<!--
	Title: (Software Gallery) Seastalker
	Author: Sharon Zardetto Aker
	Source: Run, v2(3)
	Date: March 1985
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

<div style="background: var(--dark); color: var(--ltgrey); font-weight: bold; padding: 0.25em; float: right; font-size: 2em;">A</div>

<blockquote style="margin: 1em inherit; font-size: 1.25em; font-style: italic;">There's a Traitor in Your Midst. Can You
	Save the Aquadome?</blockquote>

<p class="article-dropcap">
Seastalker is Infocom's first junior-level interactive fiction game. It
is designed for ages 9 and up. The key phrase here is "and up"; it is enjoyable
on an adult level, and it can serve as a painless Introduction to text
adventuring for the faint of heart.
</p>

<img class="float-right-half" src="/public/img/articles/run-seastalker-review/seastalker-packaging.jpg" alt="Seastalker packaging">

In Seastalker, you are the inventor of the Scimitar, a two-seater sub that
has yet to be tested under real use. While working in your lab, you receive
a message from your colleagues at the Aquadome, an undersea research
center, that they are in trouble. Communications are interrupted,
though, and you don't know what the trouble is, other than it is serious
enough to threaten the Aquadome's existence. You must find out what the
problem is and solve it, using the Scimitar and the help of various crew
members, one or more of whom may be traitors!

This brief synopsis gives only a hint of the scope of this adventure.
The various places (lab, sub, Aquadome, Frobton Bay), the numerous
characters (nine others besides yourself) and all the different equipment
(sonarphone, depth finder, emergency survival kit, computestor, to
name a few) give a seemingly never-ending variety to the game.

While the program is close to perfect, the packaging is even better. The
main folder opens to reveal a nautical chart of Frobton Bay, at the edge
of which your lab is situated. You must navigate the bay in your sub to
get to open ocean and the Aquadome; there are shoals, rock spires
and submerged wrecks to avoid. (Or, maybe you should investigate the
wrecks instead!)

Inside the folder is the Scimitar Logbook. Two pages each are devoted
to the sub itself, the lab and the Aquadome.

Also included in the folder are eight Top Secret Infocards. One side
of each card gives a brief biography of some of the characters in the story;
the other side has hidden clues to help you along in the game. Even the
hints force you to think, however; in each one, a blank space appears instead
of a key word or phrase. If you need further proof of Infocom's attention
to detail, there is also a Discovery Squad Badge included.

By the way, Infocom's adventure games have no graphics, but when
was the last time you read a good book that needed illustrations? *Infocom
(55 Wheeler St., Cambridge, MA 02138. C64/$49.95 disk.)*

<p class="right bold">Sharon Zardetto Aker<br>Sussex, NJ</p>
