~5 minute readPERSONAL COMPUTERS
The Dectective Had So Much to Learn
THINK of computer games, and one thinks of shoot-'em-up, gobble'em-up visuals flashing across the colored screen. For better or for worse -- and one can't help but feel that in many ways it's worse -- these motor coordination tests have become, in the space of a mere couple of years, probably the greatest cultural force among the youth of the Western world.
In this short span of time the graphics of computer games have progressed from the crude "paddles" and light ball of the early Pong to the at least childlike complexity of Pac-Man and Space Invaders. At the same time, new verbal-only games have been developed for personal computers. Here, pictures don't count.
Most of these print-on-the-screen games are still back in the Pong age. A few, however, stand out as milestones on the road to sophistication. High on the list is Deadline (Infocom, 55 Wheeler St., Cambridge, Mass., 02128). For $49.95 the game will give you days of challenge, frustration and, eventually, pleasure.
Deadline comes in the form of a brown file folder stuffed with police, laboratory and coroner's reports, a photograph of the scene of the crime, interviews, a casebook and other clues for your perusal, as well as the disk for your waiting computer.
After loading up the disk drive of the Apple II Plus (disks are also available for the Atari 800, the IBM PC, the NEC PC-8000 and the CP/M) I found myself standing "on a wide lawn just north of the entrance to the Robner Estate," so I typed in GO INTO HOUSE.
The computer responded, "There's no obvious way in from here." I hadn't realized how sizable the Robner Estate was. Could have sworn I saw a large stone Tudor with a dark green door quite clearly in my mind. I typed in LOOK FOR FRONT DOOR.
The answer to that was, "You can't see any front door here." How about GO UP THE PATH, THEN? "You can't see any path here." Looking about for "Keep Off the Grass" signs, as I was obviously standing on the lawn, I pecked in WALK NORTH. That did it. I made my way to the door and proceeded to rap on it.
My knock was answered by Mrs. Robner herself, who in rather stilted English informed me of her grief and the fact that her husband's will would be read at noon should I care to attend. She then excused herself to get a bite to eat.
The computer clock indicated 8:03. I had taken three minutes to come this far, and I was grateful that the digital display showed only the hour and the minutes, not elapsed seconds. Still, it left me 11 hours and 57 minutes to go.
PERHAPS the kitchen was the place to start. I typed in GO TO THE KITCHEN, only to be told that I didn't know where it was. True enough. FOLLOW MRS. ROBNER, I tried next. Peeking into the pantry, I found nothing more suspicious than the usual staples and canned goods.
Mrs. Rourke was in the kitchen cleaning up. Deciding to start my interrogation with her, I asked, MRS. ROURKE, WERE YOU HERE AT THE TIME OF MR. ROBNER'S DEATH?
"The word 'time' can't be used," I was informed, "in that sense." Since when? Taking another tack with an obviously tough cookie, I queried: MRS. ROURKE, WHERE WERE YOU WHEN MR. ROBNER'S DEATH OCCURRED? The answer was, "The word 'when' isn't in your vocabulary." That left me speechless. Whoever heard of a detective so deficient in vocabulary? My mind turned momentarily to Mrs. Robner, who, according to her previously announced plan, was by now presumably stuffing her face. It suddenly seemed an admirable idea. I stepped out to the kitchen and made myself two hard-boiled-egg-and-anchovy sandwiches on rye, mayonnaise on the egg side. Grabbing a Molson's ale to wash them down with, I returned to the computer. Normally I like cucumber sandwiches on thin pumpernickel with English mysteries. This one, set in my own back yard in Connecticut, obviously required something more fortifying.
Placing the ale and the sandwiches carefully at some distance from the computer, I reached for that all-American last resort, the instructions. These are quite specific, delineating the forms of movement available to me as a detective -- up, down, north, south, and so on -- and how to use the stenographic service. Believe me, in this game it's handy to have a printer to give you hard copy of the queries for later reference. The instructions also showed me how to question suspects - always politely, using each person's name the first time around. It needn't be Mr. or Mrs., first names would do if you knew them. But the name must be there in every initial query or the computer wouldn't know which of the people in a room you were addressing.
Having finished scanning the instructions as well as devouring the sandwiches, I sternly pecked in, MRS. ROURKE, TELL ME ABOUT MR. ROBNER.
I was greeted with a flood of information about what a fine man he had been, how worried he had been about his business, and other matters in a similar vein. She commented on charity beginning at home. Of course, she remarked, she'd always been well-treated.
DID HE TREAT MRS. ROBNER WELL? "The word 'did' is not in your vocabulary." Like heck it isn't. I stomped out by entering GO NORTH -- and ran right into what the computer informed me was a corner. TURN LEFT. "The word 'left' isn't in your vocabulary." I should have known. GO WEST. I ended up in the dining room. After spending some time looking behind what appeared to be an original Seurat ("Nothing there") and then behind all the other pictures ("There is nothing behind the (sic) all the pictures"), I attempted, unsuccessfully, to look out at the rose garden I had been assured was there. So I made to leave the room, which was not as easy as normal circumstances would dictate.
As it turned out, in this game it is best to make a floor map of the house as one goes. Again, paper becomes a necessity. In fact, when all is said and done, probably more pages will be consumed by computer mysteries such as Deadline, than by the traditional flip-them-in-your-pocket-and-read-them-on-the-way-to-work variety. They also require more thinking.
Deadline is so interactive that your movements around the house actually affect the outcome, as indeed they might in real life. If you don't reach a certain room before the housekeeper makes her regular rounds, for instance, she'll clean away an important clue. It's even possible for a second murder to occur if you don't stay on your toes. Furthermore, it's one of the few mysteries where the detective -- in this case you -- may come to a bad end. Only logic and deduction in the best of the Holmes/Nero Wolfe tradition will see you through.
Deadline is at one and the same time a crude harbinger of things to come and state-of-the-art, a rather amazing feat of programming. If you like to read mysteries for relaxation, perhaps the game is not for you. If you like to read mysteries because of the challenging puzzle involved, on the other hand, and if you don't mind dealing with the understandably less-than-perfect computer syntax, then Deadline should prove very attractive.
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
