All Hail Infocom!

[arethinn]

Whee... in my ongoing quest to play and write walkthroughs for all the Infocom games I have, I got through Wishbringer today. Unlike Trinity, which really was as complex as the hints, ah, hinted, Wishbringer was really quite short and simple, once I got through it. Now I've completed Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Enchanter, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Wishbringer, Arthur: the Quest for Excalibur, Trinity, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Infidel, Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

This leaves the following still to go:

Suspended, Starcross, Planetfall, Stationfall, The Lurking Horror, Cutthroats, Seastalker, Ballyhoo, Border Zone, Deadline, Witness, Suspect, Moonmist, Sherlock, Plundered Hearts, Hollywood Hijinx, Bureaucracy...

...and Beyond Zork and Zork Zero, both of which I have played through once already, but never got around to doing so again. In the process of writing walkthroughs I generally go through a game about three times, fine-tuning the steps and seeing how many of the "For Your Amusements" I can actually work into the game. Zork Zero was quite a pain in the rear because the in-game hints were just barely enough with which to finish the game. They gave me answers, but very little information about how to apply those answers. When I got through it I felt quite accomplished, but not about to sit down and go right through it again to write the walkthrough. So now I'll have to figure it all out again. Beyond Zork I recall only being slightly annoying.

Historically, I've not been too fond of the "mystery" genre games, which comprise about half the list above. It's like, as if the puzzles weren't bad enough, now I gotta put together a whodunit on top of it? Yargh! They're probably going to be the last ones I go through.

I think I've also got Journey on that disc, but fuck dat. I really can't get a grip on that game and you know what, I don't care. Heh.

Comments

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

WHere did you get Infocom games that can be run on a modern computer? And where, O where have you posted these walkthroughs? I never finished Wishbringer as a child, and it's bugged me ever since.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

WHere did you get Infocom games that can be run on a modern computer?

Most can, it's just the questions of 1) having the PC version of the game rather than the C64, etc whatever other platforms they made the games for, and 2) having an ANSI driver so the screen displays correctly. What I have, though, is "Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces", a CD-ROM which was one of two similar uber-collections of Infocom games released in the mid-1990s. The "Infocom" mark is now owned by Activision but as far as I know the collections are no longer in print. (could be wrong) You can also play quite a few of the games via telnet - see http://infocom.elsewhere.org/ for information.

And where, O where have you posted these walkthroughs?

Nowhere. They're essentially for my own private amusement and later use. I get a kick out of fine-tuning a path through the game and writing it down, and when I want to go back and play the game again later, I don't have to figure it out all over again.

I'm surprised that you want one - it seems most adventure gamer types think walkthroughs are a cop-out and that people who use them are somehow "spoiling the game for themselves". For me, it would be spoiled if I didn't use one. The only way I actually have fun with it is with a walkthrough or heavy hints, because otherwise I get nowhere. I am utterly incapable of solving such games on my own. So fuck dem. Heh.

Um, I could email it to you, I suppose? It's Word document at the moment...

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Ask and ye shall receive. (http://eristic.net/wishbringer.html) (but don't spread it around, please, especially considering the, ah, contraband factor)