Reviews by Drew Cook

1992's "The Tempest" by David R. Grigg, which should not be mistaken for Graham Nelson's adaptation, is an unkind game that modern players will struggle to complete. However, this review, as part of my "games seeking reviews" series, is intended to celebrate and recognize previously undiscussed works. While I will be candid about the shortcomings of "The Tempest," cataloguing them is not my aim either here or generally in the series.

All reviews in my "games seeking reviews" series are inspired by Tabitha's excellent 2024 "Review-a-Thon," which I encourage all readers to investigate for more reviews of hidden IF gems.

Reviewing parser games from the interregnum between the fall of Infocom and the so-called "neo-classical" period that began with the release of Graham Nelson's "Curses" is difficult. I'd characterize many games as boutique titles, works sold by small publishers for a narrowing audience. Quality varied greatly in terms of design and presentation, but works of this period must be recognized as torch-bearers, keeping the medium alive in the face of diminishing sales. In this sense, even works that feel unsatisfying have merit.

"The Tempest" doesn't afford an experience of inhabiting Shakespeare's play. That would require a caliber of writing that would be difficult for anyone, in any medium, to achieve. Nelson's solution was to use Shakespeare's own poetry, which was probably the best approach. Players of Grigg's "The Tempest" will likely feel reminded of, rather than placed in, the play.

Mechanically, the game violates what contemporary players will expect as craft norms. There is a maze with no hints for solving. Exits are often unidentified in room descriptions and are frequently unreciprocated (entering from the east does not guarantee an eastward return). Weight limits come up more than once. There is almost always one or more unimplemented nouns in a room. Synonyms are few.

There are multiple timers, including a strictly limited light source.

I think persons interested in the history of interactive fiction might appreciate how rewarding it was to find an AGT decompiler, run it in DOSBox (Windows 11 would not execute it), and sift through the text in order to find a way through the maze. I think some of us live for this kind of thing! Doing so also gave me insight into how AGT games are organized, something I had no concept of.

I was only able to find one review of "The Tempest," and it was understandably negative. Since the reviewer likely paid money for it, he had a right to expect more than I might. There is no walkthrough for "The Tempest" at CASA, which often has materials for games not covered here at IFDB. It is obscure, unnoticed, and probably unloved.

[An aside: "The Tempest" was an entrant in the 1992 Softworks AGT competition, a contest organized over Compuserve for games written with the Aventure Game Toolkit, a shareware product for authoring parser games. It, along with other "honorable mentions," was part of a post-competition five-disk, seventeen-game collection that was sold by mail for thirty dollars. The collection included source code, which presumably provided a 1993 reviewer with solutions to some more vexing problems. For more information, the announcement for the competition's results can be read here.]

Still, I wish to praise the outlandish, outsized ambition of this work. It is not likely that audiences were clamoring for a "Tempest" game. As I have already indicated, hoping to do Shakespeare justice seems an incredibly difficult task. This is the kind of big, swing-for-the-fences project that is the opposite of safe, that loves great art, and must be, in its way, the product of fearlessness. I praise the impulse that inspired it and the conviction that it must have required. Even though the work is not successful, it indicates a certainty that IF can be art.

All this in a day when the jury was still out regarding that and many other questions! While I cannot recommend playing "The Tempest" for fun, it deserves credit for believing in (and investing in) the artistic merits of interactive fiction.

Tools used: I used AGTDec, which I retrieved from the programming/agt directory at the Interactive Fiction Archive. Since Windows 11 wouldn't run it, I relied on DOSBox. It created two very readable text dumps.

I thought I might enjoy reviewing as-yet unreviewed games. It's hard to get one's game reviewed outside of a competition or jam context, if the news page on IFDB is any indicator. If you are familiar with my writing style, then you might reasonably expect this review to mostly consist of deadpan snark, but that isn't what this series of reviews is about. Here, I'd like to draw attention to previously undiscussed IF in a welcoming way.

I discovered this game, a free demo for H. H. Richards's "Lewd Mod," via Tabitha's "Games Seeking Reviews" poll.

Let's get this out of the way first: "Naughty in the Library" has implied nudity, at least one colorful slang term for female anatomy, and a lot of sexual innuendo. If you are troubled by that sort of thing, then skip this game. This game - this demo, at least - doesn't offer much beyond that. There are no rewards for pushing through that content; that content is the game.

How is that content? For starters, the artwork is highly stylized. The woman featured, Ellie B, has white teeth, red lips, arched eyebrows... and no eyes. Some thoughtful critic might make a lot of that aesthetic choice. Does it mean something? Is it a depersonalization? The effect is striking and seems to be a consistent feature of women's faces in H. H. Richards's work, as the women on their itch.io page all lack eyes. I do not know if the overall effect is erotic, but I did find these portrayals memorable. For what it's worth, Richards's depictions of cats have no eyes, either.

So far as the dialogue that links these images of Ellie in a narrative thread: I feel the demo suffers, in that we - an undefined self-insert - already seem to know her. That being so, we never get to know her. I wasn't sure what I might and might not suggest to her, in terms of her bra, her shoes, or what have you. I felt rather disconnected from our exchange. Was the protagonist being weird or pushy? It didn't seem so in-game, as Ellie seemed very open to their suggestions, but I never really found the dialogue options very relatable.

The full game might fare better due to better contextualization. For instance, in that work, you are a content moderator for a social media site. So there is more of a "game" there, potentially, than there is here.

TL;DR: A short, dramatized text chat in which the player talks to a woman named "Ellie" and asks for her to send erotic selfies to them.
+ The style of the art is distinctive. So distinctive, in fact, that it invites interpretation.
+ The interface is very polished.
+ Even if the demo lacks important context, potential buyers can get a feel for the presentation, art style, and messaging interface.

- The gameplay in this demo feels almost beside the point. Ellie seemed very happy to send pictures. It isn't clear if the full game involves challenge of any kind.
- This content is not for everyone, so potential players should pay attention to content advisories.
- The main game seems to have context and gameplay that is not contained in the demo, which makes it hard to say if the paid experience would be worthwhile.

Additional thoughts: the artwork does not aggressively reinforce unrealistic beauty standards, which I appreciate. The exchange with Ellie doesn't seem inherently exploitational, and there is no apparent power dynamic at work. While this demo is not necessarily my thing, it seems to be honest about what it is and has, I am sure, an audience.

As a bit of background: I discovered this game via Tabitha's "Games Seeking Reviews" poll. I'm grateful for this initiative!

"Kiss of Beth" is a short horror story in Twine. There are optional conversation nodes and at least one momentous choice. Navigation is easy, and the interface and prose work together effectively. The beginning is gently ominous, dramatizing a chat with an acquaintance who has come to take the protagonist's roommate, Beth, on a date. While I won't give anything away, I'll say that the pace at which details unfold is well-calibrated, and I was eager to discover the true nature of this encounter.

There is also an interesting meta-comment about "good" endings, which left me with a few satisfying thoughts to mull over afterward.

TL:DR:
A short, 15-minute twine experience with a nice bit of initially understated horror. More than worth the time.

+ The visual and auditory presentation is more interesting than it first appears, evoking specific vibes from classic adventure games.
+ A bite-sized snack; both endings can be explored in a short amount of time. It's like a good short story.
+ Satisfyingly unpleasant.

- No notes! This kind of short, focused Twine experience is my jam.

For lack of a better term, let us borrow one from renaissance studies: Ballyhoo is what I would call a "problem" game. At times it is darkly funny. Elsewhere, it is just dark. Glum, even. The protagonist doesn't want to help people, it seems, they want to be recognized for helping people. Some of its jokes don't land; not gracefully, anyway. The mid-late 1980s was a different, edgier time, and Ballyhoo is a product of it. The puzzles sometimes feel unmotivated or nonsensical. Often the idea seems simply for the player to mess around with everything until something good happens.

I'm not alone in saying and thinking such things. Reception of Ballyhoo has remained stably ambivalent these many years since its release in 1985. It's a lukewarm outlier in an incredibly hot streak, even by Infocom standards. Consider this chronological order of parser game releases:

- Wishbringer
- A Mind Forever Voyaging
- Spellbreaker
- Ballyhoo
- Trinity

One of these games is clearly not like the others, but does that make it bad? From a textual point of view, I would say that Ballyhoo is quite good, actually. Jeffrey O'Neill is a gifted prose stylist: wry, playful, unagressively self-referential. He understands the conventions of the form and engages with them in novel and interesting ways. This is a text that has literary ambitions, yet never taps your shoulder to see if you noticed them. A Mind Forever Voyaging and, to a greater extent Trinity, really can't help themselves in this regard, with their quotations and press releases. As clumsy as Ballyhoo can be, it often seems efortlessly (or at least casually) literary in a way that I appreciate. This is a text, firmly rooted in pulpy crime fiction, that never seems to need to announce itself.

The story, such as it is, involves a kidnapped girl, a greedy businessman, and angry clowns.

Despite some messiness, there are some fine technical and craft moments to be found. There is, perhaps, the most interesting framing for a time travel puzzle that I have ever seen. There is a wickedly funny puzzle-joke about public radio.

Importantly, Ballyhoo runs on a subjective clock. Time only advances in-game when certain actions or story beats have completed. Previous Infocom mystery games ran on an objective clock. With an objective clock, time advanced with each user action, and the world responded in kind. At this late date, the objective clock is largely absent from interactive fiction. The subjective clock, on the other hand, is a staple not only in IF but in many game genres. Whatever one makes of O'Neill as an author, this contribution has become so common that few ever recall that, like everything else, someone had to do it first.

Will you like playing Ballyhoo? Circus settings, especially ones with this level of prose quality, are incredibly rare in the commercial era. In that sense, it offers a lot in terms of novelty and variety. The writing, as I've already said, is very good, and stylistically unique among all other Infocom games. The puzzles are mixed, though some strong, innovative ones are to be found. Finally, the feelies are excellent, with more great writing by O'Neill and evocative illustrations that summon an ambiance of faded nostalgia.

Ballyhoo is not going to be the game that changes your mind about Infocom, but it is a must play for fans and parser history buffs. The Invisiclues are available, and, as always, I encourage their use should the puzzles lose their glamour.

A final note: Ballyhoo was also history-making in that it was the first Infocom game in which a protagonist could be a woman explicitly rather than implicitly. That is, players have often tried to see themselves in Infocom protagonists, but it was usually unclear what Infocom's intentions were with regard to protagonist identities. Sometimes, it was hard to tell whether a character was inclusive or merely vague. Ballyhoo gives the player a clear, unambiguous choice with regard to gender.

Sadly, O'Neill didn't do anything very interesting with the choice, but the moment remains one for the history books.

In any case, there are enough historically notable features to make Ballyhoo worth one's time, and, thanks to O'Neill's prose, there is a great deal more than that.

I suppose many people think excellence is a zero sum game. It sometimes seems that one must pick between Trinity and A Mind Forever Voyaging. They cannot both be transcendent, some must believe. Only one game can rest at the tip of Infocom's spear. It's common - expected, perhaps - to see someone enter a conversation about A Mind Forever Voyaging only to say "I like Trinity better." The opposite is true, as well. One of these games must soar at the expense of the other, these exchanges seem to prove.

Such partisans do not realize the full complexity of their situation, as there is, in fact, a third game worthy of consideration: Dave Lebling's Spellbreaker. It seems that it has escaped the notice of star-givers and list-makers for most of the past four decades, though its critical fortunes have changed over the past few years. In 2019, it made its first appearance on an Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time poll with a placing of 36.

Spellbreaker is the sixth and final game in Infocom's two consecutive trilogies taking place in their famed Zork setting. This world, alternately whimsical and dark, finally makes good on its many promises throughout the series. What has it been promising? Change. This concluding episode delivers in what seems a final and irrevocable way. Spellbreaker's conclusion feels rewarding and philosophically complex. It is the narrative equivalent of a shower, then dinner, after a long hike on a warm day.

As the third game in the Enchanter trilogy, Spellbreaker uses a familiar, well-loved magic system. The player casts spells to solve problems and open new areas to explore, which in turn leads to the discovery of new spells, and so forth. It is an addicting loop. For 1980s games, the Enchanter series is quite deeply and generously implemented. These are, for their days, mechanically generous games. If you haven't played any game in this series, start with the first (Enchanter).

Since this is the third and final game of a trilogy, the protagonist of Spellbreaker is a powerful Enchanter, both in political and magical terms. In fact, they are the most powerful Enchanter to ever live. As the game begins, magic across the kingdom of Quendor (is it a kingdom? There seems to be no king) is failing. Since magic is the center of life in Quendor, this is a dire threat. Food production, economy, even public safety depend upon it. When guidmasters from across the land are transformed into small amphibians by a shadowy figure, the protagonist gives chase.

This pursuit drives the Enchanter through what is arguably Infocom's most complex and varied geography yet. Somehow, miraculously, it is all part of a single, complementary pattern. This world is a marvel of design: surreal, dangerous, and fascinating. Dave Lebling's prose has the density of poetry. This is his finest writing and an underrated competitor to Trinity's excellent prose. The ending, which not only concludes a game or a trilogy but a six-game series, is impeccable: unexpected, ambiguous, thrilling. It seems impossible that anyone could stick such a landing, but Lebling makes it all seem rather effortless.

Why has its recognition been so long in coming? I think it is a harder game than many would like, but players have fortunately grown more comfortable seeking hints. It's art, not an ironman contest. Experience Spellbreaker on your own terms, but please do experience it. The writing alone is worth the trip. For those who enjoy puzzles, though, many brilliant, satisying, and, yes, difficult puzzles await. With only one exception, I found them as rewarding as they were fair. This is a game that filled its Commodore 64-compatible story format to the brim. There is no fat, and there are no misspent words.

One of the greatest works of interactive fiction ever made. I mean this sincerely.

There's a rather famous quote about the Velvet Underground's first album. It comes from an LA Times interview with Brian Eno:

“I was talking to Lou Reed the other day, and he said that the first Velvet Underground record sold only 30,000 copies in its first five years. Yet, that was an enormously important record for so many people. I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!"

In 1985, Steve Meretzky was hardly a Lou Reed. He was probably one of the better-known game developers in America, thanks to the success of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Infocom, for its part, was hardly Verve Records. They had published some of the most successful microcomputer games ever made, and were making a play for big, corporate software dollars.

And yet, for all of Infocom's lavish production and post-production resources, A Mind Forever Voyaging has the aspirational earnestness of a small art film. According to Jimmy Maher, people around the office referred to it as "Steve Meretzky's Interiors," an unflattering comparison to Woody Allen's 1978 film of the same name. In fairness to Meretzky's contemporaries, amused bafflement is a possible reaction to something that one has never seen, anticipated, or imagined.

I could go on like this for hours. In fact, I already have elsewhere. So let's let this review be a review. In A Mind Forever Voyaging, the player guides an artificial intelligence, Perry Simm, though various iterations of a simulated future. The point of the simulation is to evaluate the effects of a sweeping legislative package usually referred to as "The Plan." The author of said plan is "Richard Ryder," and he and his policies are meant to remind us of Ronald Reagan.

The gameplay here is radically different from what one would have been used to in 1985. Perry must observe and record events and conditions that the game considers significant in terms of enriching or expanding the simulation. The AI is expanding its data set, in other words, while we guide Perry through daily life in Rockvil, Dakota. What is popular entertainment like, for instance, across the decades following the implementation of The Plan? How does the Simm family - Perry, Jill, and little Mitchell - get on? How are things at Perry's favorite Chinese restaurant?

Contemporary reviewers sometimes gloss over these innovations, missing the significance of centering human experiences and relationships in interactive narratives in 1985. Perhaps it is because we see these things everywhere nowadays. It can be easy to miss the influence of A Mind Forever Voyaging because it is everywhere. It can be hard to find an absence from which we can begin, from which we can detect its presence.

It has problems as a video game, and some of those problems are serious. It is not always clear what data is and is not useful for Perry, which can lead to feelings of being stuck. There is a climactic puzzle that has no relationship to the gameplay in the rest of the game. A game should train the player for its endgame, which A Mind Forever Voyaging fails to do.

I encourage contemporary players to refer to the Invisiclues - written by Meretzky himself - when stuck. If you don't understand a word or phrase in a Shakespeare play, do you look it up? The language of 1980s interactive fiction can seem equally arcane. Sometimes, these old games can feel mechanically obsolete. Which is fine! We have resources to help us through them as needed.

Some critics have invested significant ink in characterizing the model of AI in AMFV as unrealistic or incredible, as if A Mind Forever Voyaging was ever meant to be about computers. Despite appearances, it is about human beings. Humans wielding power, humans making art, humans forging friendships and families. Humans getting old together, humans insisting - rather shockingly in this context - that care, thoughtfulness, and imagination are essential to well-lived lives.

That isn't true, of course.

There is no such thing that "everybody" loves, unless it is a good night's sleep. Still, Wishbringer is emblematic of the shifting critical fortunes of Infocom games over the years. If we consider this site's aggregation alongside Victor Gijsbers's top 50 polls, we might guess that only a handful of Infocom's games retain the stature that they enjoyed, say, twenty-five years ago. At last polling (2019), those most-loved games include Spellbreaker, Wishbringer, Zork I, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Suspended, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Trinity. The mix has shifted slightly in each successive poll, but Wishbringer has remained a constant. The aggregation tells an entirely different story: Planetfall, as only one example, is on the front page of IFDB games listed by rating!

Why Wishbringer? Much comes down to the talents of Brian Moriarty, who makes his stunning debut with this "Introductory" game for all audiences. The prose is descriptive and charming, and a "double world" of light and dark fills exploration with feelings of recognition and wonder. Its good-natured humor lacks the snark of so many Infocom games, and the experience is better for it.

The feelies and packaging only enhance the fairy-tale ambiance of the game and include a glow-in-the-dark "wishing stone" and an illustrated "Legend of Wishbringer" story. The story is darker than one might expect, but the quality of the content is excellent.

Regarding gameplay, I have "good news and bad news." The good news is that Wishbringer features multiple solutions to puzzles, which widens its audience and essentially offers multiple difficulties. This is an innovative approach that I'm not sure Infocom replicated elsewhere. (Spoiler - click to show)I wouldn't count Zork III's "hello sailor" solution, since that's more of an easter egg. If you can think of other cases, please mention them in a comment!

The bad news, at least for me as a little boy, is this: making wishes is the "easy" mode and awards no points. As a kid with a game called "Wishbringer" and a glowing wishing stone, I wanted to make wishes. I also wanted a high score. I cannot fault any child, young or old, for feeling disappointed.

I should recognize that this is still an Infocom game from the 1980's, which means that some of it will seem quite unfriendly to contemporary players, despite obvious efforts to make itself accessible to audiences of its time. In particular, one can make the game unwinnable early on without knowing. Wishbringer also punishes the player for (Spoiler - click to show)not drawing a map in a specific place, and it feels quite jarring in a game so friendly.

Still, these are all faults that Wishbringer manages to transcend. Don't let the "Introductory" designation fool you. This game is incredibly charming, very well written, and, whatever its failings might be, quite innovative in terms of its approach to difficulty. Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Suspect is the third and last of what I consider Infocom's "quantum detective" games. "Quantum," because the game world is in an indeterminate state. There are events and people moving and acting on a schedule, and it is not possible to know what is happening in a specific location at a given time without going there. While there, the player cannot know what is happening everywhere else. While we are with Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory, we may not know where Miss Scarlet is.

The first of those "quantum" games was Deadline. It was technically innovative and was, narratively, a satisfying locked door mystery. However, the nature of the indeterminate map made for a very complex geography, with time as an added dimension. Author Marc Blank mitigated these complexities with a reasonably-sized map and only a handful of suspects.

Even with these concessions, Deadline is considered hard-as-nails, and I can't imagine anyone saying, "I'd like another Deadline, only with more people, more traffic, and even a few more rooms." I've always assumed that Lebling fell in love with solving the technical problems posed by Suspect, ultimately losing sight of what might or might not constitute an enjoyable game experience. Those of us with interest in programming or even writing in general can probably relate. To Lebling's credit, Suspect is very impressive technically. I would say that, at the close of 1984, it was Infocom's most impressive technical achievement, unseating the previous, 18-month titleholder, Suspended.

In Suspect, the protagonist is, in fact, the primary suspect of a murder committed at a high society Halloween Ball. There are fun period details: a band plays "Karma Chameleon." The costumes are a nice touch and serve the greater purposes of gameplay and atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the complexity of the case will probably discourage many players. Several Infocom fans (myself included) name Suspect as one of the rare games that we either quit or else made an early beeline for hints. I personally could forgive this, but I can't look past the ommision of one of Deadline's defining charms: few of the characters have much, if anything, to say. While Deadline was incredibly generous with text responses, Suspect, having hit its 128K ceiling, is downright miserly. Sometimes, a character really ought to have a response to this or that thing, but all we get is a stock answer. It's jarring and frustrating. This happens, rather hilariously, with regard to the details of the murder, which really ought to be on everyone's mind.

There is presently only one review (besides mine) of this game here at IFDB, which I interpret as a lack of both contemporary interest and sentimental attachment. I personally cannot recommend it to anyone who does not have some sort of historical interest in either Infocom or the mystery genre. Still, technical competence or even brilliance is a redeeming factor. For this, I almost rated Suspect three stars, but it doesn't quite get there.

In just under a year, the best game of Lebling's career (and one of Infocom's best), Spellbreaker, would make for an incredible comeback story.

Just this morning, I witnessed two online conversants discuss the "overrated" nature of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Typically, I interpret the term "overrated" as an oblique yet economical way of saying "most people like this more than I do."

Still, since it was Infocom's second best-selling game after Zork I, it could be both overrated and quite good all at the same time. For those who have never heard of this game, it is based on approximately half of the beloved Douglas Adams novel of the same name. While I think it is a commonly-held belief that Steve Meretzky performed most of the technical development while Adams was responsible for the text (and was a co-designer of puzzles, perhaps), most researchers today know better. In fact, we generally accept that the game is almost entirely Meretzky's design, barring the source text (all Adams, obviously) and some significant consultations.

Like all of Meretzky's Infocom games (we can debate Zork Zero some other time), it's a worthwhile play for anyone interested in 1980s interactive fiction. His humorous prose blends perfectly with parts written by Adams (whether original or taken from the novel). This is a very funny game as a result, and I would say the laughs alone are worth the price of admission.

However, from a historical perspective, there are interesting formal innovations that truly set it apart, content aside. First, it includes several metatextual features that playfully subvert what we then expected out of a narrator-player relationship. Additionally, it was Infocom's first modular design, featuring multiple, small maps and more than one playable character. These features would have felt quite new and exciting back in 1984, even if they were overshadowed by the game's signature elements: Douglas Adams as author, humor, and possibly unreasonable puzzle design.

What of puzzles? The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is surprisingly difficult for a "Standard" difficulty game. In fact, the conventional wisdom is that it is "Standard" only because "Advanced" or "Expert" would have discouraged sales. I personally think it's harder than Starcross, that other difficult science fiction game. Players can easily lock themselves out of victory. In all honesty, they probably will. These conditions can feel quite cheap, as one can reach the penultimate move of the game, only to discover the impossibility of the situation.

What is comparable? The "flouresce" spell in Zork II, perhaps.

The Invisiclues are readily available online. Do yourself a favor and keep them close at hand. They are at least fun to read, written as they were by Steve Meretzky himself. If you are only interested in puzzles, or somehow dislike Adams or Meretzky, give this a pass. Otherwise, this is a very innovative game with Meretzky's best writing to-date. Highly recommended for players interested in 80s IF, Infocom, or the evolution of IF narrative stuctures. Alternately, just use the hints and laugh your way through.

Infocom released both Seastalker and Cutthroats in 1984. These two back-to-back releases reviewed poorly (relatively speaking, as Infocom games tended to review well) and didn't feature the long sales "tails" of Infocom's other catalog staples. In fact, after this bizarre instance of schedule-packing, Infocom would never release another seafaring adventure.

Of the two games, critics have been kinder to Cutthroats, and deservedly so. Occasionally, the inventiveness of Mike Berlyn (Suspended, Infidel) manages to break through, if only briefly. The first two thirds of the game takes place on Hardscrabble Island, a dangerous place where dangerous men brave dangerous danger while endangering one another. The characters are all seedy types, but a player may forgive their familiarity. We have come for just this sort of adventure with just this sort of people, after all, and they do not disappoint. There are characters named "rat" and "weasel," for instance, practically daring us to complain about too much of a good thing.

Unfortunately, the gameplay on Hardscrabble Island would be greatly improved by a cliche or two. The primary challenge is hiding pocket-sized objects without putting them in pockets, since the game becomes unwinnable should the owner/operator of the local marine salvage company see the protagonist carrying and/or doing a surprisingly large number of things. These failures don't always make sense, which can be forgiven if the play is fun. Unfortunately, it isn't, and it's a shame that Cutthroats takes so long to get to what most players are really interested in: diving for treasure.

On that front, the game acquits itself reasonably well. The wrecks (there are two) feel like Zorkian cave crawls with the exciting addition of underwater exploration. Sadly, these parts of the game are all too short and cannot compensate for the tedious bulk of Cutthroats's misadventures on dry land.

However, it is worth mentioning that Cutthroats features an interesting formal experiment: multiple game variants. In the course of the game, a randomly selected shipwreck (there are two possibilities, but the packaging and source code suggest that four were originally planned) becomes the goal for that playthrough. Unfortunately, the wreck is selected very early on, so the most boring parts of the game must be repeated before exploring the other wreck. Infocom would only attempt this sort of branching narrative structure one more time, in 1986's Moonmist.

Cutthroats was the first game to be released in the iconic "Gray Box" format, and featured a pleasantly mimetic bit of copy protection in a local historical society's booklet about local shipwrecks.

For its formal and metatextual innovations, I have awarded Cutthroats three stars, but compared with Infocom's better games it comes off quite badly. It's a shame that Mike Berlyn's considerable talents were squandered on the middling "Tales of Adventure" series of Infocom games. This would prove to be his last text adventure game at Infocom.