T-Zero

Baf's Guide

A peculiar game of wordplay and paradox, kind of like Nord and Bert crossed with Trinity under the direction of Douglas Hofstadter. The setting is a surreal land, dominated by a black obelisk that houses Count Zero's machinery of oppression. You must to put an end to his schemes through time travel. Many of the puzzles are more associative than logical, and in many cases rely on literary allusion. Lots of freedom, lots of good puzzles, one novel but mappable maze, a T. S. Eliot scene, a couple of drug references, and an approximate average of three or four puns per sentence (which, oddly, enhances the atmosphere). An irritating beep fanfare plays when your score increases. Allegedly, it can be disabled by the SOUND command, which, on my system, simply causes the program to break.

Notable nonstandard features include the commands "WHERE", which tells you the last location whre you saw an object or character, and "FIND", which puts you on autopilot bound for that location. These commands are not available from the beginning, but must be activated within the plot of the game. Normally, I would frown on such confusion of form and content, but it actually fits the self-referential tone of the work.

-- Carl Muckenhoupt