<!--
	Title: Meet the Men Behind Infocom's Mask
	Author: Andrew Briggs
	Source: Micro Adventurer, #1
	Date: November 1983
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

<img class="float-left" src="/public/img/articles/ma-meet-the-men-behind-infocoms-mask/suspended-box.jpg" alt="Suspended box">

<blockquote style="padding: 1em; background: var(--dark); color: var(--light); font-size: 1.25em; text-align: center;">
<strong>Andrew Briggs</strong> survives dwarves, wizards, and other perils to bring you the
story behind US firm Infocom
</blockquote>

WHAT POSSIBLE connection could there be between a venerable scientific
organisation like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a netherworld
inhabited by dwarves, unicorns and wizards?

Stumped? Well, the answer is Infocom, one of the new breed of companies
revolutionising the adventure game market. Infocom is a young company made up of
young computer professionals who cut their teeth working within the hallowed walls of
the MIT. It was there that they began the work that has put them among the trendsetters
in adventure games.

Since going it alone Infocom has played a large part in the development of adventure
games. Its first, Zork, was written for mainframe computers in 1977 in MDL, a
language inspired by Lisp and developed in the early 1970s at the MIT. As the 1980s
dawned, Infocom used its expertise to convert Zork to run on microcomputers.

## Sentences

The company has developed software permitting adventure game players to use
complete sentences rather than the standard two-word commands. These games are
known as the Interlogic Series. They include the Zork trilogy, Starcross (a
galactic adventure game), Suspended (a sortie into the twilight world of cryogenic
suspension), Planetfall (a light-hearted look at science fiction), Deadline and The
Witness (both murder mysteries).

The games, which require 32K primary memory and a disk drive, are compatible
with the Apple II, Atari micros, the Commodore 64, CP/M systems, DEC's
Rainbow and RT-11, IBM bit, NEC's APC and PC-8000, the Osborne 1, Texas
Instruments' Professional and Tandy's TRS-80 Models I and II.

In Zork I the Great Underground Empire confronts players with predicaments
ranging from the mystical to the macabre, as they strive to discover the 20 treasures of
Zork and escape with their lives. Zork II takes players into new depths of this
subterranean realm where they will meet the Wizard of Frobozz. And in the final game
in this trilogy, players encounter the Dungeon Master himself, who holds their
destiny in the balance.

## Initiation

Deadline, an interactive mystery, is an initiation into real-live adventures. Players
are pitted against a 12-hour time limit to solve a murder case, working from an
actual dossier on the crime as they try to piece together the clues.

In the science fiction adventure Starcross players are launched into the year 2186 and
the depths of space where they are destined to rendezvous with a starship form the
outer fringes of the galaxy and enter the ship's mysterious interior. Once inside, they
will come face-to-face with other worldly beings, both helpful and harmful.

Another science fiction adventure, Suspended, takes players into the twilight
world of cryogenic suspension and awakens them to the nightmarish reality of a planet
in crisis. Players strategically manipulate six robots in order to solve the problems. A
game board and movable game pieces are also used. Suspended comes from staff
member Michael Berlyn, an established writer of science fiction books.

The Witness, a whodunit rooted in the classic mystery novels of the 1930s, is a
follow-up to Deadline. It puts players on the scene of the crime, working form a clue-laden
police file and battling a 12-hour time limit.

Planetfall takes a lighthearted look at science fiction. On a distant planet, the
hapless player has been shipwrecked, armed with only a patrol-issue, multi-purpose
scrub-brush and aided by a impish robot companion. Players are challenged with
saving the doomed and plague-stricken world while trying to keep a straight face.

The company's vice-president for product development, Marc Blank, clearly
sees the Interlogic Series as a big breakthrough in the adventure game field.
Writing in the [January 1983](/library/softline-sitting-in-judgement) issue of *Softline* magazine, he said: "In the five
years during which Interlog games have been developed, the parser (the part of the
program through which the player communicates with the games environment)
has been continually enhanced and expanded. The impetus for that expansion
has been the desire to present the player with new and challenging problems.

<figure class="float-right-wide">
<img src="/public/img/articles/ma-meet-the-men-behind-infocoms-mask/blank-and-berez.jpg" alt="Marc Blank and Joel Berez">
<figcaption><em>Marc Blak (left) and Joel Berez -- "A complement of additional enhancements
make game-playing more enjoyable."</em></figcaption>
</figure>

## Opening doors

"Early on, we recognised that adjectives were important in that they allowed the
existence of more than one object of the same kind. An example from Zork I is
doors: in the living room are two doors, a trap door (which is initially hidden) and a
wooden door. The ability to distinguish between these is vital.

"The addition of prepositions and compound verbs using prepositions (eg
"Pick up", "Put down" and "Turn on") was another important turning point in the
construction of the Interlogic parser. There were two equally important reasons for this
addition. In the case of prepositions, the need was compelling: "Put the knife in the
trophy case", "Swing the sword at the cyclops", "Unlock the door with the key",
"Fire the gun at the monster". Prepositions used in this way are vital if the verbs "Put",
"Swing", "Unlock", and "Fire" are to be used conveniently and logically. Compound
verbs allow a great deal of flexibility. Although the verb "Look" is ubiquitous in
adventure games, the additional ability to "Look inside" "Look behind", or "Look
under" adds new possibilities.

"Deadline incorporates a more conversational (albeit limited) style for
interaction with the characters. One might say, for example, "Mrs. Robner, tell me
about your husband." Or "McNabb, show me the holes." The important thing to
realise is that the entire interactive basis of Deadline is predicated on the availability of
a parser that allows that interaction. In the case of the Interlogic games, the need for an
ever-improving interaction has consistently led to ever-improving parsers.

"A complement of additional enhancements make game playing more
enjoyable; foremost among these are the ability to use multiple objects in a
command, the ability to string multiple commands on one command line, the
recognition of ambiguous nouns and the ability to easily clear up the ambiguity.
These are all intended to save the player from time-consuming repetition," he concluded.

The development of a programming system that allows full sentences to be used
is obviously a big advantage for Infocom. But the company's president, Joel Berez,
believes Infocom has two other things in its favour.

## Expertise

<figure class="float-right-half">
<img src="/public/img/articles/ma-meet-the-men-behind-infocoms-mask/deadline-packaging.jpg" alt="Deadline packaging">
<figcaption><em>Deadline -- players are pitted against a 12-hour time limit to solve a murder.</em></figcaption>
</figure>

The first is the MIT-influenced expertise of the people working for it. "It's the
ability of these individuals that keeps Infocom in the forefront of the markets,"
says Berez. "With all these talents blended together, the resulting products can offer
the highest level of sophistication. By working in a stimulating environment --
formerly in the lab at MIT and now at Infocom -- this team has developed an
advanced set of programming tools."

The second is the versatility of the games. "Because we develop application software
in a machine-independent manner, a single development effort yields software that,
after only a very small amount of machine-dependent programming, will run on
hardware manufactured by a number of major vendors," says Berez.

He believes both these factors augur well for the young company. In fact, he predicts
that Infocom will soon branch out from entertainment into other areas, one of
which will probably be business applications.

"We have the technological base established to develope new products," he says,
"The personal computer market is growing by leaps and bounds and our plans
are to provide quality products for a wide specturm of computers and end users."
