Typed in by Hans Persson
[email protected]
Published in ZZAP! 64 (British Commodore 64 game review magazine) in
issues May 1986 (page 42-44) and June 1986 (page 49-51). This is
_italics_, this is *bold*.
Very few games get reviewed in magazines or journals outside the
specialist computer press like ZZAP! You won't find many platform game
reviews in The Times or in Punch. But you could find an Infocom review.
Infocom started working in the late seventies, formed out of an
Artificial Intelligence development team at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and grew rapidly into the most respected software house in
the world.
Four Minds Forever Voyaging
Sean Masterson
Little is known about the teams and individuals that develop the games.
Infocom don't exactly advertise their products lavishly. And usually,
only one or two titles per year are introduced. So, arrangements were
made to allow me to chat to four of the people behind the myth to find
out just what makes this unique organisation tick.
The usual convoluted phoning arrangements had to be made, timing had to
be compatible (which it nearly wasn't as I got the time zone for
Massachusetts wrong) and ZZAP! Towers had to be clinically sealed to
provide the necessary tomb like silence required for our hypersensitive
taping equipment (that almost makes it sound good). Despite attempts to
have everything arranged properly, there was the inevitable last minute
panic. All was well, in the end. This is what transpired...
PART 1: DAVE LEBLING (AUTHOR/CO-FOUNDER)
*First*on*the*line*was*Dave*Lebling*. He helped explain how the company
came into existence. 'Well, I was one of the people who helped found the
company. There were a bunch of us working at MIT, now called the
Laboratory of Computer Science, and we had this frightful idea that we
were a pretty clever bunch of people. So we actually founded the company
before we knew what we were going to do with it. Only later did we decide
to do computer games.
'We were working on all sorts of things. For the ten years before the
comany [sic] took off, we worked on things which were artificial
intelligence related, office products etc. We really did a variety of
different activities.'
Dave went on to describe how the first Infocom titles came about. 'Well,
we saw the original adventure game, the one that was written by Don Woods
and Will Crowther, often referred to as _Colossal_Cave/Adventure_. We
really were quite excited by it but at the same time, we thought it had
some limitations and decided to write a similar sort of game but better!
So we did.
'It was written on and off, over a period of about six months to a year.
The original version, the very smallest part, was done fairly quickly.
But we kept adding. So substantially, what you see today is _Zork_ 1, 2
and 3. It was written as one piece first and then split up into a
trilogy. When we split it up, we added a lot of new material. Maybe, I
don't know, a couple of K for each of the games. _Zork_1_ was all
original material. _Zork_2_ had new characters and so on.
'The first machine for which the game was released was the TRS 80! In fact
at the time, the only candidate machines were that and the Apple.
Possibly the Atari as well. What we did, this requires going into our
technology a little bit, when we first designed our system, we designed
so that we could easily transport our games from one machine to another.
Most of the code could remain unchanged. Only a small section, maybe 5 or
10K would have to be changed. In fact, when you're talking about machines
with a similar architecture, like the Apple and the Atari, the changes
would be even smaller.
'So planning for other machines was part of our design right from the
very beginning because we realised that this was going to be a very
rapidly changing market and we didn't want to have to spend a year doing
each conversion. That's why each of our games on that part of our series
called Interactive Fiction is simultaneously released.
'The first game I worked on after _Zork_1_ and _Zork_2_ was _Starcross_,
which was a science fiction game ... and a little bit on _Zork_3_. Then
_Enchanter_, after that; then _Suspect_ and most recently, last year,
_Spellbreaker_, concluding the trilogy we started with _Enchanter_.'
Many people have said that of all the Infocom games, _Starcross_ is
the most difficult. So where did Dave get the inspiration for such a
masterpiece? 'I've probably read hundreds, more likely thousands of
science fiction books, stories magazines etc. I've always been
interested. _Starcross_ was really a homage to a cross between Arthur
C Clarke's *Rendevous*with*Rama* [sic] and various Larry Niven
stories. The Niven connection is in the fact that there are a variety
of essentially friendly aliens, strange devices and particularly the
stepping discs. The red and blue stepping discs that feature in a
large number of problems are based on the stepping discs from Larry
Niven's *Known*Space* stories.'
But as Dave added, _Enchanter_ was very different to other games at
the time because of its comlex [sic] magic system. 'Well, that comes
from fantasy -- reading fantasy as opposed to science fiction! Really,
_Enchanter_ was inspired by reading Ursula K Le Guin's
*Earthsea*Trilogy* which, I think, is one of the best fantasy novels
or series ever written. _Enchanter_, well ... most of our games
really, take about nine months to write. I'm not too sure whether
_Enchanter_ took slightly less or longer, thinking about it.
'On and off during writing the early _Zorks_, if you notice, there's not
much in the way of magic or magic spells in those games and I was thinking
for a long time, even before we started splitting _Zork_ into episodes,
that magic spells would make an interesting addition to the games.
Eventually I came up with a scheme for doing magic spells and the game
resulted.'
So was it intended to evolve as a trilogy like its predecessors did? And
what about his conclusion to the series, the recently released
_Spellbreaker_, was he satisfied with that? 'No, I suspected it might be a
trilogy, and then part way into it, near the end I guess, Steve Meretzky
said he'd like to do a second game. So we talked about it and we had some
really good ideas and stuff. So before _Enchanter_ had been finished, he
started work on _Sorcerer_.
'I think I would say that I got most of the things into it
(_Spellbreaker_) that I wanted to. Something that I had actually started
thinking about at the time that _Enchanter_ was written that ultimately
appeared in _Spellbreaker_ was the idea that you could actually write
things and create things yourself in the game. Beyond that, I think the
only thing you tend to regret when you've finished, is you always whish
[sic] there had been that extra 5K or 10K. The game _Spellbreaker_, for
instance is something of the order of 1K -- once it's inside the system,
so a lot of things have to be left out just because of the lack of room.'
Dave explained which of the games he found most difficult to write and
which had become his favourite. He also made a point about Infocom's aims
in game design. 'Definitely _Suspect_. I've read enormous amounts of
literature, not just SF and fantasy but mystery, adventure, so I vowed
that I'd never do another one until ... I will do another mystery once we
have a better parser. You need it for the characters. It's too
frustrating given the limitations of the conversations.
'Probably, I would say that the favourite is a toss up between
_Enchanter_ and _Starcross_. I like _Starcross_ because my my real love
is for just hard SF -- stories which move the plot along with science. A
lot of the puzzles are down like that in the game. I enjoy that. I enjoy
that kind of story.
'The firm seems to have split in two directions. We hace these big games,
called the Interactive Fiction Plus series which are much bigger and have
a richer environment made possible by the size of the few machines they
run on. We have the classic games -- the ones everybody knows and I think
we'll keep doing both because the classics have a certain charm.
'So we'll keep doing that, but more importantly, I think what we want to
do is keep ... well, we want to get it so that play is better, interaction
is a lot smoother and more conversational than it is now. What we have
done over time is improve it little by little so there are improvements in
say, _Spellbreaker_ over _Enchanter_ but we still know we're geared to
smoothness in talking to other human beings. The closer we can get to
that, the better our games will be because you don't want to spend most of
your time playing what we call 'guess the word'. Our games have very large
vocabularies; _A_Mind_Forever_Voyaging_ has over two thousand words. On
the level, that's still not as much as you would like. The level of
English understood is good but not as good as we would like. As we say on
our packages, we're never satisfied.'
All this was very interesting, but where did the strange _Cornerstone_
project fit into the pattern and what's more -- what was _Cornerstone_?
'_Cornerstone_ is a business product. It is the first in a line of
business products and it uses similar technology to the games. That is to
say, there is a large core which doesn't change on different machines. So
far, we've only put it out for the IBM PC and the Apple series. It may
come out for other machines in the future. We occasionally refer to it as
our worst game.'
PART TWO: STEVE MERETZKY (AUTHOR)
*With*that*, Dave disappeared to be replaced at the mouthpiece by one of
the most famous members of the Infocom team, 28 year old Steve Meretzky
who began by telling me how he first began working for the company. 'I've
been with the company about four years. I started as a games tester.
Well, I worked on the first two games that Infocom did, that is _Zork_1_
and _Zork_2_. The first one that I actually did as an employee was
_Deadline_.'
How did the plot for his first game, _Planetfall_ come about? 'Well, I
would say that it was pretty typical of most of our designs which is that
you start with a storyline and it changes somewhat along the way, but
before you begin, you do have an idea of at least roughly what the
story's going to be. As you begin doing the actual programming, you get
new ideas an [sic] things you want to do.
'Then when people begin playing it, you get suggestions. The more you see
things that they try to do, the more you get additional ideas. So usually
you start with the story and then it evolves over the whole design and
implementation.'
All of Steve's games have had an exceptionally good reception from all
sides of the press. When I asked him how he felt about this, he modestly
answered from the point of view of the company. 'Well, we feel pretty
good. I mean, each game takes pretty close to a year of work. After
spending that amount of time on something, you feel pretty good when
people like it.'
Fair enough. I asked him if working on _Sorcerer?_ [sic] created any
problems as he was effectively in Dave Lebling's territory, here? 'Well,
in some ways it was easier and in some ways it was harder. I [sic] was
easier in that there wasn't so much independent thinking that I had to do
because the game setting was already created. However, it was also harder
because I didn't have as much flexibility but it was an interesting change
from starting with my own universe.'
I wondered whether Steve had considered any preset objectives with this
game. 'No not really. I just wanted to do a game that was very puzzle
oriented. _Planetfall_ certainly has its share of puzzles but it has much
more in the storyline than _Sorcerer_ did. I really wanted to try to do
something that was almost entirely puzzle oriented. I think that the coal
mine puzzle is the hardest part of _Sorcerer_.'
_Sorcerer_ was one of the first Infocom games I had played. One of the
best features which, as I learned later, was employed in all their games,
was the use of considered, unpredictable responses to certain requests. I
took the opportunity of asking Steve how these came about. 'Generally,
the way they appear is playtesters play the games. They say, "I tried to
do this and didn't get a response or a response which didn't make sense
or just a default response which isn't good enough in this case." So you
put in a special response for that case which is usually funny, if you
can think of something funny, or is nasty if you happen to be in a bad
mood when you write it. Or if it's a particularly annoying thing that the
person tried to do. If it was a stupid thing to do, then you might be a
little nastier in your response. Or if it was something that a smart Alec
would try to do then you might be nasty as well. But yeah, those are
where you really get a lot of opportunity to put homour into the game.'
Probably Steve's (and perhaps Infocom's) most famous game is their
adaptation of _The_Hitch_Hikers_Guide_To_The_Galaxy_ [sic]. Mr Meretzky
talked a little about its origins. 'Well, most of the writers here were
familiar with and enjoyed the books and the radio shows. Douglas Adams was
familiar with and enjoyed some of our products, and so a mutual friend of
Infocom's and Douglas's, introduced us and we hit it off pretty well.
About a year after that, we started work on the _Hitch_Hikers_ [sic] game
and I was basically chosen to do that because I was available at the time
and I had done _Planetfall_, which was humourous science fiction.
'It started out with him coming over here and we worked together in
Boston for about a week. Then we connected up a computer mail network and
communicated pretty much on a daily basis that way. We talked on the
phone once or twice a week and then about three months after that first
meeting, I went over to England and spent a week there. After that the
design was pretty much done and I was left alone to do all the testing
and bug fixing type of work and then Douglas came over here for another
week right before it went out, just to do some last minute polishing.
Basically I did all the programming and he did most of the writing and we
designed most of the puzzles working together.'
Steve's latest masterpiece is called _A_Mind_Forever_Voyaging_ but unlike
their normal games, this one only runs on sixteen bit micros. 'There
already is an Amiga version. All our games run on both of those two (ST
and Amiga). _AMFV_ is the first game in our new plus series. Basically we
now have two lines of adventure games; the original line and the plus
line which are much larger and won't run on the lower end machines but
the plus games and the originals all run on the more powerful machines.'
Steve never seems to run short of ideas (then again, neither do the rest
of the team). Certainly, _AMFV_ seems to be one of the most original
pieces of software to ever appear on a home computer. 'I think it's
really hard to track down where the ideas came from. But one thing that
made it possible was the system which allowed a lot more complexity and,
you know, just a lot more time in the game. Without the Plus system it
would have been impossible to have a bigger geography or as much text or
anything like that. I also, when I was doing _AMFV_, I wanted to have a
game which was more serious and had a message in it which was something
that we hadn't done before. And as far as the individual or more specific
ideas, they came about the way most come about; just sitting and thinking
about it, talking with other people and rejecting ideas and developing
the scenario.'
After all this hard work, had Steve considered one game in particular to
be his favourite? 'That's really hard to say. I enjoyed all of them for
different reasons. Probably _Planetfall_ was the most fun because it was
the first and so nothing was repetitious and it wasn't like anything I
had ever done before.'
PART THREE: STU GALLEY (SENIOR GAME DESIGNER)
When Stu Galley came on the line, I asked him how the company actually
worked. One of the things that has been said about Infocom is that there
are no real bosses. 'Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Anyway, in my
group, as game designers, we're very co-operative. I think there's very
little difference in status.
'Typically, the whole process of game design takes nine to twelve months.
Say from conception to end. The conception will start with an idea --
either one that the designer has himself or from talking with a
collaborator or whatever. But in many ways I think it's like writing a
long work of fiction, anything that takes that long. Starting with the
process of outlining, typically the designer will write a synopsis of a
few pages, sort of an outline and it tells the important ideas and
features that this game will have. And that's passed round for comment
and we get together once there's the go ahead. Then we spend two or three
months making the first draft of the program so to speak.
'Our group meets once a week at least, for lunch and talking over the
status of different games that are being developed and whatever other
issues have to be discussed. You know, usually, at least one or two things
-- er design issues are brought up that need to be discussed. Even at the
early stage, the conceptual stage, a meeting like that can be really
useful for er ... I was just trying to finish my sentence and I forgot the
word ... brainstorming!'
Stu had a first for the company with _Seastalker_. Given the company's
reputation for producing complex, high level adventures, were there any
complications writing a junior game?
'No, I think it's something of a higher standard to write a simpler game
because I wanted the program to respond intelligently to the kinds of
inputs that the younger players are apt to use. We did a bit of testing
with some actual live kids here in the office and er ... one of the things
that I discovered about younger players is that they use a big variety of
different sentence structures, sort of more colloquial or more
ungrammatical inputs. And I wanted to be able to do something helpful with
a situation like that while at the same time, sort of ... I didn't want to
accept really ungrammatical commands because I wanted to set a good
example to the player.
'On the other hand, I found that kids could and would use commands that
adults would never think of. So in a way, I think that the standard of
friendliness and fun was maintained as far as I can see.
'I think that all kinds of people play it. I don't have any market
research at my fingertips or sales research but I know that, I've seen
reviews of the game in magazines written by adults and they often regard
it as just as puzzling just as much fun.'
Stu sounded so enthusiastic -- I assumed he got a great deal of pleasure
from his work. 'Yes, yes I do. It's funny, it's almost like a dream
fulfilled but up until a few years ago, I had no idea that this was what
my dream was because I had no examples to go by.'
I was surprised to hear about his immediate reactions after a game had
been finished. I had assumed there would be a celebratory mood but
apparently, this was not the case. 'Well frankly the immediate feeling is
a bit of a let down. I think, of course there's a feeling of relief that,
you know it's like finishing a year at university, getting all of the
exams out of the way. I'd say a let down because there's no immediate
feedback -- whether you did a good job or not. Once the programming is
finished, then there's a couple of months at least, before there's
feedback from players or reviewers. It really would be more like six
months to a year before one gets the feeling of job well done or whatever.'
So what did he have planned for the future? Were there any exciting ideas
for a new game? 'Yes there is actually. Let's see. I'm not too sure how
much I should say about this as it might turn into a product. I've at
least one -- probably several. Personally I'd like to reach new segments
of the audience by making each new game innovative or appealing in a
different way from all the others so that someone who had maybe tried
_Zork_ or tried a mystery and not gotten excited about it might find
something really interesting in a different sort of game.
'I think all categories of popular fiction would be fun to make into
games. Personally I would like it to be just interactive fiction. Well,
writing interactive fiction plus is a two edged sword, because while you
have a lot more room to do things in you also have the problem of taking
on a bigger project and having a lot more work to do to get all the
details right. I sort of prefer a smaller scope, something more like a
stage play instead of a movie. I think the confines are helpful in some
ways.
'Well actually I did work on a game that I spent about six months on and
then decided to shelve it, so to speak -- to put it aside. The problem
there, was that the story line wasn't sufficiently well developed to make
it really interesting. I guess I had a vision of a certain kind of
atmosphere in the writing that was rather hard to bring off and after some
testing in house here, it became clear that that [sic] it would need some
significant changes to make it work right. I'm glad we're able to do that
and we don't have to forge ahead with something that doesn't really work
well.'
Infocom appear as a very secretive organisation. I asked Stu whether this
profile was intentional? 'Yes, I think it's generally true of American
software companies particularly that they don't comment on new products
until they're officially announced. And I think the reason for that is
because of the last question we talked about where the product may be
under development and although the company may intend to release it on
time, unforseen things may happen and it has to be postponed or cancelled.
So it just seems safer, I guess, to keep the wraps on a product until it's
finished.'
When I asked Stu what his favourite game was he pointed out that one of
them wasn't an Infocom game. No problem, said I, just tell us what they
are. 'It's just that the other times I've been asked that question,
usually Infocom games are excluded. Okay, it's very hard to say, really.
It's like asking a parent to pick a favourite child. Each are favourites
in different ways. I still enjoy _Witness_ for certain aspects of it,
although I now feel that I could have done it a lot better. That was my
first one.
'_Seastalker_ is similar. I like certain things about it very much. I like
the game I'm working on right now in many ways. There are a lot of
different things about it. Er ... I'm looking at my shelf full of packages
here! I like _Hitch_Hikers_ [sic]. That's a lot of fun.
'As far as non-Infocom games, I think my favourite is _Loderunner_. The
thing that I like about it is that it's the huge variety of the scenes
derived from this very small set of building blocks and it reminds me in a
way of mathematics -- one of my favourite subjects, because it's like
taking those small set [sic] of axioms and deriving elaborate mathematical
structures from them. But _Loderunner_'s the way to do it visually.'
PART FOUR: CARL GENATOSSIO (ART)
Finally, I spoke with the man responsible for all those crazy bits and
bobs that proliferate in an Infocom game box. He can introduce himself.
'I've been with the company since last April. And before that I was
actually working for the ad agency that Infocom had at that time. I guess
I would say that I've been working on Infocom packaging over two years.
I'm 31.
'I came to the company last year to start a creative department for
packaging and other related material that we produce and I had worked at
the agency where we develop most of the crazy packaging for Infocom, so I
knew everything there was to know about the product before I started here,
kind of a nice transition to come from the agency to here. And you know,
it's been a real good experience working here directly with the people
because everyone is so creative so, [sic] it's a totally creative
environment. I'm not at a lack for having any ideas what to do. Just from
talking to the people around here, you know.'
One of the clever aspects of game packaging is the way Infocom hide
protection within the package rather than the program. Carl commented on
this. 'Well that's worked out better on some games than on others.
Sometimes we'll get a real good idea for an anti-pircay [sic] device. I
don't know if you have seen _AMFV_. The secret decoder wheel in that is
really essential to play the game. It's something like 360 random number
access combinations. It's not something you can xerox a copy of. It's not
something you can pass on to a friend and forget about because, you really
need that to play the game.'
It had occured to me that the decoder wheel was similar to _Sorcerer_'s
Infotator. 'No that was done by someone else at the ad agency. That was
prior to my involvement on Infocom games. But you can see that we do put a
lot of thought into devices that actually, the person who buys the game
would want to have in the first place and it's essential to playing the
game.
'We probably, out of any software or any entertainment software company,
yeah we probably spend more on the package than anyone else does and er
-- we have very high quality printing; again a lot of thought is put
behind everything that goes into the package in general. So with that in
mind, we just put in the extra effort to make up a protection device that
is attractive and works quite well and fits the mood of the game.'
'Usually, from concept to finally printed package, it takes about four
months. We start out when the game is in alpha testing. We get a look at
the game then the internal tester takes a look at it. Me and my
copywriter in the marketing department get a look at the game at that
point. We play it for about a week or so and then we have a creative
meeting with the game writers and the marketing dept.
'We come up with a creative focus for what the packaging should be as it
relates to the game and at that point it takes about two to three weeks
for a concept for the total package. And once that is settled, it takes
about a month to get art and photography and typography done and from
that point I'd say that once art has started and all of that and copy is
written, it takes about another month to put all the boards together to
get the material ready for printing. The printing process takes about
eight weeks.'
One of the most startling visual aspects of older Infocom games were the
box shapes. These have now been standardised. Carl made several points
about the reasons for this. 'I can speak about the original packages a
bit because I know somewhat about that. When Infocom first started out as
a company, they had come to the ad agency which at that time was
Giardini-Russell in Watertown Massachusetts. Anyway, they had come to
the agency at the time and the agency was very big in the hi tech field
and they (Infocom) only had a very small budget. They said, 'How do we
market and advertise these games?' And based on what the agency had seen
of the games and the amount of money available, they said, 'Basically,
you should put all of your money into packaging because that's going to
be the thing that's most noticeable about your product' and that's where
we started with these wild packages.
'Now the first games like _Suspended_ and _Starcross_ and the _Zorks_
(although the _Zorks_ had a very simple package) but the others up to
_Seastalker_ were all in very intricately put together packages simply to
be another ... something that people would want to touch and hold and get
into! But what killed those packages was the fact that the dealers
couldn't stack a flying saucer on a shelf very well! They kept falling
off and rolling in the aisles, you know?'
So did Carl find any constraints with new packaging? 'No I don't as a
matter of fact. You know we've standardised the boxes as you can see but
each one of those packages is individual. I approach them as an
individual problem and I find that there is very little repetition in
what I do, even though the format is the same. I am basically free to do
whatever I want to do. For instance, we're doing something right now in,
we're working on the _Trinity_ game, I don't know if you know about that
one. Well we're doing something new in that the manual in that game is
going to be a comic book. I don't know how familiar you are with comic
books -- are you familiar with the *Classics*Illustrated*?'
No -- unfortunately...
'Well, okay, that's a comic book series that was out in this country in
the late fifties and early sixties and what they were like were sort of
comic book versions of history books. So this game, _Trinity_ which is a
fantasy game, has a lot of reference to historical information, so we're
doing a full colour comic book in a Classic style. I'm always working
with different people. That's what I think keeps the packaging fresh and
challenging, certainly for me to work on. I find each one to be just like
starting a whole new thing.'
Was there a particularly memorable design that Carl had worked on? 'I
would have to say, probably _Suspect_ because of the art style for one. I
went with a literary style -- a high brow literary style and because of
all the pieces that went inside that, the invitation, the receipt for the
costume, the magazine article -- and the article in particular, I wanted
it to have a look about it so that it would actually look as if it had
been ripped from the pages of a magazine, so we had to make a special bad
cut for that so that it was consistent with every one that we printed.
That one happens to be my favourite and it was one of the first that had
to be designed for the new format so I feel that it works really well
because I put a lot of thought into it.'
I asked him how it was decided where the booklet would stop and the bits
would start. 'There's a photograph on the back of every package which
shows you what you get inside the box, and usually those things are not
created until after the package has been printed. So what I have to do is
make mock ups of those things and that's probably the most difficult part
of the whole packaging thing, creating and photographing those items in
an interesting scene to give you the mood for the game.
'We try to do something different every time we work on a game and I
guess I don't know how to answer that except to say that whatever
happens, we're always looking into other things. It's an ongoing thing
from day to day. If I see something in a magazine or in a toy store or a
book store ... I have a tremendous collection of little items that might
be interesting for something further on down the line, somewhere,
sometime, somehow, you know?
'When I'm busy I never keep track of the time. When I first came here
they had held the work for me. They were waiting for me to come in
because I was coming over from the agency. When you're really rolling on
something worthwhile then time doesn't matter. That's another reason why
it made sense to come here and start this department, because the way an
agency works, they bill by the hour. My time is virtually unlimited here
and I get a chance to do everything that I want to do and sit down and
nit pick without worrying how much time I'm spending on it.
'It's a sort of perfectionist's type of job. You can come here at two in
the morning and there'll be someone here. There's someone working around
the clock. When you get dedicated people like that and it's a fun job, I
mean it doesn't make any differency how long you ... well, how many hours
you put in and we have a flexible atmosphere as long as you get your job
done and have a good time with it.'
Time was ticking on and my throat was becoming dry. Thanking the folks at
Infocom, I placed the receiver down and made my way to the Bull Inn to
rehabilitate. As the old flatulence bitter trickled down my throat, I
knew that a ball of fluff would never be the same again.
