<!--
	Title: Stationfall: Welcome Back, Floyd!
	Author: William E. Carte
	Source: Questbusters, v4(8)
	Date: August 1987
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

It's been five long years since your *Planetfall* heroics on the planet Resida.
After being promoted from Ensign 7th Class to Lieutenant lst Class, you were
certain that life in the Stellar Patrol would finally be exciting. How wrong
you were, for your daily routine of scrubbing the decks has been replaced
with dull paperwork. Today's assignment Go to the space station
Gamma Delta Gamma and pick up a supply of Request Form Forms. Just
another boring day-or is it?

No-one greets your arrival at the space station, for the place turns out to be
deserted. The station itself, all seven mappable levels (it actually consists of
nine levels), proves as intriguing as the mystery of the missing crew. By visiting
the Commander's Quarters right away and using the tape found there, you'll get
some information about an alien ship that showed up near the space station just a
few days ago. It seems that shortly after the crew removed a strange pyramid from
the alien ship, things began to go haywire on the station. Machinery
malfunctioned, robots started attacking the crew (even the automatic doors tried
to bite people as they walked through), and no one could determine what was
wrong.

<img class="float-right" src="/public/img/articles/questbusters-stationfall-review/space-station.png" alt="A very pixelated sketch of a space station">

As you listen to the tape you realize you've got to get a very important key
from the Captain's safe. This is not merely an initial puzzle that opens the
way into another phase of the game, as one would think, but turns out to be the
main quest that keeps you occupied throughout *Stationfall*. You need four
main items to open it, things that aren't hard to find. The trick is in getting them
back to the safe.

You won't meet any people on the space station, but do get to interact with a
balloon creature, an ostrich and a robot named Plato. And of course, Floyd, that
precocious robot who saved your life in *Planetfall*, will help. In fact, you can't
finish the game without his assistance. But as time goes by, Floyd's behavior
grows erratic. Emitted by the pyramid, a strange force seems to be affecting him,
and you've only got a limited amount of time to find the pyramid and put an end to
it Otherwise the station explodes, and there's no way to escape. Without food
and water, as in the original game, you may also perish, and it helps to get some
sleep now and then.

Infocom recently broke new ground with Dave Lebling's *Lurking Horror*, their first
"fright night" adventure. Now the man who, along with Douglas Adams, stunned
the gaming world with *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, the first
Infocomedy, has done something decidedly different. Admittedly,
*Stationfall* is not another *Hitchhiker*. Nevertheless, Steve Meretzky has once
again revolutionized the text adventure. What could possibly be new about a
science fiction scenario? Nothing in terms of the category. But Meretzky has
created a very difficult standard level game. Again, nothing new here.

## *Fishing for Herring*

What's new is the way he did it. The puzzles in *Stationfall* are not as
devilishly difficult as those in *Spellbreaker* or *Bureaucracy*. As
individual puzzles, most are not even extremely hard. But Meretzky made this
a very difficult game by mixing a multitude of red herrings with the items
necessary for solving the puzzles. And among the more than 100 locations are
scattered at least 30 totally useless rooms. To make matters even more confusing,
you've got to solve puzzles to reach some of the useless locations, such as the brig.
Many of the places and things are vividly described. duping you into believing
they're important.

A hole in the wall in Doc Schuster's office, for example, is described in such
detail that I was convinced it contained some valuable object or clue. After
trying for an hour to get something—anything!—from the hole, I
finally realized it was yet another red herring. Then there's the alien ship.
Surely that skeleton and pedestal are significant in some way, I reasoned.
Guess again. The truth is, the space station is littered with useless diodes,
fromitz boards, buttons and machinery.

Many of the clues also proved to be red herrings. A message in one of the tapes
refers to an important piece of equipment, a collater. Guess what? No collater.
Another tells of a wrench needed to install fuel cells; but again, there's no wrench in
sight I realize that the use of red herrings is not revolutionary in itself.
But *Stationfall* is rife with useless items, misleading clues and deceptive locations.
While they may be frustrating, they certainly make the game challenging, and
turn an adventure composed of what are really standard level puzzles into a game
of unusual complexity. If memory serves me correctly, no other Infocom game so
pervasively applies that nemesis of novice and master adventure alike, the
dreaded red herring.

<img class="float-right" src="/public/img/articles/questbusters-stationfall-review/robbie-robot.png" alt="Very pixelated clip art of Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet.">

The outstanding documentation includes requisition forms for obtaining a
robot (choose one of the others once, just to see Floyd's expression), a spacetruck,
and to operate the vehicle. You get a complete set of blueprints showing all
nine levels of the space station, which minimizes the need for mapping. And
the manual furnishes background material on the story, dating back to the original
events of *Planetfall*. In addition, you get a sew-on Stellar Patrol patch and a
coupon that enables you to order *Planetfall* for $14.95.

The disk is not protected, so you can play on a back-up. Protection is built
into a chart that's part of the packaging: In order to reach the space station from
your own, you've got to read your chronograph for the time, then cross-reference
this with coordinates on the chart in order to set the proper course.
Infocom's parser remains the best in the adventure community, understanding full
sentences and smoothing the process of communicating with the program. The
program supports two drives and 40- or 80-columns; you can boot up or restore a
saved game in seconds; and other aspects of the game mechanics are excellent.<br>
**Conclusions:** Those who played *Planetfall* will certainly love *Stationfall*,
an engaging story full of humorous situations and witty responses. But the
ending is a real tear-jerker, the saddest final act of any Infocom game. So before
you save the space station, be sure you have a box of Kleenex handy.

<hr style="border-top: 4px double;">

**System:** All Home Computers<br>
**Skill Level:** Standard (but complex)<br>
**Price:** Atari 8-bit & C-64, $34.95; others, $39.95<br>
**Company:** Infocom
