Things To Come

Deadline: An Interlogic Mystery

Arthur Conan Doyle loved logic, delighted in deduction, and created a character who took these pleasures of the mind to the ultimate, all in the service of good. The means was the solving of mysterious crimes; the medium was the short story; the result was a new genre of fiction that would sell more words than any other save the bible: the mystery. The immortal vehicle for Doyle's expression was Sherlock Holmes.

In years to come, generations hooked on computer mysteries may well look back to Marc Blank and Dave Lebling with the same respect that mystery novel readers have for Doyle; these two have created the first wholly interactive mystery for the computer. And it's dynamite.

Before you ever insert the disk, you're likely to be totally enthralled by Deadline, the first episode in a planned series of Interlogic Mysteries from Infocom, which is Blank and Lebling. You know these two from Zork and Zork II; no lightweights.

Fingerprints and Fine Print. Deadline is an honest to goodness murder mystery, in which you are Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Nero Wolfe, Mike Hammer, Adam Dalgliesh — take your pick. It arrives in packaging unlike any software package preceding it. The disk comes in a dossier file, full of documentary evidence — establishing your beginning point in the mystery.

Opening the dossier reveals an introductory letter to you — the chief inspector — from the victim's attorney. An apparent suicide, businessman and philanthropist Marshall Robner had been under extreme stress because of the failing fortunes of his twenty-five-year-old company. His partner was urging a merger with a larger, stronger firm. In addition, Robner was constantly worried about his ne'er-do-well son George; he had spoken to the attorney very recently about drawing up a new will, a task that was to have been consummated this week.

Other documents are a lab report, an official police photograph of the victim as found, an envelope of tablets found near the body, a medical examiner's report, suspects' fingerprints, and transcripts of interviews with each of the people vitally concerned with Robner, most of whom were present in the house at the time of death.

Also included is the Deadline Inspector's Casebook. This is the documentation for the game, but never does it step out of character. As in Zork, you can use full sentences with Deadline; in fact, the vocabulary is greatly expanded. The casebook explains how to interrogate witnesses and suspects, how to accuse, how to make transcripts of conversations and documents you find — you can print out any segment of your game playing or all of it. It tells you how to have things analyzed in the police lab (Sergeant Duffy is never far away) and how to handle evidence. You can examine carefully, a time-consuming process, or wait for things, and if something goes on within the range of your senses while you're so occupied, you have the option to quit examining or waiting and deal with the event of the moment.

The Time for Crime. You have just twelve hours to solve the mystery. A clock is constantly on screen letting you know just where you are. Time is important: you need to he in particular places at particular times. At the outset, you know of only one of these; the will reading is set for noon. As you play, you'll learn that other characters are going about their business despite your presence. Sometimes, you'll want to be privy to that business. Sometimes, you won't care.

For example, at a certain time, the housekeeper makes her rounds. If you haven't gotten to a particular place before her, you'll never see an important piece of evidence, because she'll take it away — quite innocently. On the other hand, at a certain point, the deceased's secretary goes into her bathroom to brush her hair. You could care less. But the delight is that she does it, that everyone is doing something all the time, regardless of you.

Of course, certain things you may choose to do will change others' behavior; but, until you do such things, the people of Deadline pay little attention to you.

There are many endings possible in the Deadline case, hut only one ending reflects the perfect solution, the one in which all the pieces fit. You may even make the appropriate arrest and still achieve a less than perfect ending because some stone is unturned. When you do solve it all, you're offered an authors' summary of the progression of events.

At worst, a second murder occurs — yours. Next to that in bad endings is a second murder that isn't yours. Short of these, you can elicit cool thanks for what help you did give or you can get yourself fired. It all depends on you.

The Perfect Setup. Deadline incorporates all the finesse in programming we've come to expect from Infocom. Saving is simple and quick with accommodation for eight different saves; it does require a separate disk and it will take advantage of two disk drives if you have them. One is no problem though.

During play, you can repeat a command by typing merely "," again, and you can use the escape-I, J, K, and M to retrace something you've written before if you want to change it just a bit.

The logic is impeccable, as is the progression of events you are capable of setting in motion. You must set certain ones in motion to win.

Appealing is the idea of a free evening in which you're comfortably ensconced in an overstuffed wing chair before a flickering fire, sipping fine wine and tasting the rare essence of Conan Doyle. Hercule Poirot liked the notion so much that he chose this setting as the one from which to solve many of his cases.

But better still is the pleasure of sitting on the edge of your computer-desk chair unraveling the mystery yourself. This is the pleasure of Deadline. Stake out a spot at your dealer's door before opening on the day this package is expected to arrive; you'll want to be first in your neighborhood to meet Deadline.

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