Family Computing, v5(2)

~1 minute read

Feb 1987

SOFTWARE REVIEWS

Trinity

Shay Addams

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: Amiga, 128K Apple IIe/IIc, Atari ST, C64/128, IBM PC/PCjr, Macintosh.
PUBLISHER: Infocom
PRICE: $40
CRITICS SUGGESTED AGES: 12+

Infocom's latest "Interactive Fiction Plus" text adventure is filled with clever, neatly interlocked problems that are staged across a broad variety of settings — a tropical island, the Soviet tundra, and even outer space. (These are all sites of actual atomic bomb tests, and Trinity is the code name for the spot where the first nuclear bomb was tested.)

As the story opens in contemporary London, you spy a nuclear missile overhead. Unless you reach a magic door and escape, you and the rest of the world are wiped out in the ensuing atomic war. Make it, and you'll get a chance to save the world by going back through time to change history. On the other side of that door awaits a world as enchanting as that of Zork, a world where twin suns light the sky and mushrooms grow taller than redwoods.

Some mushrooms have tiny doors, and once you've learned the trick, they lead through time and space to other locations. In each setting, you find another puzzle to solve, but you must do so before the weapon being tested there detonates. Trinity mixes logic and magic with history and fiction. Often poetic in its imagery, the evocative prose is as entertaining to read as the puzzles are to solve.

This article appeared in
Family Computing
Feb 1987

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