~3 minute readPanak strikes!
Hollywood Hijinx
Hollywood Hijinx
by "Hollywood" Dave AndersonMbr>
INFOCOM
125 CambridgePark Drive
Cambridge, MA 02140
48K Disk $34.95
It was only a matter of time until the lunatics at Infocom went Hollywood. Every one of their many works of interactive fiction has made you the main character in the story, a story whose author is also you, the player. It seems natural that they now place you in a movie.
Hollywood Hijinx is the latest release from Infocom. It is also the first work from author Dave Anderson, and its glitzy and subtle sense of humor makes me hope it won't be his last. The premise of this game is as hokey as the plots of the movies it parodies. Your rich uncle Buddy, a Hollywood mogul, has been dead for years now. But his wife, Aunt Hildegarde, just died -- and guess what? That's right, you've been named in the will as the sole beneficiary of their massive estate. But, like all respectable Hollywood contracts, there's a catch.
This catch forms the basis of the game -- a scavenger hunt. To claim the estate, you must find ten treasures from some of Uncle Buddy's greatest movies. These memorabilia have been cached throughout the mansion and its spacious grounds. To make matters worse, you have but one night to locate it all. As the story begins, you're dumped outside the sprawling estate, aptly named Hildebud. After walking past the weapon-laden statue of Buck Palace, fighting mailman (one of the many corny characters you'll encounter from your uncle's chain of B movies), you must try to get into the house. This is the first in a chain of riddles and puzzles which will keep you entertained for weeks.
Assuming you get into the house (a tenuous assumption, at best), you'll have a great time exploring the enormous and mysterious mansion. Memorabilia from many of your uncle's worst movies clutter the many rooms, and your task is to determine which ten pieces of junk will win you the estate. Unfortunately, the footsteps you hear indicate that you may not be the only one interested in the booty.
So you'll hurry to explore the house's various nooks and crannies. You'll move from the private theater where Uncle Buddy screened his latest films to the study in which he softened up potential investors with a little liquid confidence, to the guest room with the brass handles on the floor -- so those same investors would have something to hold onto when the room began to spin. And I won't even mention the massive hedge maze you'll have to chart out.
While this is a standard-level game, I found the puzzles in it difficult. This is due to the way the thing lulled me into false assumptions and fed me red herrings. Clues abound, but the puzzles are a step above the norm: most challenging, requiring careful attention to the prose, the settings and the documentation. Also, due to the content of some clues, I found the printer more of an asset than in any other Infocom game I've played.
Speaking of documentation, I've come to expect the best in packaging and documentation from Infocom, and I wasn't disappointed. Inside the book-like box is a copy of the gossip rag "Tinselworld," followed by a clear, well written manual. It would be hard not to learn to play this game after simply scanning its illustrative instructions. "Tinselworld" was very entertaining to read, a humorous parody of grocery-store tabloids, featuring articles that fill you in on your relatives' rather rousing past. Also included is a copy of Aunt Hildegarde's will, an autographed publicity photo of Uncle Buddy and a lucky palm tree swizzle stick.
As far as program performance and design go, Hijinx has utilized the basic Infocom program -- which means flawless execution and a vast vocabulary. I was disappointed that I couldn't use X as an abbreviation for "Examine:' as I could in Moonmist. I hope that shortcut will become a standard Infocom ingredient.
Despite this slight flaw, Hollywood Hijinx is a fine addition to the growing list of Infocom products. Like the city and movies it parodies, beneath its thin veneer lies a complete absence of rational thought -- a space filled with only mindless entertainment. And you can't help but be entertained.
This article appeared in
Analog Computing
Jun 1987
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
