''Trinity'' is an

interactive fiction '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...

written by

Brian Moriarty Brian Moriarty (born 1956) is an American video game developer who authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction titles, ''Wishbringer'' (1985), ''Trinity'' (1986), and '' Beyond Zork'' (1987), as well as ''Loom'' (1990) for LucasAr ...

and published in 1986 by

Infocom Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called '' Cornerstone''. Infocom was founded o ...

. It is widely regarded as one of the company's best works. The plot blends historical and fantastic elements as part of a prose poem regarding the destructive power of the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

and the futile nature of

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

in the atomic age. The name refers to the

Trinity test Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert abo ...

, the first nuclear explosion, which took place in July 1945. It is Infocom's twentieth game and the last game released by the company when it was solvent.

Plot

As the game begins, the player's character is spending a final day of a London

vacation A vacation (American English) or holiday (British English) is either a leave of absence from a regular job or an instance of leisure travel away from home. People often take a vacation during specific holiday observances or for specific fes ...

in the

Kensington Gardens Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyd ...

. The evening flight back to the United States is looking increasingly unlikely for a number of unusual reasons. Hordes of nannies are blocking all exits from the Gardens, and the grass actively resists efforts to be walked upon. Worst of all, a gleam on the horizon soon heralds the unwelcome arrival of a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

nuclear missile Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. Several methods have been developed to carry out this task. ''Strategic'' nuclear weapons are used primari ...

. Time begins to slow as the missile approaches, and with some ingenuity the player's character finds an incongruous door hovering in mid-air. There's no telling where it may lead, but it cannot possibly be worse than the alternative of being at ground zero of a nuclear detonation... The doorway leads to a strange land, where impossible objects exist. Space and time do not seem to behave in the familiar ways here. Exploring this new environment, the player finds several other mysterious doors, each of which leads to another chapter in the history of nuclear weaponry. After visiting test sites (including ones in

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, and the Eniwetok Atoll) and

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

just before each device is detonated, the player has one scenario left to deal with. The final door leads to the

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

desert on July 16, 1945, mere minutes before the test-firing that will change the course of history. But something is wrong at the "Trinity" site, and without the player's intervention things will go horribly awry. The player is witness to, or rather narrowly escapes being a witness to, a number of nuclear explosions in the game. The sites visited, and the markings on the sundial that represent them, are: * London, near future (fictional,

Omega Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/ isopsephy ( gematria), it has a value of 800. The ...

) *

Low Earth Orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

, near future (fictional, Mercury) * Nevada (underground), 1970 (

historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...

) * Eniwetok Atoll, Pacific Ocean, 1952 (

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 time ...

) * Siberia, 1949 (

, Libra) * Nagasaki, Japan, 1945 (

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

) * Trinity, New Mexico, 1945 (

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whi ...

) Each of the symbols has a meaning relevant to the incident it represents. Trinity was the site of the first atomic explosion, and is therefore represented by an alpha, which is the first character of the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

. The bombing of Nagasaki was an act of war, and

is the Roman god of war. The test in Siberia (actually in the

Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic ; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы) *1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы) , linking_name = the ...

) was an example of another superpower attempting to establish balance in the

nuclear arms race The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuc ...

, and the zodiacal sign of Libra is represented by the scales, making a reference to restoring the balance. The Eniwetok Atoll test took place in the middle of the ocean; hence it is symbolized by

, the Roman god of the sea. The Nevada test is underground, and thus represented by

, god of the underworld. The fictional incident in London was chronologically the latest to take place, and

omega Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/ isopsephy ( gematria), it has a value of 800. The ...

is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. The symbols also appear at the corresponding locations in ''The Illustrated Story of the Atom Bomb'' comic, which was included with the game. The fictional Low Earth Orbit (Mercury) detonation is very likely a reference to the space interceptor subproject of the

Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons ( intercontinental ballist ...

, nicknamed "Star Wars", contemporary with the game's development. ''Trinity'' also includes numerous references to British children's literature, including the

Alice Alice may refer to: * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Literature * Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll * ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...

books of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

, the

Mary Poppins It may refer to: * ''Mary Poppins'' (book series), the original 1934–1988 children's fantasy novels that introduced the character. * Mary Poppins (character), the nanny with magical powers. * ''Mary Poppins'' (film), a 1964 Disney film star ...

books of P. L. Travers, and especially

J. M. Barrie Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (; 9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several succ ...

s novel ''

The Little White Bird ''The Little White Bird'' is a novel by the Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, ranging in tone from fantasy and whimsy to social comedy with dark, aggressive undertones. It was published in November 1902, by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and Scribn ...

''.

Development

created ''Trinity''s story in 1983. After joining Infocom in 1984 he proposed it to the company, but management believed that it was too large for the

z-machine The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions (called story files or Z-code ...

at the time. After completing ''

Wishbringer ''Wishbringer: The Magick Stone of Dreams'' is an interactive fiction video game written by Brian Moriarty and published by Infocom in 1985. It was intended to be an easier game to solve than the typical Infocom release and provide a good introduc ...

'' Moriarty began working on ''Trinity'' in May 1985, researching the history of nuclear weapons and visiting the Trinity site and

Los Alamos, New Mexico Los Alamos is an census-designated place in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, United States, that is recognized as the development and creation place of the atomic bomb—the primary objective of the Manhattan Project by Los Alamos National Labo ...

. He attempted to make the game accurately depict the geography of New Mexico and Kensington Gardens. Moriarty completed the game in June 1986, and later stated that "writing it wasn't a pleasant experience, I can tell you that. It's not easy to sit down and write that stuff ... It was hard to live with that game for a year". He added, however, that "''Trinity'' is not a funeral, and on'tbe afraid of it. It's kind of a dark game, but it's also, I like to think, kind of a fun game, too. But I do want people to think about what they see."

Release

The packaging for ''Trinity'' contained several items, called feelies, related to the plot of the game. These feelies included: * A map of the Trinity site * A cardboard sundial marked with odd symbols * ''The Illustrated Story of the Atom Bomb'', an "educational"

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

laden with ironic statements regarding the feelings of

patriotism Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to one's country. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings, language relating to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or histor ...

idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ...

, and

jingoism Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national int ...

surrounding the production of atomic weaponry * Instructions on how to fold an

origami ) is the Japanese art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a f ...

crane (

orizuru The ''orizuru'' (折鶴 ''ori-'' "folded," ''tsuru'' "crane"), or paper crane, is a design that is considered to be the most classic of all Japanese origami.Jccc Origami Crane Project – Materials For Teachers & Students. MEANING OF THE ORIGAM ...

) using the Yoshizawa–Randlett system (a reference to

Sadako Sasaki was a Japanese girl who became a victim of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States. She was two years of age when the bombs were dropped and was severely irradiated. She survived for another ten years, becoming one o ...

), and a small square of origami paper with which to do it.

Reception

In 1996, '' Next Generation'' listed ''Trinity'' at number 100 in their "Top 100 Games of All Time", commenting that "''Trinity'' takes the same types of serious themes of ''

A Mind Forever Voyaging ''A Mind Forever Voyaging'' (''AMFV'') is a 1985 interactive fiction game designed and implemented by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom. It is Infocom's seventeenth game. The game was intended as a polemical critique of Ronald Reagan's po ...

'', and adds to them a heavy dose of mythology and fantasy. ... this is not only one of the most socially and politically powerful game experiences ever created, but also a landscape upon which puzzles of trademark Infocom quality can appear." Later the same year, ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly throug ...

'' listed ''Trinity'' at #120 among their top 150 best games of all-time. The editors called it "a tense, ethical tightrope walk through the Cold War".

Legacy

Trinity was included as one of the titles in the 2010 book ''

1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die ''1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die'' is a video game reference book first published in October 2010. It consists of a list of video games released between 1970 and 2013, arranged chronologically by release date. Each entry in the list ...

''. Video game designer and programmer Jonathan Blow mentioned ''Trinity'' as one of his formative influences.

References

External links

*
Walkthrough, with maps
* {{Infocom games 1980s interactive fiction 1986 video games Adventure games Amiga games Anti-war video games Apple II games Atari ST games Commodore 64 games Commodore 128 games DOS games Infocom games Classic Mac OS games Video games about nuclear war and weapons Video games about time travel Video games adapted into comics Video games developed in the United States Video games set in London Video games set in Japan Video games set in Nevada Video games set in New Mexico Video games set in the 20th century Video games set in the Soviet Union Japan in non-Japanese culture Works about vacationing