Classic Infocom Mumblings
Neil K. Guy
booted up some old Infocom classics. Boy, it's a real nostalgia trip
to see those again... Somehow playing an Infocom game doesn't seem
right on a nice shiny Macintosh with readable fonts. There's something
basic and primeval about reading:
YOU ARE STANDING IN AN OPEN FIELD WEST
OF A WHITE HOUSE, WITH A BOARDED FRONT
DOOR.
THERE IS A SMALL MAILBOX HERE.
>
on an old 40-column upper-case only display. (most of the early games
I have don't support the 80 column card.)
Anyway, any votes for faves? Personally I still think "Suspended" is
one of the most brilliant games. The Zorks are pretty good, I don't
care much for the Enchanter trilogy, but Suspended's 6 robots are
amazing. I really like games like that where you get to see things
from different points of view...
Too bad the parser's so limited, though.
- Neil K.
John Switzer
>
> Anyway, any votes for faves? Personally I still think "Suspended" is
>one of the most brilliant games. The Zorks are pretty good, I don't
>care much for the Enchanter trilogy, but Suspended's 6 robots are
>amazing. I really like games like that where you get to see things
>from different points of view...
Suspended gets my vote - it was my first Infocom game, and the only one
I got through without ANY help whatsoever. Took me three months, though.
The robots were great, lots of red herrings, and when you got down, you
could replay it to reduce your damage score, or you could even customize
your own game. The impossible level of play, though, really lived up to its
name.
Suspended also had some interesting "hidden" features such as having
Auda follow the two humans around to listen in on their conversation. Great
fun.
--
John Switzer | "What we have here is a failure to
| masticate."
Compuserve: 74076,1250 | -- MST3K's Dr. Clayton "Firebrand" Forrester,
Internet: j...@netcom.com | after TV's Frank is unable to eat his 13th turkey.
Neil K. Guy
>Suspended also had some interesting "hidden" features such as having
>Auda follow the two humans around to listen in on their conversation. Great
>fun.
Hey, I just discovered that one last night...
- Neil K.
Keith Lim
>Suspended gets my vote - it was my first Infocom game, and the only one
>I got through without ANY help whatsoever. Took me three months, though.
>The robots were great, lots of red herrings,
Planetfall must have had more red herrings than all the other games put
together (well, probably not, but it sure seems like it.) It's one of my
favourites. Making you go past the body of Floyd again right at the end
of the game was brilliant. I swear I got a second stab of pain in my chest
when that happened.
> and when you got down, you
>could replay it to reduce your damage score, or you could even customize
>your own game.
Yes, the ability to customise your own game was a most original features;
one which I used all the time.
>Suspended also had some interesting "hidden" features such as having
>Auda follow the two humans around to listen in on their conversation. Great
>fun.
Auda, on first glance, seemed to be an almost entirely useless robot, but
she had a good deal of the "hidden features". Try asking Auda to read the
plaque, for instance. As for Poet, I sent him to every room and made him
look at everything just to read his descriptions. Poet was the only robot
who correctly identified the "large object" in <don't remember the room>
BTW, one of my favourite hidden features was the ability to kill the humans
(kept them from killing you.) Unfortunately, a second set of humans enter,
completely undetected, and you don't know about them until the open the
door of your cylinder.
--
Keit...@sfu.ca Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C., V5A 1S6, Canada
** Hon Cog Sci Min Psyc Senate URC FARSIDE LEAD CCCS COCP PSU **
These opinions are mine. Mine!! ALL MINE!! No one else's! NO ONE ELSE'S!!
"The problems of our entire society are of a sexual nature."
--Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, Twin Peaks
Stephen Spencer
> Anyway, any votes for faves? Personally I still think "Suspended" is
>one of the most brilliant games. [...]
1) Zork 2
2) Enchanter Trilogy
3) Suspended
4) the Lurking Horror
I have to agree with your comments concerning Suspended, but I never could
completely enjoy a game I had to reboot if I screwed up too badly (and
forgot to save). That was more my C= 64's fault than anything but hey...
-Stephen
--
i stand on ground i've walked before,||| Stephen D. Spencer
to seek the way. ||| sds...@matt.ksu.ksu.edu
and watch the moon rise into night, ||| Kansas State University
illuminating with its light.__-Iona-_|||______________________________________
Palmer T. Davis
My very favorites are _A_Mind_Forever_Voyaging_ and _Suspended_.
_Suspended_ is a better example of traditional puzzle-oriented IF,
whereas AMFV does the best job of any game I've seen before or since
of creating a sense of actually being in the game, and of provoking
emotional repsonses from the player. (The epilogue didn't really fit,
though.)
-- PTD --
--
Palmer T. Davis ___
<pt...@po.cwru.edu> \X/ cthread. cthread_fork(). Fork, thread, fork!
Eric D. Shepherd
Best series: Zork (runner-up: Enchanter)
Most challenging: Spellbreaker
Least challenging: Seastalker
Funniest: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I also really enjoyed Hollywood Hijinx.
- Eric S.
--
Eric D. Shepherd | Apple II Alliance Charter Member
InterNet: uer...@mcl.mcl.ucsb.edu | ACM Member
FidoNet: 1:206/2713 Eric Shepherd | Programming Law #1: "When in
AOL: Sheppy | doubt, rewrite from scratch."