<!--
	Title: TRINITY: It Blowed Up Real Good!
	Source: QuestBusters, v3(8)
	Date: August 1986
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

That's the unsolicited opinion of SCTV's "Fishin' Musician," clear and right to the
point. [If you already figured that out, congratulations, your score just went up
ten points.] However, the point of this game is to prevent nuclear missiles from
blowing up the world--and yourself. Though no *Spellbreaker* type spells are
available, magic is a key ingredient in *Trinity*'s solution. And though it kicks off
in contemporary England on the eve of World War III, the story soon assumes a
Zorkian atmosphere that will make even hard-core Zorkers feel right at home.

<h2 class="center italic">THE PUZZLES ARE BACK</h2>

For Brian Moriarty has opened a window into a world as fantastic as that of the Great
Underground Empire, a world where logic and magic combine with fiction and history
to provide some provoking exercises in mind-puzzling. [That's a new word I just
invented. If you already figured that out, congratulations, your score just went up
one point.] *Trinity* is the second game in the Interactive Fiction Plus series from
Infocom, which means you'll need 128K or 512K While the text is admirably crafted,
this adventure's goal is not to achieve a breakthrough in interactive literature as
*Mind Forever Voyaging* aimed to do. Puzzles, sparse in the latter game, are the
key to this one's success, and though it is an excellent read and does deliver a
message, *Trinity* is mainly a game.

First you must solve a couple of easy problems to acquire the objects needed to
get out of the opening scene. This occurs in London, as you ignore news of a
possible war with Russia and go sightseeing on the last day of your
vacation. In order to get out of this region and into the main area of the game. you
have to use several objects together, much the way the balloon was used in *Zork II*.
It's a clever puzzle, with enough clues planted around to make it fair.

If you don't escape--by reaching a place called Long Water, where a magic door
opens and transports you into another dimension--a nuclear missile obliterates
London and you wind up on a slow boat across the River Styx. I'm imagining that
London was wiped out, since the game never says what really happens when the
missile explodes, except the time it said I now knew "what it felt like to be
vaporized." Frankly, I would have preferred a more graphic [and less tasteful]
description of the immediate and long term effects--for example, the surviving English
eating a new kind of food, fission chips.

<h2 class="center italic">NO 'SHROOM AT THE TOP</h2>

On the other side of the door, a bizarre landscape of towering mushrooms stretches
as far as the eye can see. Most have doors, and you notice that the one that led you
here is situated in the side of a tall 'shroom. Twin suns take turns
illuminating the land, which never knows nightfall. Moriarty's prose grows
evocative as he describes a "forest choked with pale domes" and a "brooding sun" that
"fills distant valleys with a sad, dusty light the color of antique brass."

Here in this hidden universe lies the key to preventing the nuclear war that you just
escaped. Ultimately you must travel to the Trinity site in New Mexico, where the first
atomic bomb was exploded in 1945, to change history. (Trinity was the codename
for the top secret test.) But first you'll zip through time and space to the
sites of key A-bomb tests in Russia, the South Seas and outer space to collect a
lemming, a lizard, and other exotic ingredients that are needed to cast a
powerful magic spell. Finding them doesn't require magic, just logic, so you
won't have to keep learning and casting spells as in the *Enchanter* series. The
central puzzle--a huge sundial--reminded me of the dam problem in *Zork I*, for its
solution opens access to a new set of locations.

That's one of the things that I enjoyed most about *Trinity*, the way the puzzles are
structured so neatly and how it all dovetails together like a wooden Chinese puzzle.
(My favorite text adventures are still those with extensive character interaction, and
after the opening scene the only "person" I've met so far in this fantasy world is a
magpie that repeats every word I say.) There's not much mapping to do, and I
haven't found any mazes yet If you wander into the "Klein bottle," be prepared
to witness some bewildering effects to your carefully prepared map. Another
interesting touch is a red herring from the first part of the game that shows up and
proves useful in the second stage.

<h2 class="center italic">PARSING AS FAST AS I CAN</h2>

The Infocom parser keeps getting better, but it was already so good that the new
improvements are so subtle you can barely find them. All I noticed here was the
advanced use of the pronoun "it." Formerly "it" referred to the last noun or
object you used, so after saying "get MX missile" you could say "examine it."

In this game you may say "it" to refer to something that just entered the room or did
something. If the text says a lemming runs across your foot while you're
exploring the Russian tundra, you may then say "kill it" and the program knows
you want to eliminate the lemming. Don't count on it, though, for you won't get to
kill much in this world. It's not too deadly a place for you, either, unless you hang
around one of the atomic bomb test sites until it goes off.

Infocom's packaging, as expected, is ingenious and helpful: you get a cardboard
sundial that represents the one in the game, a origami paper bird, a map of the Trinity
atomic test site, and a comic book about the history of the atomic bomb
(which serves as the manual). Sorry, no thermonuclear warhead<br>
**Conclusions:** The puzzles are well-structured, the prose among the finest to
grace the screen of a monitor. If you thrive on text adventures but passed on Moriarty's
*Wishbringer* because it was an Introductory level game, don't miss this
one. [Unless you're interested solely in games with intensive character interaction.]
Moriarty now has two homers in a row ,and this one could easily wind up in the
parking lot

**System:** Apple (128K), Amiga, C-128, ST, IBM, Mac (512)<br>
**Skill Level:** Intermediate<br>
**Price:** $39.95<br>
**Company:** Infocom
