Bureaucracy (video game)

Bureaucracy is a text adventure by Infocom in 1987, which was, inter alia, written by Douglas Adams.

Action

The player is forced to overcome a long and complicated series of bureaucratic hurdles that have been caused by his recent move. So the mail is not delivered and bank accounts are inaccessible. The game displays a simulated blood pressure measurement, which rises in the case of frustrating events and falls again after a period of time without the hassle of events. When a certain blood pressure is exceeded, the player succumbs to an aneurysm and the game is lost. During the seemingly simple task to get misdirected letters, players will encounter some bizarre personality as a computer hacker, a paranoid weapons fetishists, a tribe of cannibals and a hungry llama. The game begins with a registration form. After this was completed by the player, the game uses this information intentionally completely wrong, the player is addressed persistently in the wrong gender, and the "least liked " by the player as a specified color appears everywhere.

Trimmings

• A parade brochure of the fictitious Bank Fillmore Fiduciary Trust
• A promotional list for the fictional magazine Popular Paranoia
• A welcome greeting from the new player's employer, the Happitec Corporation
• An application form for a credit card with three carbon copies, each of which has other instructions and questions.
• A pen ( for filling out the forms)

Comments

According to Adams, the game was inspired by his own experiences. When he moved once in London, he filled out many moving forms, one he personally gave his bank from. Shortly after moving into the new apartment his credit card was no longer valid and the bank had sent him a new to his former address. It took several weeks before the bank had fixed the bug in which Adams had to fill in a variety of forms and in discussions with various bank employees. According to Adams, finally, the Bank sent a letter in which she apologized for the inconvenience; However, this was once again sent to the former address.

Although Bureaucracy was written in the typical, very humorous style of Adams, the game sold very slow, especially when compared to the best-selling The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Since Infocom 1987 was conditionally run into financial distress by the failure of the database software Cornerstone, money was hardly put into advertising.

Bureaucracy is also one of the five months of the Discordian calendar.