<!--
	Title: (Games Galore for 8-Bit) Lurking Horror, Stationfall
	Author: Jim Pierson-Perry
	Source: Antic, v6(11)
	Date: March 1988
	Transcription by Steve Derby
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In Infocom's first horror-fiction adventure, it's all to easy to be pulled
into the game play -- which can keep you up at night, looking nervously
over your shoulder. In **Lurking Horror** you're a student at the George
Underwood Edwards Institute of Technology -- sort of a cross between MIT
and Miskatonic University (for you H.P. Lovecraft readers).

In the beginning, you're at the computer center the night before a major
paper is due. Trapped inside the buildings by a raging blizzard, you settle
down to finish your paper with an overzealous computer hacker as your
only (human) companion. Slowly but inexorably you'll head toward confrontation
with nightmarish forces that could cost you both your life and your soul.

Your searches will take you from the tallest buildings down into the
bowels of long abandoned tunnels and hidden rooms which lie festering
under the campus. Without revealing too much, suffice it to say that you'll
encounter a malevolent maintenance man, have a terminal religious experience,
practice your culinary skills and discourse with a doctor of demonology --
until all hell breaks loose.

You can play several different story branches, rather than having to go
directly from start to finish. Thus, if a puzzle stumps you, you can go off on
a different tangent and continue -- often finding something to help with
the original puzzle. Though there's far more searching and puzzle-solving
than conversing with other characters, it's often more helpful to show
them something than to speak and provoke a reaction.

The first half of the adventure is fairly easy, but the puzzles become
more complex and interesting toward the end. The story itself is tight and
well-crafted. It's easy -- *too* easy -- to visualize the scenes while cautiously
prowling through moldering sub-basements. Overall, I enjoyed the game
and would recommend it, particularly for someone new to text adventures.

**Stationfall**, Infocom's first text adventure sequel, continues the saga begun
in Planetfall, a fast-moving cross between Larry Niven and National
Lampoon that gave us very memorable Floyd the Droid -- the endearing
Gomer Pyle of robots. In Stationfall, we return to the future time of the
Third Galactic Union. Our hero has found fleeting fame, a promotion to
Lieutenant First Class in the Stellar Patrol, and the numbing realization of
facing nothing more than shuffling paperwork for the rest of his career --
a case in point being an assignment to pick up a multi-ton load of forms
at a local space station printing press.

Strange things happen as soon as you dock at the space station. The
place is a virtual ghost town. What has happened here? What about the
alien space craft, its dead pilot and mysterious cargo that you find? As
you continue probing, you recognize signs of an unknown malevolent force
that has overtaken the space station.

Fortunately, at your side is Floyd the Droid, rebuilt from circuit board
heaven and ready to boogie. Between bouts of finder-seeker and paddleball,
your little buddy is along to help solve the mystery and (maybe) save your
bacon again. You will also encounter Plato (the only surviving space station
robot), an ostrich, an abandoned Arcturan balloon creature and an automated
welder that seems to disagree with your continued existence.

Stationfall has plenty of puzzles to solve and rooms to explore. The puzzles
are good: hard enough to make you think, but logical, at least in hindsight.

This sequel is, if anything, better than the original story. The plot line
is crisp and full of humor -- to go along with the straight science fiction.
The mood, pacing and characters, right down to the scatology, are a
faithful re-creation of the original.

*(The ST versions of these text adventures
<a href="/library/antic-stationfall-lh-moonmist-reviews">were reviewed</a> in **Antic**,
February 1988* -- ANTIC ED)
