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Cutthroats
CUTTHROATS
#XX Home Entertainment
In Infocom's top-selling adventure game "Cutthroats," the player is a skilled diver attempting to salvage a sunken treasure from one of four shipwrecks.
The game's author, Michael Berlyn, who also wrote "Suspended" and "Infidel," says his brother-in-law's involvement in a salvage operation off of the Massachusetts shore prompted him to design a computer game dealing with shipwrecks and sunken treasure. He admits that he has "very little" scuba diving experience.
"That's why it took me nine months to write it. I had to do a lot of research and learn about diving," he says. He adds that most of the information in the text adventure regarding sunken treasures, shipwrecks and diving is accurate.
Berlyn says he designed the $40 interactive fiction title for computer users who are not that skilled at text adventures. He estimates that it takes about 40 hours for a beginner to complete the adventure. "It is actually two complete stories, so it's replayable," he notes.
Jerry Wolper is credited with programming the game. He used the firm's proprietary "Zil" language, which Berlyn describes as being able to parse English phrases.
This article appeared in
Billboard
Nov 1984
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