<!--
	Title: (Byte Game Grid) Deadline
	Author: Chris Morgan, Editor in Chief
	Source: BYTE, v7(12)
	Date: December 1982
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

The eternal dilemma of the reviewer of mysteries is
how to discuss the plot without revealing the ending. But
that's not a problem with Deadline, a fascinating new
program from Infocom, the creators of the Zork family
of adventure games.

Deadline puts you in the role of the detective, plants
you firmly in the cliché-ridden trappings of a thirties
murder mystery, and challenges you to discover the culprit.
Naturally, this involves your wandering in and
around a large mansion, the scene of the recent murder --
apparently by poisoning -- of the master of the house.

In classic adventure style, the game begins when you
arrive at the front gate of the property, where you are
given a typically elaborate description of your immediate
surroundings. But Deadline is quite a different animal
from traditional adventures. For one thing, it's much less
deterministic. Your actions have definite, if sometimes
unpredictable, effects on the various characters who inhabit
the mansion (all are suspects, incidentally). In fact,
if you get too nosy in your clue-hunting, you may be
threatened or, in some cases, killed. In these respects
Deadline resembles the other programs in the Zork
family of adventure games.

<img class="float-left-half" src="/public/img/articles/byte-game-grid-deadline/byte-game-grid-deadline.jpg" alt="Deadline Game Photo">

Deadline's radical departure from the prototypical
mystery is that it has more than one ending. The denouement
depends on your actions and possibly on randomizing
factors I haven't detected yet.

As the detective, you have a varied repertoire of
strategies. Among other things, you can gather objects,
analyze them for fingerprints at the lab, test them for a
specific substance, arrest people (for that you should wait
until you're quite sure of yourself!), ask people to tell you
about each other or about objects you show them, accuse
and even kill a suspect in the event that one threatens
your life, wait for someone to arrive at a particular place,
and so on. You can also use relatively complicated sentences.
For instance, "Put the wrapper, the ticket, and the
nail file on the dresser" is syntactically acceptable.

The game takes 12 hours (Deadline hours, that is) to
play. You begin at 8 a.m. and have until 8 p.m. to solve
the mystery. As with other adventure-style games, you
can save your position at any time if you want to restart
the game and try a new approach. One thing I discovered
(and it's not giving too much away) is that in many cases
events in the game occur at prearranged times. For instance,
a phone that rings at 9:06 a.m. on your first pass
through the game will probably ring at 9:06 in future
passes - something to keep in mind if you miss an opportunity
during the first pass (a common occurrence, I
assure you).

Philosophically, I found I was playing the game like an
old detective inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. And like Poe's
character, I concentrated on the myriad clues rather than
the characters, But the real key to success in this game, as
I discovered, is to monitor both the clues and the characters
with equal diligence, And watch out for red herrings:
there are many more of them than I initially suspected.

Deadline's documentation is useful, complete, and
even witty -- surely a rarity in personal computer software.
With its clever, dossier-like folder for printed
material, 8 by 10 glossy of the scene of the crime, actual
plastic packet of crushed tablets "found near the body,"
and the like, I felt like Lord Peter Wimsey arriving at the
police commissioner's office to pick up the official file. A
mystery addict couldn't ask for more.

Deadline is more than mere escapism, however; it's not
for the player who prefers vicarious to actual experience,
You're the one who'll do the work, and that includes solving
the case, But in this case the work is great fun.

I do have one quibble: the beginning Deadline player
deserves a few clues at the outset. After all, this is a very
tricky game, For starters, it would be helpful to be present
at the reading of the will. Rather than risk infuriating
potential players by continuing, I have printed some pertinent
clues upside down at the bottom of the page. Play
the game for a few hours (real time, that is) before you
glance at the clues, They don't give away too much, but
they'll spare you a lot of make-work.

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## At a Glance

**Name**<br>
Deadline

**Type**<br>
Interactive mystery game

**Manufacturer**<br>
Infocom Inc.<br>
55 Wheeler St.<br>
Cambridge, MA 02138

**Price**<br>
$49.95 ($59.95 for the CP/M and PDP-11 versions)

**Computer**<br>
Any of the following with 32K bytes of read/write memory and
one disk drive: Apple II or II Plus, Atari 400/800, any
CP/M-based system with 8-inch disk drives, IBM Personal Computer,
DEC PDP-11

**Author**<br>
Marc Blank

**Language**<br>
Interlogic Machine Language (an Infocom language)

**Documentation**<br>
A computer reference card, an inspector's casebook, and a
dossier that includes transcripts of interviews with witnesses, lab
reports, letters, memos, an 8 by 10 glossy of the scene of the
crime, and a small bag of pills "found near the body"

**Audience**<br>
Game players

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## Clues for Deadline

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1. Find out what's bothering the gardener. The way you
phrase your questions is important here as well as
throughout Deadline.

2. Watch out for tricky wording in the game's description of
the newspaper when it arrives.

3. George is a key character. Get his reactions to people and
objects.

4. The library is a particularly important room for several
reasons. Examine it and its contents.

5. Be sure to examine things carefully when appropriate.

6. It's instructive to follow certain characters around at
times. But be careful!

7. Show the same clues to various people and compare their
reactions.

8. Don't get preoccupied with clues at the expense of the suspects.

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