played, your blood pressure is displayed at the top of the screen. When you enter a stressful situation, you'll hear a beep and see a message that your blood pressure is going up. To lower the pressure, you must make less stressful moves, giving the game a quality in common with biofeedback machines. Any irritation, even that of misspelling a word or of using a word the parser cannot understand, will cause a rise in pressure, and this has the effect of making you more directly involved with what would normally he happening only inside your computer. Your actions in the real world directly affect your character in the game.
As written for the Commodore 128, Bureaucracy is self-booting and requires an 80-column display monitor. Although the program uses both sides of the disk, it was written to be compatible with the 1541 disk drive, making it necessary for you to turn the disk over at one point during the loading process.
Even though many of your typed-in commands will require your computer to access the disk before replying, the process seems quick. Further, Infocom seems to have improved what was already one of the best parsers in the field, making it possible for you to type in commands such as, "Take the equipped card from the case and put the card in the cartridge slot."
Documentation is something Infocom has always taken seriously, and they show this by including documents. For Bureaucracy, the documents consist of a pamphlet on moving (courtesy of Fillmore Fiduciary Trust). Had you read the several pages of instructions on the proper way to fill out a change of address form (included) and used the proper pencil (also included), you'd not be in the mess in which you now find yourself. There's also a prospectus for Popular Paranoia magazine, which includes the little-known fact that the state of Delaware is fictional. For those new to Infocom adventures, there's also an extensive section dealing with how to play the game and how to communicate with the parser. Older hands may jump right in, exercising their eagerness to experience frustration. At the end of the game, you'll be given your score, the number of points you achieved out of a possible 21. There's also a brief summary of the results of the final move, and if any of these have resulted in your death, either from a stroke or other process, you'll at least have the consolation of knowing that your blood pressure has now been lowered to zero over zero.
Infocom
125 Cambridge Park Dr.
Cambridge, MA 02140
S39.95
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
