<!--
	Title: (Scorpion's Tale) Border Zone
	Author: Scorpia
	Source: Computer Gaming World, v8(1)
	Date: January 1988
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

<div class="article-sidebar-box" style="margin-bottom: 1em;">InvisiClues.org editors note: Portions of this article,
like many of the <em>Scorpion's Tale</em> columns from <em>Computer Gaming World</em>,
may include material plagiarized from other sources, including the original
<em>InvisiClues</em> and uncredited postings to online gaming forums.</div>

<img class="float-left" src="/public/img/articles/cgw-scorpions-tale-border-zone/scorpions-tale-logo.png" alt="Scorpion's Tale logo">

*Scorpia's regular hint column examines Infocom's latest release and updates readers on
"bugs" in another Infocom game.*

Brrr! Those icy January winds can really get to you!
So, don't just stand there in the doorway (it's cold out there!),
come inside and warm up by the fire. Fred is mixing up a little
something to warm your insides, too (just sip it first; Fred's been
dipping into the Alchemy books again). When you're a bit
thawed out, we can talk about something contemporary this
time: spy stuff, intrigue, and all that cloak-and-dagger kind of
thing.

Border Zone, **Infocom's** first venture into spy/intrigue and
real-time action, turns out to be something of a disappointment.
This is due in part to having three small games instead of
one large one on the disk and also, because most of the puzzles
are trivial in nature. In fact, only the ticking of the gameclock
brings any difficulty to the games. Further, few people are
likely to have much trouble completing Border Zone, as clues are
provided within the scenarios themselves via a "Hint" command, the
same as is found in Nord and Bert.

All three mini-adventures are set in the mythical Eastern Bloc country of
Frobnia, although each is played from a different point of view. In
scenario #1, you are an American businessman, thankfully on his way
out of Frobnia, heading for the border of a neutral country.

At this point, in the best tradition of British spy novelist E. Phillips Oppenheim,
an American spy barges into your train compartment, dripping
blood all over the floor. He thrusts a document into your hands,
pins a carnation to your suit, and mutters that you will have to deliver
the information while he leads his pursuers on a merry chase elsewhere.
Exit the agent, leaving you with an unreadable paper written in
Frobnian and not much time before the searchers arrive.

<img class="float-left" src="/public/img/articles/cgw-scorpions-tale-border-zone/border-zone-cover.jpg" alt="Border Zone cover">

The major focus of this mini-adventure is keeping the police from discovering
the document. You don't really get into much trouble yourself
if they do find it; you'll be detained a few days, and then released. In the
meantime, however, the American Ambassador to a foreign country will
have been assassinated. So, there is some incentive to passing on the information
to the agent's contact.

A quick look around the train compartment does not yield any good
hiding places. It's a pretty bare room. You certainly can't just stick
the thing in your pocket or briefcase (interestingly, you have no luggage,
just the briefcase). It would be found there without any difficulty at all. No,
I wouldn't recommend under the seat, either. It would be just a trifle
obvious, even folded up.

The solution to the document puzzle is slightly more subtle than that.
Still, if you look over what you have with you, you might get an idea or
two. There is a fair amount of time in this scenario to try different
things, as the clock ticks slower here, giving you more leeway. Nonetheless,
that clock is ticking away, and events are moving forward,
even though you may be doing nothing at all (except staring at the
screen and thinking).

Eventually, the police will reach your compartment and subject
both you and it to a thorough search. The blood on the floor
will not go unnoticed, either, although you can probably talk
your way out of that one. Presuming that the paper
hasn't been discovered, your next (and final) task is to deliver
the information. This is fairly simple. When the train reaches
the next station (the one just before the border), everyone is
ordered off, so the train can be searched more completely. It's
while wandering around on the platform that you have the opportunity
to pass over the information. As long as you aren't obvious
about your actions, you should be able to manage this
without being spotted. That pretty much takes care of the first
scenario.

In the second one, you are the wounded American spy,
codenamed Topaz. The action picks up after the document has
been handed to the businessman and you have jumped from the train
near the border. Your task is to get safely across into neutral territory.

This one is tougher, as you have more to do, and the clock is now
ticking on fast time. If that's too fast for you, you can always enter a command
and make it slower. You will also need the map that comes with
the game, so you know where things are and how to get to them
quickly. After all, a pack of dogs is on your trail, too.

From the map, you can see that a small house and shed aren't too far
away. Of course, you wouldn't dream of trying to hide out there,
since all buildings in the area likely to be searched. On the other hand,
you jumped off the train with very little in the way of possessions, so you
might, at least, find a few useful items to help you out.

Getting inside the house will take a certain amount of timing, but it isn't
hard. The shed is even easier, as no one is around. The difficult part will
be getting past the border checkpoint. You can't simply waltz past it;
there are guards and watchtowers with searchlights
that must be evaded, and two fences that must be passed.

Once you reach the area of the checkpoint, your attention
should be concentrated on the guards and the lights. You
will soon notice some patterns there, and reaching the
first fence is only (!) a matter of careful timing. However,
that clock is still ticking, and the guards are still making their
rounds, so you must do something about the first fence pronto.

Now, you're under the watchtower, between the two fences. A good
look at the second fence tells you that this one is a much tougher nut
to crack. In fact, you probably won't be able to get through it the same
way you did the first one. I'd even venture to say that nothing you have
with you could get you through that fence directly. There are some indirect
ways, though. This is a pretty tall tower. Think about it. Once over
the border, the second scenario ends.

The final scenario puts you in the role of Viper, the KGB agent who
was searching for the document on the train. However, Viper isn't merely
an enemy agent; he's actually a double agent, working for the
Americans. Not many people know about that (not even Topaz), and
Viper would like to keep it that way. Viper has a problem: now that he's
set up the assassination of the American Ambassador, he has to
find a way to stop it, without allowing himself to become directly involved.

Time in this scenario is shortest of all. Not only is the clock ticking
away in fast time, you have barely an hour to find out where the assassin
is hidden and prevent him from killing the ambassador. To make
things even more difficult, Topaz is in the area, too.

Your best bet here is to first save the game after entering the
scenario, then move around the area learning where things are. The
tiny map on the business card can help you to orient yourself.

<img class="float-right-half" src="/public/img/articles/cgw-scorpions-tale-border-zone/border-zone-map.jpg" alt="Border Zone map">

Once you've found out where the assassin is and how to get there unnoticed
by the hordes of police in the vicinity, you can restore and get
down to the matter at hand. The assassin is always in the same place,
so you don't have to repeat the steps necessary to locate him.

The major difficulty at this point is that, although the assassin will let
you into the room with him (you know the right password), he is extremely
nervous and doesn't trust you very much. If you try to pull a
gun on him, or interfere with him in any way, he'll just blow your head
off. Since this is not exactly what you had in mind to happen, you
must find some other way of stopping him.

Remember that you don't want to get your own hands dirty in this matter.
If you could get someone else to do the dirty work for you, you would
have scotched the assassination, while still not becoming involved to
the extent of blowing your cover.

This means, of course, that you can't just walk up to the nearest cop
and tell him about the assassin. Your superiors back home might get
the wrong ideas about you. You can't tell anyone else, either, but ...
perhaps you could trick someone into doing the job for you. All you
need is to be in the right place at the right time and then, run like hell.
There's nothing like a brisk game of follow-the-leader to get the blood
moving (or perhaps that should be: flowing). The death of the assassin,
and the exit of Viper from the scene, ends the final scenario.

One problem with these Border Zone scenarios is that they are all
stand-alone adventures. What happens in one has no effect
whatsoever on any of the others. For instance, if you fail
to deliver the information in scenario #1, it means nothing
at all in scenario #3, which begins with the assumption
that the information was properly delivered.

Even worse, a careful examination of the first and third
scenarios shows that delivery or non-delivery of the document
is totally irrelevant to the action. Viper doesn't need that document,
as it was stolen from him in the first place by Topaz. Viper already
knows about the assassination, and is out to stop it however
he can. The document is really superfluous, which in turn pretty much
makes scenario #1 superfluous, too.

All this makes for an unsatisfying experience. Who cares if the information
is delivered or not or whether or not Topaz gets across
the border? Everything is just fine in scenario #3, where all has already
happened as it should.

Border Zone would have been far better as one single, combined
game, where the events in one area had a true and important effect on
events in a future area. Even allowing for this in the individual
scenarios would have improved the game greatly. As they are now, the
scenarios are excruciatingly linear in design, with only one right way to
do them, and have no real interconnections among each other.

The real-time aspect is only partially so; you can, in fact, pause the
game almost any time you want to. This is necessary for reading long
text passages on the screen, but you can also use it to stop the action
while you take out time to think. The necessity for giving you a chance to
read also defeats the purpose of the real-time clock.

What sharpens the disappointment is the fact that Border Zone was written
by Marc Blank, the man (actually one of them) who gave us Zork.
Had I not seen his name on the box, I would never have believed this was
one of his products; the game does not come across as a top-notch effort.

So, there you have Border Zone, one of Infocom's weakest games to
date. This is not to say that some people won't enjoy it, but at least
you know what you're getting into.

## Fred Warms Your Cup With "Beyond Zork" Bug Problems

After my original article on Beyond Zork went to press, I
was advised of some flaws in the game that may prevent people, especially
Mac users (and perhaps of other versions as well) from completing
the game. First, under no circumstances should you open the
Shady Wall. If you have opened that Wall, make sure you close it again
before going to the other wall. Otherwise, you will not be able to finish
the game. A bug in the program prevents a certain item from lasting
long enough if the Shady Wall door is open.

The second problem is in the Fields of Frotzen. If you hear the
farmhouse come down, but you go to all the accessible areas and don't
see it anywhere, restore the game to the point before you entered the
Fields, and try again. The farmhouse came down behind the
corbies (where it isn't supposed to), and you'll never be able to reach it.

Well, it's that time again. As always, if you need help with an adventure
game, you can reach me in the following ways:
On Delphi: Visit the GameSIG, under the Groups and Clubs menu.
On GEnie: Stop by the Games RoundTable (type: Scorpia to reach
the Games RT). On The Source: Send SMAIL to ST1030. By US Mail
(remember to enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope with
your questions): Scorpia, PO BOX 338, Gracie Station, NY NY 10028.

Until next time, happy adventuring!

Copyright © 1988 by Scorpia, all rights reserved.