<!--
	Title: Four Minds Forever Voyaging
	Author: Sean Masterson
	Source: Zzap!64, #13
	Date: May 1986
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

<p class="article-sidebar-dark larger" style="font-weight: bold;">
Very few games get reviewed in magazines or journals outside the specialist
computer press like ZZAP! You won't find many platform game reviews in
The Times or in Punch. But you could find an Infocom review. Infocom
started working in the late seventies, formed out of an Artificial Intelligence
development team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and grew
rapidly into the most respected software house in the world.
</p>

<p class="article-sidebar float-left smaller" style="background: var(--dark); color: var(--light); padding: 0.5em 1em;">
Little is known about the teams and individuals that
develop the games. Infocom don't exactly advertise
their products lavishly. And usually, only one or two
titles per year are introduced. So, arrangements were
made to allow me to chat to four of the people behind
the myth to find out just what makes this unique
organisation tick.
</p>

<img class="float-right-narrow" src="/public/img/articles/zzap64-four-minds-forever-voyaging/sword-helmet-cartoon.png" alt="A sketch of a sword and helmet">

The usual convoluted phoning arrangements had to be made, timing had to be compatible
(which it nearly wasn't as I got the time zone for Massachusetts wrong) and ZZAP! Towers had be
clinically sealed to provide the necessary tomb like silence required for our hypersensitive taping
equipment (that almost makes it sound good). Despite attempts to have everything arranged
properly, there was the inevitable last minute panic. All was well, in the end. This is what
transpired...

## PART 1: DAVE LEBLING<br>(AUTHOR/CO-FOUNDER)

<p class="article-sidebar-dark float-left-narrow larger" style="font-style: italic; text-align: right;">
We saw the original adventure game, often referred to as Colossal
Cave-Adventure. We thought it had some limitations and decided to
write a similar sort of game but better! So we did.</p>

**First on the line was Dave Lebling.** He helped explain
how the company came into existence. 'Well, I was
one of the people who helped found the company.
There were a bunch of us working at MIT, now
called the Laboratory of Computer Science, and we
had this frightful idea that we were a pretty clever
bunch of people. So we actually founded the
company before we knew what we were going to do
with it. Only later did we decide to do computer
games.

'We were working on all sorts of things. For the
ten years before the comany took off, we worked
on things which were artificial intelligence related,
office products etc. We really did a variety of
different activities.'

<img class="float-right" src="/public/img/articles/zzap64-four-minds-forever-voyaging/zork-logo.png" alt="Zork I logo">

Dave went on to describe how the first Infocom
titles came about. 'Well, we saw the original
adventure game, the one that was written by Don
Woods and Will Crowther, often referred to as
*Colossal Cave/Adventure*. We really were quite
excited by it but at the same time, we thought it had
some limitations and decided to write a similar sort
of game but better! So we did.

'It was written on and off, over a period of
about six months to a year. The original version, the
very smallest part, was done fairly quickly. But we
kept adding. So substantially, what you see today is
*Zork* 1, 2 and 3. It was written as one piece first and
then split up into a trilogy. When we split it up, we
added a lot of new material. Maybe, I don't know, a
couple of K for each of the games. *Zork 1* was all
original material. *Zork 2* had new characters and so on.

'The first machine for which the game was
released was the TRS 80! In fact at the time, the only
candidate machines were that and the Apple.
Possibly the Atari was well. What we did, this requires
going into our technology a little bit, when we first
designed our system, we designed so that we could
easily transport our games from one machine to
another. Most of the code could remain unchanged.
Only a small section, maybe 5 or 10K
would have changed. In fact, when you're
talking about machines with a similar architecture,
like the Apple and the Atari, the changes would be
even smaller.

'So planning for other machines was part of our
design right from the very beginning because we
realised that this was going to be a rapidly changing
market and we didn't want to have to spend a year
doing each conversion. That's why each of our
games on that part of our series called Interactive
Fiction is simultaneously released.

'The first game I worked on after *Zork 1* and
*Zork 2* was *Starcross*, which was a science fiction
game ... and a little bit on *Zork 3*. Then *Enchanter*,
after that; then *Suspect* and most recently, last year,
*Spellbreaker*, concluding the trilogy we started with
*Enchanter*.'

<img style="max-width: 90%; display: block; margin: auto;" src="/public/img/articles/zzap64-four-minds-forever-voyaging/spellbreaker-packaging.png" alt="Spellbreaker packaging">

Many people have said that of all the Infocom
games, *Starcross* is the most difficult. So where did
Dave get the inspiration for such a masterpiece?
'I've probably read hundreds, more likely thousands
of science fiction books, stories magazines
etc. I've always been interested. *Starcross* was really
a homage to a cross between Arthur C Clarke's
**Rendevous with Rama** and various Larry Niven
stories. The Niven connection is the fact that
there are a variety of essentially friendly aliens,
strange devices and particularly the stepping discs.
The red and blue steppping discs that feature in a
large number of problems are based on the stepping
discs from Larry Niven's **Known Space** stories.'

But as Dave added, *Enchanter* was very different
to other games at he time because of its comlex
magic system. 'Well, that comes from fantasy --
reading fantasy as opposed to science fiction!
Really, *Enchanter* was inspired by reading Ursula K
Le Guin's **Earthsea Trilogy** which, I think, is one of
the best fantasy novels or series ever written.
*Enchanter*, well ... most of our games really, take
about nine months to write. I'm not too sure
whether *Enchanter* took slightly less or longer,
thinking about it.

'On and off during writing the early *Zorks*, if
you notice, there's not much in the way of magic or
magic spells in those games and I was thinking for a
long time, even before we started splitting *Zork* into
episodes, that magic spells would make an interesting
addition to the games. Eventually I came up
with a scheme for doing magic spells and the game
resulted.'

So was it intended to evolve as a trilogy like its
predecessors did? And what about his conclusion
to the series, the recently released *Spellbreaker*, was
he satisfied with that? 'No, I suspected it might be a
trilogy, and then part way into it, near the end I
guess, Steve Meretzky said he'd like to do a second
game. So we talked about it and we had some really
good ideas and stuff. So before *Enchanter* had been
finished, he started to work on *Sorcerer*.

'I think I would say that I got most of the things
into it (*Spellbreaker*) that I wanted to. Something
that I had actually started thinking about at the time
that *Enchanter* was written that ultimately appeared
in *Spellbreaker* was the idea that you could actually
write things and create things yourself in the game.
Beyond that, I think the only thing you tend to
regret when you've finished, is you always whish
there had been that extra 5K or 10K. The game
*Spellbreaker*, for instance is something of the order
of 1K -- once it's inside the system, so a lot of things
have to be left out just because of the lack of room.'

<img class="float-left-half" src="/public/img/articles/zzap64-four-minds-forever-voyaging/deadline-packaging.png" alt="Deadline packaging">

Dave explained which of the games he found
most difficult to write and which had become his
favourite. He also made a point about Infocom's
aims in game design. 'Definitely *Suspect*. I've read
enormous amounts of literature, not just SF and
fantasy but mystery, adventure, so I vowed that I'd
never do another one until ... I will do another
mystery once we have a better parser. You need it
for the characters. It's too frustrating given the
limitations of the conversations.

'Probably, I would say that the favourite is a toss
up between *Enchanter* and *Starcross*. I like *Starcross*
because my real love is for just hard SF -- stories
which move the plot along with science. A lot of the
puzzles are down like that in the game. I enjoy that.
I enjoy that kind of story.

<p class="article-sidebar-dark float-right larger" style="font-style: italic;">
Planning for other machines was part of our
design right from the beginning because we
realised that this was going to be a rapidly
changing market and we didn't want to have to
spend a year doing each conversation.
</p>

'The firm seems to have split in two directions.
We have these big games, called the Interactive
Fiction Plus series which are much bigger and have
a richer environment made possible by the size of
the few machines they run on. We have the classic
games -- the ones everybody knows and I think
we'll keep doing both because the classics have a
certain charm.

'So we'll keep doing that, but more importantly, I
think what we want to do is keep ... well, we want
to get it so that play is better, interaction is a lot
smoother and more conversational than it is now.
What we have done over time is improve it little by
little so there are improvements in say, *Spellbreaker*
over *Enchanter* but we still know we're geared to
smoothness in talking to other human beings. The
closer we can get to that, the better our games will
be because you don't want to spend most of your
time playing what we call 'guess the word'. Our
games have very large vocabularies; *A Mind Forever
Voygaging* has over two thousand words. On the
level, that's still not as much as you would like. The
level of English understood is good but not as good
as we would like. As we say on our packages, we're
never satisfied.'

<p class="article-sidebar-dark float-right larger" style="font-style: italic;">
I've probably read hundreds, more likely thousands of science
fiction books, stories magazines etc. I've always been interested.
Starcross was really a homage to a cross between Arthur C Clarke's
Rendevous with Rama and various Larry Niven stories.
</p>

All this was very interesting, but where did the
strange *Cornerstone* project fit into the pattern and
what's more -- what was *Cornerstone*? '*Cornerstone*
is a business product. It is the first in a line of
business products and it uses similar technology to
the games. .That is to say, there is a large core which
doesn't change on different machines. So far,
we've only put it out for the IBM PC and the Apple
series. It may come out for other machines in the
future. We occasionally refer to it as our worst
game.'

## PART TWO: STEVE MERETZKY<br>(AUTHOR)

**With that,** Dave disappeared to be replaced at the
mouthpiece by one of the most famous members of
the Infocom team, 28 year old Steve Meretzky who
began by telling me how he first began working for
the company. 'I've been with the company about
four years. I started as a games tester. Well, I
worked on the first two games that Infocom did,
that is *Zork 1* and *Zork 2*. The first one that I actually
did as an employee was *Deadline*.'

How did the plot for his first game, *Planetfall*
come about? 'Well, I would say that it was pretty
typical of most of our designs which is that you start
with a storyline and it changes somewhat along the
way, but before you begin, you do have an idea of at
least roughly what the story's going to be. As you
begin doing the actual programming, you get new
ideas an things you want to do.

'Then when people begin playing it, you get
suggestions. The more you see things that they try
to do, the more you get additional ideas. So usually
you start with the story and then it evolves over the
whole design and implementation.

<p class="article-sidebar-dark float-left larger" style="font-style: italic; text-align: right;">
You put in a special response case which is usually funny, if you can
thinking of something funny, or is nasty if you happen to be in a bad mood when
you write it.</p>

All of Steve's games have had an exceptionally
good reception from all sides of the press. When I
asked him how he felt about this, he modestly
answered from the point of view of the company.
'Well, we feel pretty good. I mean, each game takes
pretty close to a year of work. After spending that
amount of time on something, you feel pretty good
when people like it.'

Fair enough. I asked him if working on *Sorcerer?*
created any problems as he was effectively in Dave
Lebling's territory, here? 'Well, in some ways it was
easier and in some ways it was harder. I was easier
in that there wasn't so much independent thinking
that I had to do because the game setting was
already created. However, it was also harder
because I didn't have as much flexibility but it was
an interesting change from starting with my own
universe.'

I wondered whether Steve had considered any
preset objectives with this game. 'No not really. I
just wanted to do a game that was very puzzle
oriented. *Planetfall* certainly has its share of puzzles
but it has much more in the storyline than *Sorcerer*
did. I really wanted to try to do something that was
almost entirely puzzle oriented. I think that the coal
mine puzzle is the hardest part of *Sorcerer*.'

<p class="article-sidebar-dark float-left larger" style="font-style: italic; text-align: right;">
I wanted to have a game which was more serious and had a message in it
which was something that we hadn't done before.</p>

*Sorcerer* was one of the first Infocom games I had
played. One of the best features which, as I learned
later, was employed in all their games, was the use
of considered, unpredictable responses to certain
requests. I took the opportunity of asking Steve
how these came about. 'Generally, the way they
appear is playtesters play the games. They say, "I
tried to do this and didn't get a response or a
response which didn't make sense or just a default
response which isn't good enough in this case." So
you put in a special response for that case which is
usually funny, if you can think of something funny,
or is nasty if you happen to be in a bad mood when
you write it. Or if it's a particularly annoying thing
that the person tried to do. If it was a stupid thing to
do, then you might be a little nastier in your
response. Or if it was something that a smart Alec
would try to do then you might be nasty as well. But
yeah, those are where you really get a lot of
opportunity to put humour into the game.'

<img class="float-right" src="/public/img/articles/zzap64-four-minds-forever-voyaging/hhgttg-cover.png" alt="Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy cover">

Probably Steve's (and perhaps Infocom's) most
famous game is their adaptation of *The Hitch Hikers
Guide To The Galaxy*. Mr Meretzky talked a little
about its origins. 'Well most of the writers here
were familiar with and enjoyed the books and the
radio shows. Douglas Adams was familiar with and
enjoyed some of our products, and so a mutual
friend of Infocom's and Douglas's, introduced us
and we hit it off pretty well. About a year after that,
we started work on the *Hitch Hikers* game and I was
basically chosen to do that because I was available
at the time and I had done *Planetfall*, which was
humourous science fiction.

'It started out with him coming over here and we
worked together in Boston for about a week. Then
we connected up a computer mail network and
communicated pretty much on a daily basis that
way. We talked on the phone once or twice a week
and then about three months after that first
meeting, I went over to England and spent a week
there. After that the design was pretty much done
and I was left alone to do all the testing and bug
fixing type of work and then Douglas came over
here for another week right before it went out, just
to do some last minute polishing. Basically I did all
the programming and he did most of the writing
and we designed most of the puzzles working
together.'

Steve's latest masterpiece is called *A Mind Forever
Voyaging* but unlike their normal games, this one
only runs on sixteen bit micros. 'There already is an
Amiga version. All our games run on both of those
two (ST and Amiga). *AMFV* is the first game in our
new plus series. Basically we now have two lines of
adventure games; the original line and the plus line
which are much larger and won't run on the lower
end machines but the plus games and the originals
all run on the more powerful machines.'

Steve never seems to run short on ideas (then
again, neither do the rest of the team). Certainly,
*AMFV* seems to be one of the most original pieces of
software to ever appear on a home computer. 'I
think it's really hard to track down where the ideas
came from. But one thing that made it possible was
the system which allowed a lot more complexity
and, you know, just a lot more time in the game.
Without the Plus system it would have been
impossible to have a bigger geography or as much
text or anything like that. I also, when I was doing
*AMFV*, I wanted to have a game which was more
serious and had a message in it which was
something that we hadn't done before. And as far as
the individual or more specific ideas, they came
about the way most come about; just sitting and
thinking about it, talking with other people and
rejecting ideas and developing the scenario.'

After all this hard work, had Steve considered
one game in particular to be his favourite? 'That's
really hard to say. I enjoyed all of them for different
reasons. Probably *Planetfall* was the most fun
because it was the first and so nothing was repetitious
and it wasn't like anything I had ever done before.'

<p class="article-sidebar" style="background: var(--dark); color: var(--light);">
<strong><a href="/library/zzap64-four-minds-part-2">NEXT MONTH:</a></strong> Sean talks to <strong>Stu Galley</strong>, Senior
Games Designer, and learns that there are no 'bosses'
at Infocom; and to <strong>Carl Genatossio</strong>, Art designer,
about Infocom's unusual packaging, including the
famous flying saucers that kept falling off shop shelves.</p>
