External Links


Game File
Newest release of Internal Vigilance
Requires a Z-Code interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

Internal Vigilance

by Simon Christiansen profile

Science Fiction
2005

Web Site

(based on 12 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

You are informed that a new prisoner was brought in recently. Your job, as usual, is to interrogate him and determine whether he poses a threat to The Union. This should not be a problem. You are a trained interrogator.


Game Details


Awards

10th Place - 11th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2005)

Editorial Reviews

SPAG
When writing this review, I've continually been aware that perhaps I'm taking
the game more seriously than it wants to be. I work at a human rights
organization directly involved with issues - U.S. detention and interrogation
policy, the proper role of civil liberties in wartime - which are very close
to those implicated by Eternal Vigilance. As a result, I found the premise of
being put in an interrogator's shoes and turned loose fascinating, if
disturbing, and was eager to explore the dynamics of security.
See the full review

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

I was the wrong audience at the wrong time for this game. Nevertheless, I am who I am and it is when it is, and since I’m the one writing this review I’m here to report that I found Internal Vigilance thudding and exasperating rather than the thought-provoking exercise I’m sure it was intended to be.
See the full review

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(1)
4 star:
(7)
3 star:
(3)
2 star:
(1)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 2
Write a review


7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Thought-provoking, July 5, 2010

Internal Vigilance is an extremely thought-provoking game – one where every action and its possible impact should be thought through twice. It starts out routinely enough: You are an agent for The Agency, which serves The Union, which apparently restricts the people’s freedom in exchange for keeping them protected. You are tasked with interrogating a terrorist suspect. At first I was intrigued with the many conversation possibilities for this interrogation. However, that’s the one part of the game that left me disappointed. The suspect appears to be well-characterized in the beginning, but some of his actions become a little perplexing when he breaks very abruptly. From the initial impression I got of this NPC, I expected the interrogation scene to be a bit lengthier. It seemed as if the author was trying to move the story along faster than it would move naturally in favor of the events that are waiting for the player in the next few chapters of the game.

That speeding up of the first scene turned out to be at least partially justified, because the events after it are indeed worth exploring in more detail. In the beginning of the next scene, I got the impression that Internal Vigilance was trying to give itself a surreal feel, where none was necessary. Fortunately, I was mistaken. What I mistook for a surreal, little gimmick is actually a clever metaphor and plot device. In fact, at the conclusion of the game you will learn just how much your choices during this part affect the outcome. Throughout Internal Vigilance, there are many choices that will drastically affect your ending and there were times where I stared at the screen for a few minutes before making one of those choices.

Unfortunately, there are some implementation errors in Internal Vigilance. They don’t take away from the general enjoyment of the game, but they did annoy me a bit in the beginning.

>Take papers
The desk it too heavy for that.

Little errors like that made me think that the author didn’t care enough to iron out the game before publishing it. In fact, there are even some minor grammar mistakes and typos that could have been fixed with a thorough read-through. But all of those mistakes can be forgiven, because the premise of the game serves as a brilliant, thought-provoking experiment into concepts like freedom, government stability, and patriotism. There are nine endings in total and each ending is affected by the little choices the PC makes as a solitary agent. And those little choices sometimes affect the entire structure of the world around the PC.

Internal Vigilance made me think – really think deeply before each step in the game. Going through the story didn’t feel effortless or instinctive. Every action was deliberate and laced with a small amount of bitterness for all the doors that closed when one opened. This isn’t a game for a lunch break or a relaxing afternoon. This one has a high replay value and you might find yourself going back and back and back and frantically trying to change your responses to change the final outcome.

But no one outcome feels completely victorious. There is always that one grain of doubt in every ending that makes you want to go back and change things for the better. And I loved that about Internal Vigilance.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A slightly futuristic game about moral choices and terrorism, February 3, 2016

In this game, you play an interrogator of a terrorism suspect. You can be quite cruel as an interrogator, leading to some interesting moral choices for the player (do you identify with the government, or the terrorists?). After this, the game opens up more into a type of spy thriller.

The version that I played was reasonably well-polished. There were no major bugs that I could find.

It has 9 different endings depending on how your moral choices play out. I only got one real ending and several death endings.

It has some memorable NPC's, and uses the ask/tell system of conversation.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

If you enjoyed Internal Vigilance...

Related Games

Other members recommend this game for people who like Internal Vigilance:

rendition, by nespresso
Average member rating: (38 ratings)
They caught Abdul during an insurgency in the east. He tried to take out a regiment with some home-made explosives strapped to his chest. They didn't explode, so pretty soon the coalition had a real live terrorist in their clutches. But...

Suggest a game

Recommended Lists

Internal Vigilance appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Spy games by MathBrush
Games involving espionage, whether military or industrial. I've tried to put a few especially good games first, but the rest are in no particular order. This list includes games of excellent quality as well as games of lower quality.

Danske teksteventyr by Duffadash
This is a list of Danish Interactive Fiction and Text Adventure games. More titles can be found on the CASA Solution Archive. http://solutionarchive.com/ As a game preservationist I work with registering and collecting all Danish games...




This is version 13 of this page, edited by Paul O'Brian on 10 May 2022 at 2:17am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page