~4 minute readDeadline from Infocom
Realism Comes to Adventure Games
An overdose of pills, a nosey housekeeper, a wayward son, and a failing business are but a few of the elements to be considered in the investigation of the death of Mr. Marshall Robner.
Mr. Robner has been found dead in the locked library of his suburban Connecticut home —- the apparent victim of an overdose of Ebullion. His attorney feels that although the evidence points to suicide, the circumstances are suspicious enough and the size of the estate large enough to warrant a police investigation. You have been assigned to investigate.
Thus the stage is set for the game of Deadline from Infocom, makers of Zork and Zork II.
Deadline is a cross between an adventure game and a mystery novel —- with an important difference. In this game, the player is a participant and can influence the outcome of each round of play.
The packaging and documentation are very impressive and imaginative. The disk comes in a reddish brown file folder/envelope along with all the evidence needed to begin the game. Included are a letter from Mr. Robner's attorney, a memo from the police, lab and coroner's reports, a photograph of the scene, transcripts of interviews with the Mr. Robner's family and associates, a small plastic bag containing the pills found at the scene, and the Inspector's Casebook.
The Casebook is a cleverly written instruction manual which lists the ground rules and describes some of the more useful commands.
When the game begins, it is 8:00 a.m. and you are standing outside the Robner home. As in all adventure-type games, you can move about by typing the direction in which you wish to go. If you choose to enter the house, you are met by Mrs. Robner who tells you somewhat grudgingly that you may wander about the house and grounds, but you must be out by 8:00 p.m.
As you walk through the house, you meet Mr. Robner's family and associates, and may engage them in conversation at any time. The program is not equipped to handle specific questions such as "Where were you last night?" but characters respond very nicely to indirect query such as "Tell me about Mr. Baxter."
During the time you are in the house, things are in a constant state of flux —- just as they would be in a real house. People move from one room to another, the phone rings, mail is delivered, the servants perform their duties, etc. If you respond in the proper way to each situation, you will accumulate sufficient evidence to crack the case. If you fail, for example, to follow someone who is on an evil errand, you may miss a crucial fact.
This can be frustrating to one who is used to the more traditional adventures in which things remain fairly static throughout the game, because it means that you are unlikely to solve the crime on the first try, even if you save the game as you go along. On the other hand, it is much less frustrating than having to worry whether pushing the yellow button or unlocking the rusty gate will unleash some lethal force. There are no arbitrary or irrational dangers in Deadline.
The first time you come to a location, you are presented with a very detailed description —- sometimes more than a full screen of text -— and a list of the people (if any) present and what they are doing.
You are unlikely to solve the crime on the first try.
On subsequent visits to that location, you see only an abbreviated description such as "library," "master bedroom" or "east lawn," and a list of the people present and what they are doing. A request to LOOK recalls the complete description, but costs another minute of your precious investigation time.
A very nice feature is the ability to create a "transcript" of your investigation on a printer. This saves time by allowing you to check a description or estabhsh a sequence of events. The SCRIPT command can be given at any point in the game, as can the command to stop printing.
Deadline does not limit the player to one- or two-word commands. It understands full sentences, and even allows you to manipulate more than one object at a time: "Take the teacup and the pencil." I had great difficulty with fingerprints. I tried all the ways I could imagine to check for fingerprints on important objects, and failed miserably. When I related the experience to Marc Blank, author of the program, he promised to add a few more ways to collect fingerprints to the final version of the game.
Aside from the frustration of not being able to check for fingerprints, I found Deadline to be a thoroughly engrossing and realistic game. I like the idea of depending on my own wits and analytical abilities to solve a problem. I like the fact that there is more than one way to get bits of information. And I enjoy the presence of other people —- as opposed to dwarves, sorcerers and unicorns —- in the game.
Marc Blank has done a superb job programming a complex game, which I hope will be the first of a sub-genre of "real-life" adventure games.
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