Publisher: Infocom
Developer: Infocom
Year: 1987
Platform: DOS; Amiga; Apple II; Atari ST; Commodore 128; Macintosh

Score: 9

Normally, the descriptions on game boxes are horribly exaggerated and sometimes inaccurate. In this case, Infocom does a better job than I could. Here’s the plot in a nutshell.

Once upon a time, a man moved from one apartment in London to another. He dutifully notified everyone of his new address, including his bank; he went to the bank and filled out a change of address form himself. The man was very happy in his new apartment.

Then, one day, the man tried to use his credit card but couldn’t. He discovered that his bank had invalidated his credit card. Apparently, the bank had sent a new card to his old address.

For weeks, this man tried to get the bank to acknowledge his change of address form. He talked to many bank officials, and filled out new forms, and tried to get a new credit card issued, but nothing worked. The man had no credit, and the bank behaved like, well, a bank.

It’s a sad story, one that gets replayed every day for millions of people worldwide. Of course, sometimes it’s not a bank at fault: sometimes it’s the postal service, or an insurance company, or the telephone company, or an airline, or the Government. But all of us, at one time or another, feel persecuted by a bureaucracy.

You begin in your new house. As per the letter in your package, you will fly to Paris just as soon as you get some money to take you to the airport. That money should be in today’s mail, so you should be off soon… unless, of course, there’s been some problem with the mail.

Oh by the way: The man in our story about the bank was Douglas Adams, the principal author of this game. The bank did finally send him a letter, apologizing for the inconvenience – but they sent it to his old address.

What ensues is comic madness, and unless you are a very good puzzle-solver, it will lean towards madness. As your blood pressure rises while playing the game, so does the character’s! Yes, there’s a blood pressure gauge at the top of the screen that goes up for every mistake you make. Your blood pressure might rise for an understandable reason, like filling out a bank deposit slip incorrectly, but it can also happen if you make a typo in the parser. And yes, you can have a heart attack if it gets too high.

If you can somehow manage to survive the colorful but very paranoid neighbors in your new town, somehow get the money coming to you, and somehow manage to get an airplane ticket to Paris, your journey has only begun in your quest to just have a freakin’ vacation. While the plot turns a bit fantastical, it at least fits the vibe in this bureaucratic nightmare.

I did need a few hints to win this one, but even I was amazed at my persistence with some of the puzzles. My favorite was probably how to get the politically motivated macaw to give up its mail. And if that sentence confused you, then just know that’s one of the more normal situations in the game! And while most puzzle answers require some outside-the-box thinking (and some inside-the-box thinking by using the included game materials), the brazen humor kept me away from the hint book several times. While there are a couple of instances where the game seems unfair, including one walking-dead situation, it’s worth the battle just to experience the writing genius that was Douglas Adams.

For those who don’t know, Infocom games were famous for including “feelies,” sometimes for hints, sometimes for copyright protection, sometimes just for fun.  Below is the best feelie they ever had.  An application for a credit card, in triplicate.  However, the yellow and salmon-colored sheets don’t exactly say the same things as the top page.  Hilarious stuff.  I miss Douglas Adams so much.