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- Phil Riley, March 24, 2023
- jrc (Stockholm, Sweden), January 7, 2023
- dvs, September 28, 2022
The First IF Murder Mystery (Source code available!), May 31, 2022
This was the first non-fantasy game from Infocom and the first ever interactive fiction murder mystery game. It's a difficult game, for sure. I still have not completed the game, but it is worth trying out. (Infocom's Witness is definitely easier, and perhaps a better place to start.)
The game was reissued many times in the Infocom Masterpieces and Lost Treasures series. The original manual, maps, hints are all pretty widely available on various sites.
Interestingly enough there was an authorized Inform 6 rewrite whose source code is available in IFDB (though I wish there was a compiled binary file) and the original (slightly impenetrable) ZIL source code has also been posted.
If only someone would rewrite this in Inform7!
- cgasquid (west of house), February 13, 2022
- unWinnable State (unWinnableState.com), March 31, 2021
3 of
3 people found the following review helpful:
Fun, groundbreaking game (but you will need a few hints), August 14, 2020I had heard and read about this game a lot before I played it, so I was expecting the worst as far as unfair puzzles go. In the end I thought that with a few notable exceptions, the game wasn't that hard, though I say that having played Zork and accepted my fate that any Infocom game would likely take a dozen playthroughs before you got close to beating it.
I loved the NPCs and their interactions with you and the environment. I loved that you couldn't just guess the right person as the murderer, that you had to gather evidence as well or you couldn't reach the ultimate ending. This game is ground breaking in introducing mysteries as an IF genre, and for a maiden voyage I think I did a pretty good job. You will need a few hints, but I think you will enjoy it.
(Spoiler - click to show)
It probably goes without saying, but digging around the holes in the rose garden for evidence, and the timing of catching George with an open safe in the hidden closet are the two puzzles that it would have been extremely difficult to solve without hints. Additionally, I think the final collection of evidence you obtain to "win" the game is a little thin when judged by the standards of modern murder mysteries.
- Zape, June 3, 2020
- Otheym, August 18, 2019
- Denk, September 26, 2017
- nosferatu, July 15, 2017
- Spike, February 26, 2017
1 of
1 people found the following review helpful:
Intricate, beautiful, a bit unfair. Infocom's first mystery and realistic game, February 3, 2016I loved Deadline. I didn't get too far on my own in solving the mystery, but I spent a long time exploring and having fun.
This is a mystery game, where a man has been found dead, and you have to investigate the house and people in it. Everyone walks around, has scripted events, etc. I asked everyone about everyone else, examined the crime scene, etc.
I missed an important verb which is listed in the manual, and which you are supposed to know from the beginning; typing ANALYZE or ANALYZE [SOMETHING] FOR [SOMETHING] sends someone to analyze stuff for you.
Now so many other games make sense. For instance, Jon Ingold's Make It Good really borrows a lot from this game, and now I realize it must have been an intentional homage, meant to help and mislead the experienced gamer (which I wasn't when I played it).
Deadline was an early experiment in timed and scripted events, as well as extensive conversation.. Games like Varicella or Pytho's Mask may not have existed without this one.
It' s also very hard, in unfair ways. I recommend eventually settling on a walkthrough. Like the great novels of the 1600's-1800's, it was designed to last for a long period of time in the absence of other material.
- CasualGamer33356, October 14, 2015
2 of
2 people found the following review helpful:
Deadline, June 9, 2015My dad bought a copy of this when I was about eight years old. I spent the next three years trying to complete it, and the following twenty annoyed at the fact I never did.
Eventually, I got to download it again and finally completed it last year.
I've only ever played one other IF game (so far) so I don't have much to compare it to, but I've never played anything else that kept me hooked for twenty years.
For me, the characters are believable, the plot makes sense and everything you do has some kind of purpose (rather than being some random action). It's difficult though, because there are some things that have to be done at certain times.
- Thrax, March 12, 2015
- shornet (Bucharest), March 23, 2014
- KidRisky (Connecticut, USA), December 20, 2013
- Hotspur, September 23, 2013
- Shadow Fox (Texas), April 17, 2013
- The Custodian (The Cloud), April 10, 2013
- Jimmy Gonzolo (New Mexico), January 21, 2013
0 of
1 people found the following review helpful:
Great Infocom mystery, November 13, 2012The first non-Zork game Infocom did, which means the parser doesn't understand a lot of abbreviations which most of us take for granted.
However, don't let that stop you: the writing is where the game really shines.
You're a detective who's got excactly 12 hours to prove that the suicide of Mr.Robner was in fact a murder, and prove who did it. You do this by investigating his mansion and questioning the people there. These are some of the most fleshed out NPS's you'll see in a game of this era. They react to a lot of items you show them.
The puzzles are logical and satisfying to solve, but still quite difficult. I found myself using the InvisiClues a lot.
My conclusion: one of the best mysteries Infocom did, if not the best.
- Puddin Tame (Queens, NY), October 27, 2012
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