<!--
	Title: Infocom adds graphics to text adventures, announces plans for role-playing games!
	Source: Questbusters, v5(5)
	Date: May 1988
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

**After [a former Infocom employee wrote to us](/library/questbusters-what-if) and
other magazines and told how drastic changes had
led to a "gloom and doom" climate there, we
checked with Infocom to clarify the situation. The
result was this exclusive interview with Joel Berez,
Infocom President and a co-founder of the
company.**

**QB:** What sort of changes are *really* in store?

**Berez:** As far as interactive fiction in general goes, we
plan to upgrade the products technologically to take
advantage of the capabilities of machines that we haven't
really done much with over the last few years.
Until now we've pretty much been operating with the
same engine we developed many years ago, working
very hard to refine the stories, make them more interesting,
make the puzzles better. And we've made
some small enhancements.

However, one of the things that's become very apparent
to us in the last couple of years is that our market
just hasn't been growing the way it was in the old
days. We still have a very solid core of loyal interactive
fiction fans, but we're not picking up new people
at the rate we used to. And we're even losing some of
the old people, who are perhaps growing tired of products
that are in many ways very similar. It's funny
how some people really love the idea that they know
exactly what to expect when they buy one of our
games, but for others it can become a bit boring over
time. I think novelists often have the same problem.
After someone writes a string of novels with a more or
less similar style, he'll branch out and try something
new, picking up new fans—but certainly at the risk of
upsetting older ones.

**QB:** What kind of new technologies will you be
introducing?

**Berez:** We've been working on upgraded parsing, including
trying to develop the ability to have more intelligent
characters and more intelligent character
interaction, such as the ability to ask questions and
make comparative statements. Other features will
make it easier for novices to get into interactive fiction.
Right now we feel there's a fairly large hump
that new people have to get over.

We're also looking at high quality sound and graphics. In the past we
shied away from graphics for two reasons: The early machines weren't capable
of producing anything but the most cartoonish forms of graphics, and
the memory and disk limitations required a tradeoff—if you added graphics,
you had to take out something else. With today's more powerful machines
and our new programming techniques, we feel we can add to the
games without taking anything away. And oddly enough, in the process of
making the technical changes required to support graphics, we may also be
relaxing some of the former restrictions, such as game size. So the basic
text and logic parts of the games will likely get bigger, even as we add other
features.

**QB:** You're talking about the Amiga and ST, machines like that?

**Berez:** And the IBM PC, particularly in EGA mode and VGA.

**QB:** When you say graphics, do you mean a different picture for each location,
or just occasional pictures?

**Berez:** It's going to depend very much on the game, whatever's appropriate for a
particular story. In some cases the graphics may show a scene that sets the mood
when you enter an area. In other cases, the graphics can be used in puzzles. For
example, if you imagine the Chinese puzzle in *Zork III* graphically, it would
probably have made a lot more sense than as a text puzzle.

By the way, the original *Zork* had graphics, but we removed them for space reasons
when we transported them from the mainframe down to micro. Let me put
graphics in extreme quotes, because they were basically what you could do with
[alphanumeric] characters up on the screen: Things like the Zorkmid coin and
the portrait of J. Pierpont Flathead, came up as pictures.

**QB:** That's interesting. I've interviewed most of the original staff about *Zork* but
never heard of that.

**Berez:** To tell you the truth, the major reason we avoid talking about it was because
we had taken them out.

**QB:** Will all your interactive fiction now use graphics?

**Berez:** It's funny, because we started with the idea that it would just be some of
them, the ones in which graphics made sense. But as we began developing the
capability to do it, even the authors of games in development that were not supposed
to have graphics in them began thinking of things they could do that
would make a lot of sense. It is entirely possible that all our future interactive fiction
products will have graphics in them.

**QB:** When will we see the first one?

**Berez:** Hopefully we'll have a couple of titles to show at CES in June, shipping
sometime later in the summer.

**QB:** Will you do any all-text games in the meantime?

**Berez:** No, because all the all-text games in development have turned into graphics
games. Once people saw what could be done, they began to get more creative and
enthusiastic about using them.

**QB:** That means *Sherlock* would be Infocom's last all-text game?

**Berez:** Unless we start another one in the future. Yes, *Sherlock* might very well be
our last all-text game.

**QB:** Suppose there's a hue and cry from people who see the graphics and still
want all-text games?

**Berez:** Well, we still have the capablility to do all-text games. First we would want
to analyze the "cries of distress" to learn if it's resistance to change, or if they're
really valid.

**QB:** I also hear you're planning a roleplaying game. Is this another one like *Beyond
Zork*, or will it be more along the lines of a traditional RPG?

**Berez:** We're really branching out into all aspects of interactive storytelling, and
a very important niche in that category is the role-playing game. That's an area
where we think we can add value, and we're pursuing a number of different
types of products there—including traditional *D & D*-type games like *Wizardry*.
*Beyond Zork* we perhaps misrepresented a little bit as we were getting into this. It's
really a solid interactive fiction game that borrowed some appropriate features from
role-playing games, but it's still interactive fiction. Over this next year we'll be
introducing at least one that's really a solid role-playing game. That's not to say
that it won't also borrow from interactive fiction, but it will clearly be a role-playing
game.

**QB:** Is this being developed in-house?

**Berez:** The particular title I'm thinking of is not, though Infocom people are involved
in development. Just as with *Infocomics* we used Tom Snyder's technology
and had our writers and designers working with them, we are doing the same
kind of thing with outside developers of other sorts of products. Rather than trying
to develop all the technologies ourselves, we're working with people who
already have suitable technology, adding our storytelling expertise to them.

**QB:** Are the graphics we'll see in future adventures the same kind seen in *Infocomics*?
Or new ones entirely?

**Berez:** That's not what you would see in either our interactive fiction or role-playing
games. It was developed specifically for that product. By the way, we do
have one RPG that is being developed in-house. Brian Moriarty is working on
that.

**QB:** Which machines will it be out for first?

**Berez:** Probably the Mac and IBM PC.

**QB:** Are any of these changes at Infocom due to the marketing people at Activision
exerting more influence on your creative planning?

**Berez:** From my point of view we're exerting more creative control over Activision.
A year and a half ago, as we realized the interactive fiction market
wasn't growing the way it used to, we tried to figure what really made sense for
Infocom to be doing. That was the point at which we decided out greatest expertise
was in interactive storytelling and that we wanted to branch out in this area.
Just as we dominated interactive fiction, we'd like to dominate interactive storytelling,
simply by specializing in all aspects of that. As we've pursued that
strategy, we eventually convinced Activision that it made so much sense for us to
be the specialists in those sorts of products that Activision has stopped doing
them. We are now the interactive storytelling division of the company.

**QB:** And what's the story on this "Bruce Youth" movement? [[See April news for
details.](/library/questbusters-what-if)]

**Berez:** There's a tradition of underground memos here going back for many,
many years. Have you ever heard of InfoDope? It's an underground newsletter
that comes out every once in a while with very sarcastic humor, usually precipiated
by major changes in the company. One thing you've got to realize is that we are
going through a lot of major changes. For years we've been extreme specialists
in interactive fiction—we did one very narrow kind of thing and did it extremely
well. And what's apparent as we're expanding into a number of different types
of products is that, even though they're related in ways, there are also differences.
Like working with outside developers and needing to have testers who understand
the different types of products.

This has brought a certain amount of
change to virtually every department. And with change there are people who
feel more comfortable or feel less comfortable doing new things. Things like the
"Bruce Youth" underground memo are what comes out of it. We've always been
so much based on humor, that when people feel uncomfortable about things those
feelings tend to get subverted into humor. That's how they blow off steam.

**QB:** Any other examples of this?

**Berez:** Every issue of InfoDope has an excellent example of that...various people
have been lampooned at various times. I'm not sure if I really want to go into it
[laughs] but it tends to be very humorous and very to the point.

**QB:** So it's sort of a completely wacked out *Status Line* just for the people at
Infocom?

**Berez:** Yes.

**QB:** One other thing that goes back to Activision exerting influence on the creative
aspects of your games. The letter suggested that Activision was using Infocom
as a "dumping ground" for products it didn't want to release under the
Activision label.

**Berez:** It's really an example of point of view. If your perspective is that all we
can really do is interactive fiction, then you might want to see it that way. What
actually happened was that a year and a half ago, when we announced we wanted
to be the specialists in interactive storytelling, this [*Infocomics*] was a project
that was running out on the West Coast. It seemed to be a good launch platform
for us: It was so extremely different from interactive fiction yet still in the interactive
story category, that it was a good way to announce to the world that "this is
what we do." Also, the fact that Tom Snyder is about three blocks down the
road from us made it a natural fit. Once we looked at what they were doing, we
got extremely excited and picked it up. But it was entirely voluntary.

**QB:** So this is an example of how Infocom is exerting creative influence over Activision
instead of the other way around?

**Berez:** Yes. This whole strategy came from a daylong, off-site meeting of a lot
of key people, including a number of the game writers. And nobody from outside
Infocom was at that meeting, either. I do think that our strategy makes a lot of
sense, and that with our skills there's a whole lot of room to improve other kinds
of products, like role-playing games. And we're certainly not going to abandon interactive
fiction in the process.

<hr style="width: 80%;">

A follow-up call to Mike Dornbrook revealed more details on system availability
for the graphic adventures. In addition to the IBM, Amiga and ST, the Mac and Apple
IIGS will be fully supported. "We're also hoping for the Apple II," said the
Dorn Beast, "but some questions are still up in the air...it depends on what kind of
trade-offs would have to be made on graphics, text handling, speed, disk size.
Probably not the C 64, but we're debating a 128-only version and for time being efforts
will be put into 128. Some later titles may work on the 64. The option of
toggling off the pictures is being discussed, but some puzzles will be graphics-based
and you wouldn't be able to solve these if you stayed in all-text mode."
