~10 minute readScorpion's Tale
Border Zone
WARNING! This article contains spoilers. Avert your eyes!
Scorpia's regular hint column examines Infocom's latest release and updates readers on "bugs" in another Infocom game.
Brrr! Those icy January winds can really get to you! So, don't just stand there in the doorway (it's cold out there!), come inside and warm up by the fire. Fred is mixing up a little something to warm your insides, too (just sip it first; Fred's been dipping into the Alchemy books again). When you're a bit thawed out, we can talk about something contemporary this time: spy stuff, intrigue, and all that cloak-and-dagger kind of thing.
Border Zone, Infocom's first venture into spy/intrigue and real-time action, turns out to be something of a disappointment. This is due in part to having three small games instead of one large one on the disk and also, because most of the puzzles are trivial in nature. In fact, only the ticking of the gameclock brings any difficulty to the games. Further, few people are likely to have much trouble completing Border Zone, as clues are provided within the scenarios themselves via a "Hint" command, the same as is found in Nord and Bert.
All three mini-adventures are set in the mythical Eastern Bloc country of Frobnia, although each is played from a different point of view. In scenario #1, you are an American businessman, thankfully on his way out of Frobnia, heading for the border of a neutral country.
At this point, in the best tradition of British spy novelist E. Phillips Oppenheim, an American spy barges into your train compartment, dripping blood all over the floor. He thrusts a document into your hands, pins a carnation to your suit, and mutters that you will have to deliver the information while he leads his pursuers on a merry chase elsewhere. Exit the agent, leaving you with an unreadable paper written in Frobnian and not much time before the searchers arrive.
The major focus of this mini-adventure is keeping the police from discovering the document. You don't really get into much trouble yourself if they do find it; you'll be detained a few days, and then released. In the meantime, however, the American Ambassador to a foreign country will have been assassinated. So, there is some incentive to passing on the information to the agent's contact.
A quick look around the train compartment does not yield any good hiding places. It's a pretty bare room. You certainly can't just stick the thing in your pocket or briefcase (interestingly, you have no luggage, just the briefcase). It would be found there without any difficulty at all. No, I wouldn't recommend under the seat, either. It would be just a trifle obvious, even folded up.
The solution to the document puzzle is slightly more subtle than that. Still, if you look over what you have with you, you might get an idea or two. There is a fair amount of time in this scenario to try different things, as the clock ticks slower here, giving you more leeway. Nonetheless, that clock is ticking away, and events are moving forward, even though you may be doing nothing at all (except staring at the screen and thinking).
Eventually, the police will reach your compartment and subject both you and it to a thorough search. The blood on the floor will not go unnoticed, either, although you can probably talk your way out of that one. Presuming that the paper hasn't been discovered, your next (and final) task is to deliver the information. This is fairly simple. When the train reaches the next station (the one just before the border), everyone is ordered off, so the train can be searched more completely. It's while wandering around on the platform that you have the opportunity to pass over the information. As long as you aren't obvious about your actions, you should be able to manage this without being spotted. That pretty much takes care of the first scenario.
In the second one, you are the wounded American spy, codenamed Topaz. The action picks up after the document has been handed to the businessman and you have jumped from the train near the border. Your task is to get safely across into neutral territory.
This one is tougher, as you have more to do, and the clock is now ticking on fast time. If that's too fast for you, you can always enter a command and make it slower. You will also need the map that comes with the game, so you know where things are and how to get to them quickly. After all, a pack of dogs is on your trail, too.
From the map, you can see that a small house and shed aren't too far away. Of course, you wouldn't dream of trying to hide out there, since all buildings in the area likely to be searched. On the other hand, you jumped off the train with very little in the way of possessions, so you might, at least, find a few useful items to help you out.
Getting inside the house will take a certain amount of timing, but it isn't hard. The shed is even easier, as no one is around. The difficult part will be getting past the border checkpoint. You can't simply waltz past it; there are guards and watchtowers with searchlights that must be evaded, and two fences that must be passed.
Once you reach the area of the checkpoint, your attention should be concentrated on the guards and the lights. You will soon notice some patterns there, and reaching the first fence is only (!) a matter of careful timing. However, that clock is still ticking, and the guards are still making their rounds, so you must do something about the first fence pronto.
Now, you're under the watchtower, between the two fences. A good look at the second fence tells you that this one is a much tougher nut to crack. In fact, you probably won't be able to get through it the same way you did the first one. I'd even venture to say that nothing you have with you could get you through that fence directly. There are some indirect ways, though. This is a pretty tall tower. Think about it. Once over the border, the second scenario ends.
The final scenario puts you in the role of Viper, the KGB agent who was searching for the document on the train. However, Viper isn't merely an enemy agent; he's actually a double agent, working for the Americans. Not many people know about that (not even Topaz), and Viper would like to keep it that way. Viper has a problem: now that he's set up the assassination of the American Ambassador, he has to find a way to stop it, without allowing himself to become directly involved.
Time in this scenario is shortest of all. Not only is the clock ticking away in fast time, you have barely an hour to find out where the assassin is hidden and prevent him from killing the ambassador. To make things even more difficult, Topaz is in the area, too.
Your best bet here is to first save the game after entering the scenario, then move around the area learning where things are. The tiny map on the business card can help you to orient yourself.
Once you've found out where the assassin is and how to get there unnoticed by the hordes of police in the vicinity, you can restore and get down to the matter at hand. The assassin is always in the same place, so you don't have to repeat the steps necessary to locate him.
The major difficulty at this point is that, although the assassin will let you into the room with him (you know the right password), he is extremely nervous and doesn't trust you very much. If you try to pull a gun on him, or interfere with him in any way, he'll just blow your head off. Since this is not exactly what you had in mind to happen, you must find some other way of stopping him.
Remember that you don't want to get your own hands dirty in this matter. If you could get someone else to do the dirty work for you, you would have scotched the assassination, while still not becoming involved to the extent of blowing your cover.
This means, of course, that you can't just walk up to the nearest cop and tell him about the assassin. Your superiors back home might get the wrong ideas about you. You can't tell anyone else, either, but ... perhaps you could trick someone into doing the job for you. All you need is to be in the right place at the right time and then, run like hell. There's nothing like a brisk game of follow-the-leader to get the blood moving (or perhaps that should be: flowing). The death of the assassin, and the exit of Viper from the scene, ends the final scenario.
One problem with these Border Zone scenarios is that they are all stand-alone adventures. What happens in one has no effect whatsoever on any of the others. For instance, if you fail to deliver the information in scenario #1, it means nothing at all in scenario #3, which begins with the assumption that the information was properly delivered.
Even worse, a careful examination of the first and third scenarios shows that delivery or non-delivery of the document is totally irrelevant to the action. Viper doesn't need that document, as it was stolen from him in the first place by Topaz. Viper already knows about the assassination, and is out to stop it however he can. The document is really superfluous, which in turn pretty much makes scenario #1 superfluous, too.
All this makes for an unsatisfying experience. Who cares if the information is delivered or not or whether or not Topaz gets across the border? Everything is just fine in scenario #3, where all has already happened as it should.
Border Zone would have been far better as one single, combined game, where the events in one area had a true and important effect on events in a future area. Even allowing for this in the individual scenarios would have improved the game greatly. As they are now, the scenarios are excruciatingly linear in design, with only one right way to do them, and have no real interconnections among each other.
The real-time aspect is only partially so; you can, in fact, pause the game almost any time you want to. This is necessary for reading long text passages on the screen, but you can also use it to stop the action while you take out time to think. The necessity for giving you a chance to read also defeats the purpose of the real-time clock.
What sharpens the disappointment is the fact that Border Zone was written by Marc Blank, the man (actually one of them) who gave us Zork. Had I not seen his name on the box, I would never have believed this was one of his products; the game does not come across as a top-notch effort.
So, there you have Border Zone, one of Infocom's weakest games to date. This is not to say that some people won't enjoy it, but at least you know what you're getting into.
Fred Warms Your Cup With "Beyond Zork" Bug Problems
After my original article on Beyond Zork went to press, I was advised of some flaws in the game that may prevent people, especially Mac users (and perhaps of other versions as well) from completing the game. First, under no circumstances should you open the Shady Wall. If you have opened that Wall, make sure you close it again before going to the other wall. Otherwise, you will not be able to finish the game. A bug in the program prevents a certain item from lasting long enough if the Shady Wall door is open.
The second problem is in the Fields of Frotzen. If you hear the farmhouse come down, but you go to all the accessible areas and don't see it anywhere, restore the game to the point before you entered the Fields, and try again. The farmhouse came down behind the corbies (where it isn't supposed to), and you'll never be able to reach it.
Well, it's that time again. As always, if you need help with an adventure game, you can reach me in the following ways: On Delphi: Visit the GameSIG, under the Groups and Clubs menu. On GEnie: Stop by the Games RoundTable (type: Scorpia to reach the Games RT). On The Source: Send SMAIL to ST1030. By US Mail (remember to enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope with your questions): Scorpia, PO BOX 338, Gracie Station, NY NY 10028.
Until next time, happy adventuring!
Copyright Š 1988 by Scorpia, all rights reserved.
This article appeared in
Computer Gaming World
Jan 1988
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
