The Alpine Encounter

The James Bond setting in the Austrian Alps was fresh at the time and would still be promising. Everything else... Alpine Encounter's competitors in 1985 were games such as The Pawn, Nine Princes in Amber or Dragonworld. Textwise, Infocom released A Mind Forever Voyaging, Spellbreaker and Wishbringer that same year. On the graphics front, Mindscape released Déjà Vu in 1985. Alpine Encounter's has a two-word parser, sparse room descriptions, and lets you guess the essential commands in every damn room. Antiquated the moment it hit the shelves.