K-Power, v1(4)

~3 minute read

May 1984

Screening Room: Strategy

Survive Infidel

Shay Addams

A pack of voracious rats gnaws at my legs as I curse the day I met that old spinster, Miss Ellington. It was her crazy idea to have me finish the expedition that killed her father back in 1920. If not for her, I'd never have trekked across the vast Egyptian wasteland to share a tomb with some unknown queen of the Nile. The snarling rodents swarm across my body and it's all over — the game, that is — a text adventure I've been playing for the past two weeks.

The first of Infocom's "Tales of Adventure" series, Infidel drops you off inside a computerized novel, where you're a small-time explorer who stumbles across the chance to loot a pyramid of a gold sarcophagus and a fortune in gems.

The Scenario

In the opening scene, you wake up to find that your workers have walked off because you forced them to dig for a pyramid on a holy day — thus the name, Infidel, that they call you in a parting letter. To aid you in your quest, a plane drops a parachute with a navigational device you need to locate the pyramid. You also can use the crinkly, parchment-like map that comes with the game. Miss Ellington found this map among the papers of her deceased father, a once-famous archaeologist. (This background is revealed in a handwritten letter that's part of the game package. You also get a True Tales of Adventure minimagazine that contains as much off-the-wall humor as helpful tips on how to play Infocom adventures.)

After locating the pyramid, you have to figure out how to get in before descending into the Chamber of Ra, the first of a series of dusty, death-filled rooms that await you. It's a treacherous trip through the pyramid's mazelike halls, because the temple priests left plenty of cleverly concealed traps to foil looters. After solving the riddles of the circular room, the cube rooms, and other brain twisters, you'll eventually find yourself deep within the antechamber (if the rats don't get you first).

The Scoring

Each time you accomplish an important task, your score (displayed at all times) is boosted. Ransacking the rooms for treasure snares extra points. Classed as a "fumbling beginner" at the outset, you work your way up through the ranks to become a "poor professor" or "fairly good looter" as your score improves. High scores (the highest possible is 400 points) won't come as easily as in some Infocom games. For instance, the hieroglyphics you'll have to decipher make puzzles extra tough to solve. Still, no matter how hard the challenge, the problems you'll face all have perfectly logical solutions, the hallmark of a classic adventure.

SHAY ADDAMS is managing editor of Computer Games magazine.

Info for the Infidel

1

Examine everything! This is the adventurer's credo.

2

Explore the campsite thoroughly before entering the pyramid. You'll need certain objects found there.

3

Don't enter the desert without a water supply (unless you're looking for a slow death and the same old sarcastic comments that Infocom's famous for).

4

The solution to a problem in one room often requires an object or clue from another room.

5

Make a map. The fewer moves it takes to get somewhere, the better.

6

If you get lost, drop an item and walk around until you see it again to get your bearings.

7

Make playing Infidel a group or party game. Different perspectives on a situation can make a big difference.

8

Think logically (like Spock) when analyzing each description for clues.

9

Try every direction: N, S, E, W, NW, SW, NE, SE, UP, DOWN, IN, OUT, ENTER, STAND ON, etc.

10

When you get killed, study the text for a clue on how to avoid that particular death the next time.

11

If you have a printer, use the SCRIPT feature to obtain hard copy you can "study" in study hall.

12

Decipher the hieroglyphics (don't worry, they're not real graphics, just cleverly arranged characters). Compare them with one an other, and with Professor Ellington's translations.

13

Use the SAVE feature to do more than just continue a game later. Play up to a key point and SAVE it as game 0. Explore in one direction from that point and SAVE it as game 1; RESTORE game 0, then venture in another direction and SAVE it as game 2. Combine the information gathered in both when you start game 0 again, and SAVE the results as game 3.

14

Call Infocom and plead temporary insanity; they've been known to give clues to adventurers who've completely lost their way.

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This article appeared in
K-Power
May 1984

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These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.