~3 minute readA Software Cornucopia
Infidel
INFIDEL
by Michael Berlyn
INFOCOM, INC.
55 Wheeler Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
32K Disk $42.95
Infidel (n. a disbeliever in something specified or understood) is Infocom's first entry in its newest series, Tales of Adventure. While their previous voyages have taken us to distant galaxies or faraway magical lands, Infidel is set in Egypt, and so, in that respect, it's down to earth. But the quality of this game is nothing less than out of this world.
In Infidel, you take on the persona of one of the least likable main characters to appear in any of Infocom's games. You are an archeologist stranded in the desert -- through your own fault -- and now you must either shrivel up like a parched prune or discover one of the most magnificent treasure troves in the history of Egyptology.
The packaging is just what we have come to expect from Infocom. The manual is in the form of a pulp adventure magazine, and a personal diary provides you with a reasonably disgusting set of personality traits.
It seems that, after a rather disappointing tenure as an archeologist's assistant, you have become restless and decided to branch out on your own. So, of course, you lied and bilked an ancient map out of an old spinster who was trying to employ your boss. Then you dumped all of those moral people and set off to grab it all for yourself.
But your greed overshadowed what negligible good sense you might have had and, after insulting the local help's religious customs, you found yourself waking up from a drugged camel's milk drink. Alone. In the desert. With nothing for miles except a plane which dropped a single, parachuted item and then slowly shrank to a speck in the sky. Now you can insert the disk and get control of your life.
In the first phase of the game, you must survive to find the pyramid. This is really not a very difficult task, unless you forget an important item from your camp -- or run out of food, water or time. Your greatest challenges await you in the great pyramid's chambers.
Each area contains an ancient puzzle, issued eons ago. Infidel's solutions do not rely on magical items or spells (but there may be a curse or two; no self-respecting pyramid would be without one). Each trap seems as if it may have been designed by the pyramid's builders to prevent looting, and they're all reminiscent of the Raiders films of late. Careful reasoning and observation will allow you to solve these problems. But there are also clues.
On the walls of the mighty pyramid are hieroglyphics. If these are deciphered, they offer valuable clues to aid you in your quest for riches. Interpreting these is a relatively good exercise in its own right. Though solving them is not essential to finish, they are an extra which provides the game with depth. Write down all the marks you can find, then translate them using traditional code-breaking methods (i.e., spotting common words). This is another challenge you accept when playing Infidel.
All of the basic Infocom program features are present; SAVE game, as always, is a must for the weary adventurer. In fact, this product is, overall, just what we have come to expect from the people at Infocom -- high quality entertainment, imitated but never equalled. Infidel is a worthy addition to their software library, and to yours.
This article appeared in
Analog Computing
Nov 1984
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
