.IF DSK1.C3 .CE 2 *IMPACT/99* by Jack Sughrue DISAPPEARING GAMES .IF DSK1.C2  At one time you could get ZORK II from INFOCOM. No more. It is one of the great disappearing games of the TI Era. What will be next? INFIDEL? THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY? WITNESS? ENCHANTER? Or the most peculiar SUSPENDED? Who knows? But when these and the following are gone from INFOCOM's stock, there will be no more: DEADLINE, STARCROSS, ZORK I && III, SORCERER, PLANETFALL, and CUTTHROATS. This baker's dozen of games from the most creative adventuring minds in the computer business are all that's left for the 99. And, while the price is still around $45 on the average for the IBM, Apple, and Commodore versions of the same games, TI owners have an opportunity to get them for $14.95 each. (Actually $16.95 each as it costs an additional $2 per game for shipping and handling, as it does for IBM (for a total of $47). Let's say you plan to get 10 of these extraordinary (and very long) games. For the TI - $169.50; for the others - $469.50! This is one of the best buys in the industry. You could buy the whole dozen for less than half a dozen of the others. Are they worth $46.95? They sure do sell at that price. And if you've ever played one of the games (particularly with friends), you will understand. Some of the games take months. I have not finished the Zork series which I started four years ago. With Infocom you don't just get the two disk sides, you get a whole environment. In HITCHHIKER, for example, you got a space travel booklet, aDON'T PANICbutton, a handbook, a pair of very unusual glasses, a microscopic space fleet, and numerous other essentials. DEADLINE includes all the clues the detective uncovers in the process of the investigation. SUSPENDED has - er, a sort of movement thingie like a gameboard sort of and - uh - stuff. You buy an environment. And you play it a lot, get deeply involved (forgetting the incessant crises of reality), and, when finished (IF finished), put it away for your grandchildren. Each game is worth playing again even after you've achieved victory (or whatever it's called in SUSPENDED) because there is more than one way to skin the Bugbladder Beast of Tral. If you've never played an adventure game of any kind, I'd suggest you begin with the easiest adventures you can find. They are in many user-group libraries. Many of them are poor, but they give you a good idea of the process of play. Next, move up to American Software's series (Wizard's Dominion, Haunted House, Stone Age, and so on, probably starting with Aqua Base, the easiest). These and the other series can be ordered throught the standard sources: Tenex, Triton, Texcomp. Once you have worked through these successfully, step up to Scott Adams Adventures. In addition to the old standbys (Pirate Adventure, Voodoo Castle, The Count, Ghost Town, Savage Island I && II, Adventureland, Secret Mission, Strange Odyssey, Mystery Fun House, Pyramid of Doom, The Golden Voyage, and Ghost Town, there are three relatively new releases: Spiderman, The Hulk, and Buckaroo Banzai. (There's also an ADVENTURE EDITOR available to create your own with the Adam's system - and, of course, the expensive hint books, which can be gotten for each INFOCOM game, also.) You'll need the cartridge (which is very INEXPENSIVE these days) and cassettes or disks with the games. Some of these adventures are not easy. If they were easy they wouldn't be worth playing. But they are all fun. Particularly if you CHANGE your way of thinking. If you problem-solve in fantastic ways you will succeed readily. When something seems impossible, try the impossible. And be organized. Make maps, take notes. Play the adventure with others. Then, if you still enjoy this kind of adventuring, go to INFOCOM. There are lots of graphics-type adventures around, too. TUNNELS OF DOOM adventures (also with a new TOD EDITOR to create your own), OLD DARK CAVES, the wonderful LEGENDS, things like that. Excellent! But INFOCOM's and Scott Adams's are strictly in the theater of the mind. They are totally text adventures. Nothing equals them. They are novels in which YOU are the main character. Called "interactive fiction," they are the mind-stretchingest literary computer activities you can engage in. Even kids like them. But they have to be bright kids and at least junior high age. If worse comes to worse and you get deeply stuck inside one of your new INFOCOM worlds, you could always come out and buy an Invisiclue Book from INFOCOM that will let you uncover inch-by-inch the method needed to solve the particular adventure you are working on. They sell a lot of these books, but no one of my adventuring acquaintance has ever owned up to getting one of these clue books. I certainly wouldn't use them. (Heh, heh!) There are also adventure columns in many newsletters. These give lots of clues or a map or a helpful hint or two. (The best of this type of thing is Australia's HUNTER VALLEY 99ers newsletter. There are also many adventure books. Some are just books of clues and hints to MANY games (INFOCOM and Adams included). Others go step by step through the creation of your own adventures. These, for the most part are exceptionally good, COMPUTE's being a tie with Tim Hartnell's as the best. Meanwhile, back at the adventure plant, IFOCOM is up to something. They have just released their latest catalog. The prices (and the games for TI while they last) are good. However, a few more have disappeared. This may be your last opportunity to own these wonderful "worlds". To order send a check to INFOCOM, PO Box 478, Cresskill, NJ 07626. Ask to be put on their mailing list to receive their zany newsletters (now being sold as classics in packages for $10). Give the title of the game (see above). Be sure to specify that these are for the TI-99/4A (as they also make some for the TI Professional) and pay $16.95 per game (includes S && H). Or better still to make sure there are still some of what you want available, call your credit card order at 1-800-262-6868. Then if you make it to reasonable safety [but not necessarily reasonable sanity] aboard the Vogon space ship you have to remember to use your bathrobe to help catch the babel fish for your ear. Otherwise, you and Ford Prefect just might get chucked into the vaccuum of space. If you follow me. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% We here at IMPACT-99 headquarters take no responsibilty for any loss of marbles or looseness of screws connected with the reader's engagement with the INFOCOM loonies. But we do wish we had a share in the corporation. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Questions sent in by readers (two: one from Iowa, one from Connecticut): WHERE CAN ONE GET THE DIRECTIONS FOR WINGWARS? Answer: I don't know. Does anyone know where to get WINGWARS? I think that's the game that had a dragon flying through gem-filled clouds and into mountain caverns. I saw it years ago. I can't remember where, but I still recall it as having the best graphics ever done for TI. Does anyone out there have WINGWARS or know what the directions are or where it can be purchased? DO YOU KNOW OF ANY GOOD CRIBBAGE GAMES FOR THE TI? Answer: Yes and no. There are loads of cribbage games for other computers, but way back in the early days of 99er magazine and even IUG there were a few companies that offered cribbage games for the TI. By the time I started sending for some, the companies had died. There are even some listed in the first TI software books of third parties. I sent there, too, but never got answered. Though there are lots of cribbage buffs out there in TI Land (This is the most-often requested game that no longer exists for TI.), there is presently no cribbage game available anywhere. [Maybe check with Guy Stefan Romano...] If anyone has a cribbage game please let me know where it can be had. However, Corey Cheng (of TI music fame) has written a cribbage game which is superb but incredibly slow. I had a chance to beta-test it a while ago, and it was excellent. He says he's redoing it for greater speed and is working on the directions. Whenever this busy genius (artist, mathematician, violinist, student, computerist) completes the project, I will announce it in this column. If any reader has a question you think could be answered within this column (or has an answer to questions posed in this column) please write: Jack Sughrue, Box 459, E.Douglas, MA 01516. If any newsletter editor prints these IMPACT/99 articles, please put me on your mailing list. Thanks - JS Հ