~5 minute readTwo Exciting New Titles
Infocom Introduces Suspect™
You’re not sure who’s who. But one thing is certain -— someone is dead. And now they’re pointing fingers at you.
In Suspect, Infocom's newest mystery game, you'll attend a murderously grand party that you'll never forget.
The butler is dressed in a gorilla suit. Scores of outrageously costumed dancers waltz and two-step elegantly in the grand ballroom. A masked bartender mixes tasty and potent drinks. All around you are the cream of society –- senators, blueblooded gentry, power brokers, and the idle rich – dressed as no one has seen them before. Someone has come as a vampire; someone else as a short, cuddly robot; someone has even come dressed as a peanut butter sandwich! What a party!
If you walk around the mansion, you'll be impressed by the richness everywhere. The Sitting Room, the Library, the Morning Room, the Sun Room –- all are impeccably furnished, bespeaking the wealth and fine taste of the owners. But the most striking thing you'll see here tonight is not the crystal chandelier, nor the valuable oriental rug, nor the spectacularly-clad partygoers.
A dead body will be found here tonight, at this party. Strangled, curiously, with a piece of your costume. You don't know who the murderer is – you suspect everyone -– but one thing is certain.
You are the prime suspect!
In Suspect, you are a newspaper reporter and an old friend of Veronica Ashcroft, the party's hostess. You looked forward to this Hallowe'en bash and to rubbing elbows with the movers and shakers of Maryland's hunt country. Little did you know that you would also be framed for a murder you didn't commit!
Like Deadline™ and The Witness™ (Infocom's other games in the mystery genre), you'll have lots of clues and false leads to wade through, and alibis and denials to consider. In Suspect, though, you're not the detective (assisted by the able Sergeant Duffy) looking for the killer. Instead, you're the police's number-one suspect, and you've got to prove your innocence to Duffy and his boss to stay out of prison.
In every Suspect package comes a story disk, the booklet Murder and Modern Manners (describing murder etiquette), your party invitation, your costume receipt, a note from your editor, an article from The Maryland Countryside (a tony magazine for the upper class), and a business card with a suspicious message on it.
Suspect was written by Dave Lebling, author of Starcross™ and co-author of Zork® I, Zork II, Zork III, and Enchanter™. It is an advanced-level game and will sell for $44.95 on most systems.
Don't Panic!
Now you can see the universe the safe, sure, money-saving way with THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY™
Here at Infocom, it would ordinarily not be too surprising for some random hanger-on, crackpot, or sychophant to get past the Guardians of Zork and venture forth with the magic words "I have this great idea for a game...."
Such gratuitous input would generally not be parsed by the gate keepers who make the decisions around here.
However, if the proposition came from someone with a little writing experience -– say, with the authorship of some funny books selling in the millions -– then this would be quite a different story, indeed.
And so it was when Douglas Adams, who for years had smiled upon Infocom's work, put out a transatlantic feeler, as it were, to take the pulse of the giant in interactive fiction. The diagnosis was very favorable. Dr. Marc Blank, the company's vice president, assigned implementor S. Eric Meretzky to act as midwife for a brand new creation: Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is based only loosely on the novel of the same title.
With the teaming up of "bestselling author" Adams and "awardwinning game designer" Meretzky (Planetfall™, Sorcerer™) you would expect, well, at least a halfway decent game, wouldn't you? (See Footnote.)
Actually, if this hilarious and doomsday vision of the future were to come to pass, who knows? A Hitchhiker's Guide disk might improbably be recovered among the space junk by some alien race. These beings, besides possibly recognizing themselves in the story, would (if the disk would still boot) discover humans to have been highly skilled in the interactive arts; and, contingent on the physiology to do so, they would laugh.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first Infocom story in which the player assumes the (rather indistinct) role of a fictional character, with the mellifluous name of Arthur Dent. But since you are the author of Arthur's actions, your decisions dictate the movement of the story.
In the beginning, Arthur (the player) must overcome bewildering circumstances -– which have encroached on his pastoral home in England's West Country – to escape his doomed home and, in turn, his doomed Earth. Up to this point the story line will be similar to that in the Hitchhiker's novel.
Henceforth, you'll encounter characters and locations from the book appearing in a variety of misadventures written by Adams expressly for this game. For instance, in the novel there is one fanciful item of great utility which, however, in the game can be obtained only by maddeningly humorous Rube Goldberg methods.
In exploring virgin parts of the galaxy, accessing the actual Hitchhiker's Guide will be essential. The Guide, an electronic device similar in appearance to a large calculator, is consulted to enlighten its user on a wide variety of topics ranging from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal to pocket fluff.
Throughout your knocking about the galaxy, it is as if the unique persona of Adams were lurking in the nether regions of disk accessing, anticipating your every move and miscue, and delivering the appropriate rejoinder.
The game packaging provides a number of items to assist the galactic hitchhiker. A pair of peril-sensitive sunglasses warns you of impending doom. Copies of the demolition orders for your house and planet Earth remind you why you're out there in the first place. You're given a piece of fluff and a microscopic space fleet, as well as the Megadodo Publications sales brochure for the latest model of the actual Hitchhiker's Guide. And in case things get out of hand, there's a Don't Panic button.
The front of The Hitchhiker's Guide package says it's a standard-level game; as such, it will sell for $39.95 on most systems.
(Footnote: To say the least.... Here we illustrate just two of the features new to Infocom games, first appearing in The Hitchhiker's Guide game. The first is the occurrence of footnotes – accessed by typing FOOTNOTE (number) – -sprinkled throughout the story to enlighten, clarify, amuse. The second is the player's ability to respond to the sometimes rhetorical questions posed by the narrative, as seen above.)
Zork is a registered trademark of Infocom, Inc. Enchanter, Sorcerer, Starcross, Suspended, Planetfall, Deadline, The Witness, Suspect, Infidel, Seastalker, Cutthroats and InvisiClues are trademarks of Infocom, Inc. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a trademark of Douglas Adams.
This article appeared in
New Zork Times, The
Oct-Dec 1984
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
