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About the Story"The escapes continue. The patients are out of control. The asylum is terribly understaffed. As Dr. Hammer (the hospital administrator) you must uncover the truth about the so-called "Insanity Circle" in the midst of this unending chaos." [--blurb from Competition '99]Game Details
Language: English (en)
First Publication Date: October 1, 1999 Current Version: 1.1 License: Freeware Development System: QuickBASIC Baf's Guide ID: 560 IFID: Unknown TUID: xt96319ebnlsh0l2 |
Awards
Nominee, Best Game; Nominee, Best Writing; Nominee, Best Story; Nominee, Best Puzzles - 1999 XYZZY Awards
12th Place - 5th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (1999)
Editorial Reviews
Baf's Guide

-- Duncan Stevens
>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page
[T]he story and puzzles aren't great, but they aren't terrible either. Unfortunately, the combination of fair-to-middling plot with really-irritating parser makes the game less fun to play than it should be. See, (he said, mounting his soapbox) an IF game is a fusion of parser and story. The beauty of the modern IF languages is that they have freed designers from most of the hassle of worrying about the parser, allowing them to focus the bulk of their creative energy on the story. When a game eschews these time-tested solutions, it doesn't just double its work, but increases it exponentially. Lunatix, strong as it is, isn't quite up to the task.
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This is a hidden gem. This game was nominated for 4 xyzzy awards, including Best Game. The author also wrote two other Best Game nominees, Distress and Tales of the Travelling Swordsman.
This game is not played often because it is a homebrew parser game, written in QBasic, only playable in a DOS emulator. It was not hard for me at all to get this, though, as described below.
(The following discussion describes how to play the game. It is under spoilers to save space):(Spoiler - click to show)
Lunatix can only be played on a DOS emulator, as far as I can tell. Several people recommended I use DOSbox, which is a well-known, easy to use emulator. The game played great! I followed instructions by Juhana
type the following commands once DOSbox is started:
"mount c path/to/" (where path/to/ is the directory on your computer where you unzipped the game. For instance, I had it in a folder called temporary, so I typed "mount c C:\temporary")
"c:" (this changes the current folder to the one you defined as c: earlier)
"lunatix" (this runs the game. I recommend doing "lunatix /t /m" to play in pure text mode without it locking your mouse. The game has great graphics, but I'm used to just text. I loved the picture of the squid, though)
The game is about exploring a large asylum as the director, one who has lost control of the asylum to the insane, who force you to take a drug trip.
The game is pretty humorous, like a less-profane version of Blue Chairs with slightly more reality. The building is like the hospital in One Eye Open without any gore.
The puzzles include a mix of searching (the hidden locations follow patterns, so once you get used to hit, you can find everything), and passwords/codes, which also aren't too hard. It's definitely a 90's game, with some puzzles just for the sake of puzzles. I really enjoy games from this era.
The setting is great; the inmates have their own language, money, economy, etc.
The parser is not as bad as I was led to believe; however, I had a walkthrough, so I knew when to guess the verb and when not to. I would rate it above Infocom and below a customized set of Inform responses.
The game is mid-length.
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Recommended Lists
Lunatix - The Insanity Circle appears in the following Recommended Lists:Medical games by MathBrush
These are games that have a medical theme of some sort, including medical simulators, medical horror, and games featuring doctors. Feel free to suggest others! (Items 8-15 suggested by David Welbourn)
Games of Infocom quality and length (or better) by MathBrush
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Forgotten Treasures of IFDB by MathBrush
These are games that are great, either in my opinion or in many others, but which have been forgotten. By forgotten, I mean it satisfies the following: 1. Not an IfComp or XYZZY Best Game winner, 2. Not in Best 50 Interactive Fiction...
Polls
The following polls include votes for Lunatix - The Insanity Circle:Your favorite homebrew parser by MathBrush
Homebrew games don't get a lot of love here, but some of them are pretty good. What is your favorite homebrew game?
This is version 11 of this page, edited by Merk on 26 October 2013 at 7:35pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item