Planetfall

by Steve Meretzky

Episode 1 of Planetfall series
Science Fiction
1983

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- Durafen, September 26, 2019

- Otheym, August 18, 2019

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Great early Infocom game, February 1, 2019
by Michael Roberts (Seattle, Washington)

This is one of my favorite Infocom games. I think it stands out as an important transitional game in Infocom's early years that was hugely influential on their later games, and we all know Infocom was hugely influential on IF in general. One of Planetfall's best-known innovations is of course Floyd, probably the first attempt at an NPC sidekick. The bag of tricks the game used to make Floyd seem continuously present and interactive formed the basis of NPCs in countless subsequent works. The innovation that was more important to me, though, was less about technology and more about the game design philosophy. Planetfall was deliberately designed to be fair to the player. It probably doesn't qualify as "merciful" by modern standards, as it did let you back yourself into an unwinnable corner, but its puzzles were logical, consistent, and well clued; at no point did you have to read the author's mind or exhaustively try every VERB+OBJECT combination. That was a huge break from the fashion of the time, which conceived of the adventure game as a contest between designer and player without any constraints on the designer's sadistic omnipotence. There was a certain pleasure in beating a game that had such blatantly unfair rules, but even the most obsessive players got tired of that after seeing one or two such games. IF wouldn't have endured (even to the limited extent it has) if the design philosophy behind Planetfall hadn't come about.

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- mils32k, January 7, 2019

- Greg Frost (Seattle, Washington), July 25, 2018

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A fading star lost in time, May 4, 2017
by Form 27b-6 (Southern California)

Oh boy here's a tricky one. Now it's never a good feeling to trample people's memories, or to snatch their pink glasses, but it's necessary to give an honest assessment of the game, in its original context, but also in light of all the achievements made in IF since then.

At its core, Planetfall is a straightforward castaway story, in a science-fiction setting reminiscent of old classics from the sixties. Planetfall has an air of Forbidden Planet, sidekick A.I included, and it's not without charm. You'll be accompanied in your journey by Floyd, a valiant, talkative little robot, who was probably one of the early forays in NPC A.I. Planetfall fans never fail to mention him, along with Steve Meretzky's humour and clever exposure of the planet's backstory. Like I alluded to earlier, all these things are true, if you place them in the context of 1983. Back then, it was impressive to have a NPC deliver a few scripted contextual lines. Back then, it was innovative to force the player to manage fatigue and food. Back then puzzles came down to using the right item at the right place. But the cold reality is that today none of this is new, and frankly, none of it is very much fun anymore. Mechanics aside, I also have a few more personal grudges. I think the author misses the mark at a few crucial moments. The exposure, tone, and pacing are a bit off at times, and the ending seems rushed. (Spoiler - click to show)Reviving Floyd goes against the tonal duality present during the entire story; I have nothing against a Hollywood happy end but it does the game a disservice in that case.

Now the game is not without qualities; whether it is how it conveys a sense of isolation, or how it manages to incorporate humour in an otherwise dramatic setting. And yes Floyd can be cute, without a doubt. The author makes good use of baits and misdirections, yet I found the game very easy, and managed to get the highest score in a few days without hints, so it probably makes a good candidate for newcomers, as long as they're willing to forgive the dated game design;
Among the major problems are a very crude parser, borderline bugged, some frustrating backtracking, and an annoying inventory management. As for Floyd, anything more than basic interaction breaks its code, and you may feel like you're peeking behind the curtain. Score calculation is also questionable. (Spoiler - click to show)For instance you can beat the game without ever having to go to the kitchen, relying only on the survival kit. However, this will only give you a 76 out of 80, in spite of the fact that you completed all the game's objectives, in less time that it would take to go to the kitchen. So the game grants you four points for accessing the useless kitchen, instead of rewarding optimized play.

At this point you've probably understood my point; Planetfall is a decent game, better than most in its time, but it's not the legend some may describe. It's not to say you shouldn't give it a chance, but you'll have to do so with the kind indulgence its venerable age deserves.

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- ifMUD_Olly (Montana, USA), April 21, 2017

- Denk, December 11, 2016

- winterfury (Russia), December 10, 2016

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Fun sci-fi Infocom game, but too many red herrings and empty rooms for me, February 3, 2016

Planetfall is many people's favorite IF of all time, so I knew it would be hard for it to live up to the hype. However, I think I just don't like Meretzky's style (e.g. Sorceror, the puzzles in Hitchhiker's Guide, etc.). He tends to favor big, mostly-empty complexes with many useless items thrown in to make it hard to find the real puzzles.

This worked for me in A Mind Forever Voyaging, but in Planetfall, I felt like I was just walking through an abandoned warehouse. I much prefer Moriarity's tightly-interlocking puzzle style, or Lebling and Blank's rich puzzle variety.

In planetfall, you play a lowly ensign in space who crash lands on a deserted planet, meeting a friendly robot named Floyd and trying to discover what happened. The resolution of the puzzles and storyline is satisfying, and the writing has several high points.

I recommend this game, but not as high as the Enchanter trilogy, Moriarity's games, or even Ballyhoo, which I loved.

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6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Doesn't hold up, January 4, 2016

As I write this, Planetfall is #7 on the IFDB top 100, narrowly beating out Trinity and Blue Lacuna. No doubt it was one of Infocom's best, but now it has to be judged against the best games of the 21st century; it just doesn't hold up.

The sprawling map full of empty rooms with nothing interesting in them, the simplistic NPC conversation mechanism (wouldn't it be cool if you could "ask floyd about achilles"?), but above all the gotcha-game cruelty, where you're never sure if you just permanently locked yourself out of solving a puzzle.

We used to think this was just part of what IF had to be like. This game was an important historical milestone, but now, we've moved beyond it.

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- CasualGamer33356, October 14, 2015

- Robb Sherwin (Colorado), August 5, 2015

- Thrax, March 11, 2015

- morlock, January 14, 2015

- Janice M. Eisen (Portland, Oregon), November 10, 2014

- shornet (Bucharest), April 9, 2014

- MattC, February 2, 2014

- KidRisky (Connecticut, USA), December 20, 2013

- Hotspur, September 23, 2013

Adventure Classic Gaming

The game's greatest strength is its plot. Although relatively simple in itself, it is developed with control that rivals a novel. The details are revealed slowly. The goal becomes clearer to the careful reader as clues hidden in locations come together to paint a picture of what has happened and what must happen in order for you to return heroically to Stellar Patrol. In contrast, the game's greatest weakness is its inventory management. Inventory juggling has always been a problem in adventures. Most adventure gamers accept the fact that there is a limit to how much the player can carry. In most games, an item is included which allows the player to carry more without destroying the delicate limits of belief. Unfortunately, no such item exists in Planetfall. Worse is the fact that I try to pick up an item but only to find it tumbling to the ground along with some other items of importance. This happens a lot, sometimes in almost endless successions. Moreover, there is a lack of challenging puzzles. Beyond inserting objects in slots most puzzles can be easily solved by dying, working out what has gone wrong, and then trying something different. Floyd is integral to a couple of challenges and should have been used to much greater effect.
-- John Campbell

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- Lipa (Slovenia), June 3, 2013

- hyst3ria, March 23, 2013

- Jimmy Gonzolo (New Mexico), January 21, 2013

- EatenByAGrue, January 3, 2013


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