Deadline (video game)
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''Deadline'' is an interactive fiction video game published by Infocom in 1982. Written by Marc Blank, it was Infocom's third game. It was released for the
Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...
, Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, IBM PC (as a self-booting disk),
Osborne 1 The Osborne 1 is the first commercially successful portable computer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighs , cost US$1,795, and runs the CP/M 2.2 operating system. It is powered from a wall socket, as it has no ...
,
TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...
, and later for the Amiga and Atari ST. ''Deadline'' was Infocom's first mystery game, their first non-''
Zork ''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded a ...
'' game, and the game that started their tradition of feelies. The number of NPCs, the independence of their behavior from the player's actions, and the
parser Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lat ...
's complexity were considered revolutionary at the time of the game's release.


Plot

The player's character in ''Deadline'' is an unnamed police detective, summoned to a sprawling
Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
estate to investigate the apparent suicide of wealthy industrialist Marshall Robner. The suspects, who walk around the estate pursuing their own agendas during your investigation, are: #Leslie Robner, the victim's wife #George Robner, the victim's son #Mr. McNabb, the gardener #Mrs. Rourke, the housekeeper #Mr. Baxter, Robner's business partner #Ms. Dunbar, Robner's
secretary A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a ...


Gameplay

New commands were implemented to suit the game's detective theme: the player can or even any of the suspects at any time. A well-timed accusation can cause an unnerved suspect to reveal previously concealed information. For an arrest to stick, however, the player must possess hard evidence of the three basics: motive, method, and opportunity. Without these, the game ends with a description of why the presumed culprit was released. The standard and commands are present, but the player can also objects or ask the invaluable Sgt. Duffy to them. There are only two ways for the player to die, but Infocom gave ''Deadline'' a difficulty rating of "Expert", largely due to the abundance of evidence and false leads to be sorted out within a short timespan.


Development

While writing ''Deadline'', Marc Blank was strongly inspired by the 1930s out-of-print books written by Dennis Wheatley. The working title of the game was "Who Killed Marshall Robner", a reference to Wheatley's '' Who Killed Robert Prentiss''. Blank wanted the player to feel like a detective while playing the game, and designed the game and its feelies around that. Because ''Deadline'' displayed a timer rather than the movecount and score that other Infocom games of its time showed, the game needed a custom interpreter, which made porting the game to different computers more difficult. Blank couldn't include all of the game's text in the limited 80 KB of disk space. Working with a newly hired
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, Infocom created physical items to provide information not included within the digital game itself. These items were: #A police folder in a pouch containing an Inspector's Casebook #A plastic bag with 3 white pills found near Marshall Robner's body #Notes from police interviews with Leslie and George Robner, Mr. Baxter, Ms. Dunbar, and Mrs. Rourke #''
corpus delicti (Latin for "body of the crime"; plural: ), in Western law, is the principle that a crime must be proved to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime. For example, a person cannot be tried for larceny unless it ca ...
'' (summary of findings from the coroner's examination) #A letter from Mr. Coates, Marshall Robner's lawyer, to the
Chief of police Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the b ...
#An official memo from G.K. Anderson of the
Lakeville, Connecticut Lakeville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, close to Dutchess County, New York. It is within the town of Salisbury, but has its own ZIP Code (06039). As of the 2010 census, the population of Lak ...
police department #A lab report on the teacup Robner drank from before his death #A photo of the murder scene, complete with white
chalk outline A chalk outline is a temporary outline drawn on the ground outlining evidence at a crime scene. The outline provides context for photographs of the crime scene, and assists investigators in preserving the evidence. Modern investigators almost ne ...
In later "grey-box" editions of ''Deadline'', many of these documents were incorporated into the Casebook, rather than existing as separate papers.


Reception

Although '' Computer Gaming World''s reviewer disliked the solution to ''Deadline''s mystery, she praised the game's realism, documentation, extensive command vocabulary, and the frustration involved in both finding the killer and presenting enough evidence for a conviction. ''
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'' called the game "fascinating" and "great fun", calling the multiple endings "a radical departure from the prototypical mystery". '' PC Magazine'' called ''Deadline'' "of the highest quality. It is thoroughly researched and tested, and it is virtually flawless". ''
The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' also mentioned the narrative and participatory character of the game. ''K-Power'' rated ''Deadline'' 8 points out of 10, stating that the game "is very exciting, is as good, or better, than ''Zork'', and will bring long hours of enjoyment and, best of all, intrigue". The game received an award for "Best Computer Adventure" at the 4th annual
Arkie Awards An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common ...
, where judges attributed the "richness and realism" of the game's dialogue to the advanced text parser that allows natural language input rather than the "telegraphic verb-noun phrases that other such disks generally employ". In 1996, ''Computer Gaming World'' listed ''Deadline'' at #104 among the top 150 best games of all time, calling it "a tough text adventure that placed you in the midst of an intricate police procedural and let you wander around a mansion."


Reviews

*''The V.I.P. of Gaming Magazine'' #3 (April/May, 1986)


See also

* ''The Witness'' (1983)


References


External links

*
Packaging and manual
{{Infocom games 1980s interactive fiction 1982 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Apple II games Atari 8-bit family games Atari ST games Commodore 64 games CP/M games Detective video games Infocom games Video games about police officers Video games developed in the United States Video games set in Connecticut