<!--
	Title: (PASSPORT TO ADVENTURE) Solve the Crime and Beat the Deadline!
	Author: Arnie Katz
	Source: Electronic Games, v1(10)
	Date: December 1982
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

DEADLINE
*Infocom/Apple II, Atari 400&800/48K disc*

You take a deep breath as you gaze upon the Robner mansion, so peaceful
in the morning light. Yet appearances can be deceiving. This is anything but a
peaceful home.

Its owner, Marshall Robner, has been found lying on the floor of his
library, dead. It looks like a simple overdose of Ebullion, for the police
have found a few tablets of the substance lying around the scene. But
could it have been, in fact, a murder?

Warren Coates, the family lawyer, is one who is suspicious. Even though
Coates hasn't got any concrete evidence, he has written to your superior,
the Chief of Police, asking for a more thorough investigation of the events
surrounding his client's recent demise.

The Chief, perhaps mindful of the Robner family influence, has assigned
you to pick up the threads and continue the probe. To that end, you've
gotten permission to poke around the Robner home for 12 hours. If you can't
piece together the clues and build an airtight case against the perpetrator of
this subtle and ingenious crime, the Ebullion overdose story will have to
stand as the official finding in the case. And a murderer will walk free.

That's the gripping situation that confronts the player in **Deadline**, the
first of a new series of adventure programs for popular microcomputers. Infocom
has already drawn raves for its fantasy quests, **Zork I** and **Zork II**, and
this text-only mystery challenge proves that the company isn't afraid to
depart from the tried-and-true adventure game formula.

<img style="display: block; margin: auto;" src="/public/img/articles/eg-passport-to-adventure-deadline/deadline-body.png" alt="Cartoon of a murder victim">

Actually, *Deadline* is one of the most innovative adventure programs
released this year, despite the absence of visuals. Written in machine language,
it has an extensive 600-word vocabulary and can even understand full-sentence
commands from the human detective. That's a big improvement
over the terse "verb/noun" two-word orders most other adventures require.

Even more important, the characters who populate the game seem to think,
feel and act in a lifelike manner. All the while the player is trudging from room
to room looking for evidence, potential suspects are going about their private
business. If the detective isn't at the right place at the right time, it is possible
he or she will fail to see a person enter a room or perform some other
action that would help break the case.

Time, then, is crucial in this game. The excellent eight-page instruction
booklet reflects this by letting players know how to let game-time pass while
they wait for the appearance of some suspect or for some anticipated event
to transpire. For instance, the human inspector knows, from a letter which is
included with a packet of papers and evidence Infocom provides for the
tactile-oriented sleuths, that the lawyer will be reading the will at noon.
If it's only 11:15 a.m. and there's nothing else you need accomplish before
then, you can run the clock ahead with a single "Wait until 12:00" command.

An important feature of the instruction book is that it gives a pretty decent
vocabulary list as well as guidelines for performing various tasks. Many
players experience great frustration in other games when they know what
has to be done but can't figure out how to communicate their idea to the
computer. This very rarely happens in *Deadline*, making the flow of play
much smoother.

As the inspector in charge of the investigation, you do not have to work
alone. To begin with, Detective First Class G.K. Anderson has conducted a
preliminary search for evidence and has interviewed all of those who could
have been involved in any crime. Meanwhile, Medical Examiner Xaviera
Hockmuller has been doing her work as well. You've got a complete report
on the body.

<img class="float-right-half" src="/public/img/articles/eg-passport-to-adventure-deadline/deadline-interrogation.png" alt="Cartoon of a detective interrogating suspects">

Now that you're on the scene, Sergeant Duffy performs as your faithful aide.
When you want a substance analyzed by the police laboratory or learn the
owner of a set of intriguing fingerprints, Sgt. Duffy will carry out the
legwork.

Of course, you will have to twiddle your thumbs a bit while he's going to
and from the lab, but it's still far less time-consuming than having to make
the round trip yourself. Remember, time is of the essence!

There's no denying that *Deadline* is a lot more complicated than the usual
hack-and-slash sword epic. For those who want to analyze the proceedings
at their leisure, entering the "Script" command will cause everything that
flashes on the screen to get typed out by a printer connected to your computer.

Another important option is the ability to suspend a game in progress
for resumption at a later time. The process is simple. After entering the
"Save" instruction, the display will prompt the computerist to insert a
blank disk and then asks the operator to enter the position on the disk where
the game-in-progress should be stored. It is possible to store eight different
games simultaneously on the same disk, so that more than one
amateur detective can try to unravel the tangled web without ruining
someone else's case. Since *Deadline* is fairly difficult, most players will be
making repeated use of the change to rest and reflect between crucial moves.

The time element endows *Deadline* with a surprisingly high excitement
level for a game which has virtually no overt violence and relatively little
action. As the minutes tick past, the pressure to achieve some sort of
break-through becomes intense. Of course, a wise detective doesn't let his
nervousness turn into meandering and desperate interrogations of the suspects,
because that makes bringing the killer to book just about impossible.
Offend a witness in *Deadline*, and he or she can become very, very hostile.
Needless to say, an angry person imparts very little useful information to an
investigator.

*Deadline* is a landmark in computer gaming history as well as a mentally
stimulating contest of the highest magnitude. Although it would be very
nice if, at some future point, Infocom authorized a revision that included
high-resolution graphics, this text-based disk can hold its head high in
any company. An outstanding achievement in computer software.
