Trinity

After a rekindled interest in interactive fiction and seeing that many prominent adventure game developers cite Trinity as a major source of inspiration, I was eager to pick it up and play through it myself.

To start, looking back at the game after having completed it and comparing it to other IF games I've played, Trinity really is a gem. The world building is phenomenal! The story is fairly minimal, but enough to give you purpose and remains relevant throughout. Each area is completely unique and the writing tells of vibrant, surreal landscapes. Your never know what lies around the next corner or through the next door, and that makes it an absolute blast to explore!

Mechanically the game is mostly well designed. The map is more of a grid than the sprawling caverns and mazes of other Infocom-era IF, which while being less interesting to map out does make it easier to map out and get from place to place. Most areas of the game have (Spoiler - click to show)a time limit but these areas are (Spoiler - click to show)small enough and the (Spoiler - click to show)time limits generous enough that the player (Spoiler - click to show)rarely feels rushed. There are a few puzzles that feel extremely unfair (e.g. (Spoiler - click to show)giving the paper to the girl to make the bird or (Spoiler - click to show)getting the winged boots) and a few that require the player to know particular, uncommon terms for things (e.g. (Spoiler - click to show)WTF is a perambulator?!?! - It's a baby carriage! What is a skink? - It's a lizard.) but the majority are good. There are a few puzzles that are so cleverly designed that when you happen upon them the solution seems obvious, and you're almost right but not quite, and figuring out the single small missing step is so immensely satisfying!

The final section of the game did start to try my patience. That area, unlike the others, is (Spoiler - click to show)so large that it's difficult to (Spoiler - click to show)map and it (Spoiler - click to show)feels like there is really nothing there. The (Spoiler - click to show)timer is also (Spoiler - click to show)far more strict than in the other areas. With how surreal and magical the rest of the game had been up to that point, it became difficult to get my thinking in the right headspace because just about anything could be possible. That made it very frustrating trying to think through exactly what to do.

Overall, it is a great game and definitely a pivotal inspiration for anyone who might want to write their own adventures, textual or graphical. It could use some polish here and there and some better telegraphing for certain puzzles, but I strongly recommend anyone interested in adventure games to play through this one!