~7 minute readLong Play's Journey Into Light
Infocom's Tolkienesque Adventure Game
Roe is co-designer of Wizardry IV: Return of Werdna and contributed to the design of Ultima IV.
A shadow of evil has fallen over the land. No, this is not the beginning of Lord of the Rings, but of Infocom's marvelous new game, Journey. The game does pay an acknowledged homage to J.R.R. Tolkien's classic epic throughout the story, though.
A black evil has arisen, threatening to cancel out the world. Four stalwart adventurers leave to save civilization. Along the way they must find four stones held by each of the nonhuman races: blue for Nymphs, green for Elves, brown for Dwarves, and, naturally, red for Wizards (We have always suspected that they were a race apart from mankind). The four stones lead to the two other stones which, in turn, reveal the secret hiding place of the "one stone that rules them all!" Trees talk to you, orcs want your body parts, and dwarves lead you through an underground citadel where an unspeakable ancient horror lies awaiting in the depths. The only items missing are the drums!
All the time, the party is coaxed on by the master Wizard, Astrix, who prods, cajoles, and provides hints about what the party should do next. He also dies spectacularly whenever the party makes a major mistake and allows evil to win. Now, that is motivation to restore the game and try again!
Note, though, that only the veneer of Journey is Tolkienish, for this game heralds the long awaited return of Zork impresario, Marc Blank, to what should be the best seller list. (Gaming Historians will please note that after much heated debate, a panel of experts has finally determined that Border Zone was actually written by Sir Francis Bacon). Journey is full of delightful puzzles, superb prose, and finely honed legends that will be a challenge to all levels of players. The flavor of the puzzles harkens back to the Golden Age of Infocom Adventures, and reflects Marc's long standing status as a Master Designer. Ah, the Mill mines, the underwater pools of the Nymphs, and the entire town of Zan, all await those players who love fine puzzles.
The game begins with our party of four adventurers, already in place as the game begins. If, however, any character's name is truly offensive to the player, he may be given a new one. Bergon is the big fighter, a good fellow to have in a fracas. Praxix, the novice Wizard, has a pouch of reagents for casting spells. Esher is the physician whose powers of observation provide timely insights at crucial moments. The narrator of the story is Tag, an apprentice food merchant, who keeps track of inventory for the party. Nowhere are Tag's features or talents really discussed, but you just know from the feel of the character that he has Hobbit blood in him somewhere.
The jumpoff point for the journey is the small town of Lavos. The town boasts a general store, run by a jolly fellow named Webba, and the obligatory tavern. Be sure to thoroughly peruse Webba's store, noting any travel posters hanging on the walls. It should be observed that, unlike many other adventure games, Journey, has no excess items. Every item that is not nailed down in this game (and an occasional item that is nailed down) is essential to solving a puzzle somewhere along the line. The tavern is full of the usual small town beer guzzlers who are very suspicious of outsiders. The party has to nose around a bit to find anyone who will talk to them.
Outside of Lavos, the road forks. Here is the first challenge of the game, for without an experienced guide, members of the party start dying like flies. Were you one of the clever players who secured the services of the disreputable guide, Minar, back in Lavos? If you could not decide whether to hire such an obvious rogue or not, consult the back of the game box (whoever reads the back of boxes!), where it plainly states, "You'll share the adventures of Tag, Praxix, Bergon, Esher, and Minar as they solve puzzles . . . "
This might be an Infocom first, printed hints on the back of the box.
The fork in the road is where decisions begin and it is appropriately named as Journey's storyline is constantly forking into different bewildering arrays of "what ifs." The player is strongly advised to keep a very large collection of well notated Save Games. These will come into numerous uses as the story unfolds and the player frequently slaps himself on the forehead while exclaiming, "Oh no, so I was supposed to keep track of [fill in the blank]." Only judiciously placed Save Games will avoid the frustration of having to replay Journey all over again to reread a special legend or note a particular event in detail. Any player who has a printer is highly encouraged to print out all of the rather lengthy, but interesting, legends. A piece here and a subtle piece there is often needed much later to solve a puzzle.
Journey would be a good text adventure game, but what elevates it to the dizzying heights of a major work is Marc's innovative command structure. No longer is the player chained to yet-another-clever-parser. In this game, almost everything is a Mac-like point and click. Each location brings up a fresh series of options for the player. Choosing one option may negate other possible choices or open up a whole new set of options. Sometimes, an important option will be in bold type, other times it won't. It is really important that the "Look Around," "Examine," and "Scout" options be chosen whenever available, although please note that sometimes Scouts get captured and don't return! Such occasions are good spots to Save Game before venturing onward, just so the many flavors of paths can be checked out thoroughly. "Get Advice" can solicit all sorts of interesting comments and further options.
Other games have tried icon clicking before, so what makes Journey so innovative? The answer lies in the manner in which the different options light up and go away as the game flows along. There is a very subtle, almost hypnotic effect that sweeps the player along. You notice yourself staring intently at the command screen every time you select an option, because you have no idea what new options your action might cause to spring forth. If you are not careful, you will lose control to the game. In fact, you will probably plunge down some clever dead end and Astrix will, yet again, die flamboyantly.
A word about "Dead Ends" is necessary. Amusingly enough, the manual emphatically states, "There are no 'dead ends' in Journey." Actually, the game has many erroneous paths that lead to the victory of Evil and Astrix taking the big plunge from his high tower. Certainly, each of these paths may be construed as a "Dead End"!
No game is perfect and there are three cautionary notes about this one. First, really watch what spells you use to solve a puzzle. The quantities of each reagent (earth, fire, air, and water) are very limited, and new sources appear at rare intervals. Several of the puzzles allow solutions utilizing any of several spells. If the player does not consult his pouch's in. ventory to see the current levels of each reagent before casting the spell, the players may box themselves into a corner later on in the game. The Second area concerns the puzzle of how one speaks Elvish. The solution to this puzzle practically necessitates either an eidetic memory or printouts of the legends. Even then, the player must make a fairly long leap into the realms of logic to come up with the composite answer that is needed. Third, and last, is the puzzle of the Wizard's Runes over the door. This puzzle is at least several orders of magnitude below the calibre of every other puzzle in the game. The player's should just type in singularly each word in the rune phrase until they hit upon the correct one, and ignore any thought about figuring out why, the effort would be greatly wasted.
Graphically, the game excels. Unlike previous Infocom efforts that dipped their toes into the graphic waters, Journey takes the plunge. Propelled by Donald Langosy's superbly sensitive graphics, the game lives and takes on three dimensionality. The graphics do not need the gimmick of animation to be impressive. Every new scene has a totally new graphic and some areas where action occurs have multiple graphics. For those elite who have access to a Mac II, there is an extra diskette just for Mac II color graphics. The graphics fairly leap off the screen at you. Breathtaking, indeed!
In this reviewer's opinion, Journey is the best effort to date of any game designer struggling to find a new way for the game to interface with the player. It goes a long way to breaking down traditional preconceived notions about how games should be structured. However, because it is so totally innovative, Mediagenic's marketing division (Infocom's parent company) was apparently hard pressed as to what label to apply to the game, so they coined yet another new one: Role-Play Chronicles. While it is doubtful whether any consumer will be able to remember the fine distinctions that separate all these adventure game marketing slogans from one another, players should ignore the hype and buy "The Beef."
This article appeared in
Computer Gaming World
Jun 1989
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
