Moonmist

Like Seastalker, which I reviewed earlier this week, Moonmist is an Infocom game aimed at younger interactors. However, Moonmist is far more successful. Rather than writing down to children, or assuming that for a kid being given responsibility is enough of a thrill, we are treated to a solid combination of gothic horror and detective stories that is quite enjoyable for readers of any age.

This is not to say that Moonmist's plot and characterisation are deep: this is standard stuff. We are in an old castle. The previous lover of the young local lord has died or been killed; his new lover, a female friend of ours, has been threatened. In addition, a ghost haunts the castle. And finally, the previous lord has hidden a fabled treasure somewhere on the premises and uses hidden clues and audio-taped messages to direct us towards it. The eight guests, all of whom might be somehow implicated in the plot, are quite stereotypical: the older female artist, the grumpy doctor, the young débutante, and so on. Nevertheless: stuff is going on, the characterisations are miles beyond those of Seastalker, the British setting is British, there is atmosphere, the descriptions are almost lush, and we even get Edgar Allen Poe quotes.

After an introductory sequence, gameplay mostly consists of searching the castle for clues. There are of course secret passages, cryptic clues (including wordplay and riddles), and lots of hidden objects. You will be spending a lot of your time walking through the castle, which is large, and although you will unfortunately need to read some of the room descriptions from the feelies (hello, copy protection scheme!) this is generally enjoyable. Plus, you can instantly go to any room, person or object you have previously seen. With several different tasks to perform (follow the clues to the treasure, find out who the ghost is, find out what really happened to the dead woman) you won't quickly run out of ideas, especially since the difficulty isn't high. One tip: if you successfully "search" something, do it again, because there can be more than one object hidden.

At the beginning of the game, you are asked to state your favourite colour. This seems an innocuous question, but it is actually very important: choosing red, blue, green or yellow starts one of four completely different scenarios. (Choosing another colour will randomly select one.) The treasure will be different, hidden in a different place, and different clues will lead to it. The ghost will be someone else, and the real story behind the death will be different too. Thus, Moonmist is really four games in one; and although solving one will help you solve the others, it will far from make it automatic.

All in all, then, very enjoyable. It's not in the end truly memorable, but as a relaxed gothic detective romp, there is nothing wrong with it either. Three-and-a-half stars.

While I do not have a long history with interactive fiction games, I have had a blast working through the Infocom canon and select other more modern offerings. Moonmist, unfortunately, is the first one I have played that I really didn't care for. This is a fairly long review, but I feel the context is important to my takeaway.

I can certainly appreciate some of the interesting or unique things Moonmist attempts: Packing four entirely different stories into a single setting is a clever concept, the castle is a interesting locale, and the large cast of characters all with real-time schedules pulls the player into feeling like they're in the very center of an Agatha Christie Who-Done-It!

That however is where my praise ends. I found the interactions with this game very clunky and the writing very poor compared to the other games I've played.

To start off, as mentioned there are four different mystery stories each considered a different difficulty level. Confoundingly, you select which one you want to play by answering the question "What is your favorite color?" posed to you at the beginning of the game. Not having any knowledge of this mechanic, I answered the question truthfully ("Green") which apparently put me on the shortest and "easiest" story.

In each story there are 3 mysteries you must solve:

1. Who is the ghost?
2. Where is the treasure?
3. Who committed the crime?

You have until 7:00am to solve all these mysteries or the police will show up and take over the investigation from you.

None of this, however, is made clear to the player. If you read the letters included in the game box, you'll learn your friend Tamara believes there is a ghost that is trying to kill her and has asked you to come investigate. (If you don't, you will have no context at all about why are you here as none is offered in the game itself.) You are not told anything about any treasure nor of any actual crime being committed. The game forces you along a fairly pre-scripted path until a dinner event where you learn about the treasure.

Much of my criticism of this game comes from my experience during my first (and only) playthrough and how poorly the game unfolded, so I will relay those experiences along with my thoughts on them. Perhaps the other variations would have played out better? I don't know.

Knowing nothing about the above objectives, I figure I'm only here to help Tamara identify the ghost so I pay no mind to the treasure side-quest. Once the first steps of that finish playing out (during which I receive two clues to the treasure's location) I am finally able to explore the castle. I wander from room to room just looking around to learn what I can. This turns out to be very little, as most rooms contain very short descriptions with little to no visual detail. Descriptions shouldn't be so overly detailed that the player feels like they're reading rather than playing, but there is such a thing as being too sparse.

A simple but effective example from Zork II is the description of the Circular Room:

This is a damp circular room, whose walls are made of brick and mortar. The roof of this room is not visible, but there appear to be some etchings on the walls. There is a passageway to the west.

This is a far more engaging and immersive description compared to Moonmist's typical offering. One such example is that of Hyde's Bedroom:

Hyde's bedroom has many tasteful antiques, such as an armchair in one corner.

The antiques cannot be examined, and the only detail offered about the armchair is "There's nothing on it." While there is the occasional room that describes enough to allow the player to build some kind of picture in their mind, the vast majority are barren and lifeless. A couple rooms even go so far as to have no in-game description at all, instead saying only that "It looks even lovelier than it sounds in the tourist brochure." Bafflingly, descriptions of these rooms are only available in a pamphlet included in the game box (there is a tourist brochure in the player's luggage, but it seems to have no use and is not readable). While these materials are thankfully preserved and available online, having to refer to an external resource just to know what objects might be in the room with me is immensely frustrating. I assume this was done due to technical limitations, but given how short the descriptions could have been and how little detail is provided elsewhere I have a hard time believing that was an impassable hurdle.

At this point, I happen to enter (Spoiler - click to show)the library. I discover (Spoiler - click to show)a notebook on the shelf and (Spoiler - click to show)upon reading it I am informed "Congratulations! You've found evidence of the crime!". Crime? What crime?! (Spoiler - click to show)The notebook mentions that Dr. Wendish had been experimenting on his patients and may have killed the "granddau" [sic] of someone named Poldark. Okay... No clue who that is, and I guess it *is* a crime, but it's not what I'm here to solve. Up to this point I have found nearly no evidence of a ghost at all. The only lead I have is (Spoiler - click to show)a sighting by the butler which led me to find a missing contact lens, but after asking everyone about it the trail ran cold with no new details whatsoever.

With no other direction to go in, (and after having played the delightful Toby's Nose) I decide to (Spoiler - click to show)"ACCUSE Dr. Wendish". Lord Jack appears and holds Wendish hostage, but nothing else happens. With no new leads as to the ghost's identity, I try my hand at finding the treasure. Deciphering the clues I have proves very simple and I am quickly led to (Spoiler - click to show)the Office to collect an inkwell. Examining the (Spoiler - click to show)inkwell reveals "Congratulations! You've found the hidden treasure!" and (Spoiler - click to show)"Inside the inkwell is Moonmist." Uh... okay? I don't know what (Spoiler - click to show)"Moonmist" is, but progress I guess? (There is a (Spoiler - click to show)journal on the desk in the office that explains what (Spoiler - click to show)Moonmist is, but at this point I have stopped interacting with most objects unless I am explicitly directed to. The vast majority of objects in the game say only "You shouldn't take that." or "That won't help solve this case." when you attempt to do anything with them which has discouraged me from even attempting to do so.)

Unfortunately I still have no leads on the one mystery that I actually am here to solve - the identity of the ghost! I wander all over the castle. I check every room, every (Spoiler - click to show)secret passage, and ask everyone about everything I can possibly think of. No one knows anything. There are a couple new ghost sightings, but no details that generate a lead or even a hint of suspicion. I explore the garden maze, the castle basement, and repeatedly try to (Spoiler - click to show)follow the cliff-side path and (Spoiler - click to show)enter the servant's quarters, both of which the game basically just says "You can't do that."

I do discover two additional frustrations though. After wandering around and around and trying everything I can think of, the clock turns 7:00am and I learn that I have a time limit to solve the mysteries. This is when I turn to the invisiclues which suggest I ask people about the ghost, but it's after 1:00am and everyone is asleep so I can't ask anyone anything. Even if you wake them up, you just get told "They are too sleepy to answer."

At my wits end, I submit to the invisiclues further. It suggests I look (Spoiler - click to show)in Dr. Wendish's medical kit. I do so and discover (Spoiler - click to show)a contact lens case! Brushing off my frustration (I had previously tried to interact with (Spoiler - click to show)the medical kit only to be told "You shouldn't do that." - (Spoiler - click to show)I must have tried to take it rather than look inside it.) I asked (Spoiler - click to show)Wendish about the case, but he just claims it's not his. I restore to an earlier point (before everyone was asleep), retrieve the (Spoiler - click to show)lens case, and ask everyone else about it, but again no one knows anything!

One more time to the invisiclues. "Check the (Spoiler - click to show)medical kit again." Now I'm fuming. Looking again (Spoiler - click to show)in the medical kit reveals the (Spoiler - click to show)ghost's costume: a flowing white gown and blonde wig... Completely and totally hidden (Spoiler - click to show)beneath the contact lens case I suppose...

You see, because I had (Spoiler - click to show)accused Dr. Wendish earlier in the evening and in this variation of the story (Spoiler - click to show)he happened to also be the ghost, it meant that none of the encounters with the ghost were allowed to play out. On top of this, the game sometimes requires you to examine the same thing multiple times in order to fully search it. It gives a loose indication when this happens (It briefly mentions "You stopped searching.") but this happens so rarely and is so easy to miss that it feels like the game is just being spiteful. These combined led me to having absolutely no clue what to do or what I was missing, but through no obvious fault of my own.

There were additional frustrations I encountered throughout such as the clunky way dialogue must be conducted exclusively with phrases structured as commands, or how the majority of objects in the castle have the mysterious description of "You look over the <object> for a minute and find nothing suspicious -- for now." but which never become relevant, but I think I've hit the major turn-offs I experienced and this review is well long enough already.

Suffice it to say while there is an interesting idea or two here, I found Moonmist to be an extremely frustrating game and a severe low point compared to its siblings in the Infocom catalog. It's not so much that the puzzles or mysteries were difficult, rather that the writing, structure, and implementation of the game are not even remotely close to the quality I've come to expect from Infocom games. This may be a biased take as I've only really played some of their highest-rated games so far, but among those are their earliest games so it is disappointing that their twenty-second game feels like it throws away everything learned from all that came before it.

Moonmist is an interactive fiction computer game written by Stu Galley and Jim Lawrence and published by Infocom in 1986.

** Be sure to grab the "extras" package on the internet - originally paper brochures that came in the original packaging, they will enhance your experience if you can grab them as a pdf and read prior to starting the game.

The player's character is a young detective, asked by friend Tamara Lynd to investigate her new home of Tresyllian Castle in Cornwall, England. Tamara has recently become engaged to the castle's lord, Jack Tresyllian. She was very happy until she began seeing what appeared to be The White Lady, a ghost who has allegedly haunted the castle for centuries.

As if seeing a ghost wasn't nerve-racking enough, she's also begun to fear for her life. Is Tamara's imagination just overly excited from living in a large old castle, or is someone really trying to kill her? And if her life is in danger, is it from a ghost or someone using it as a disguise?

I enjoyed the atmosphere created, and exploring an old coastal castle and its secrets was fun. It could have used more depth and playability (perhaps instead of splitting it into 4 parts that doesn't really extend playability, just shorten it?)

Interesting twist when I realised the consequences to answering my favorite colour at the start, and not just that the guest room happened to be made in that colour!

Well worth a few hours of your time.