Ballyhoo (video game)

Ballyhoo is a computer game of the U.S. company Infocom in 1986. It belongs to the genre of text adventures ( interactive fiction ).

Action

The plot with elements of a detective story set in the circus milieu. The daughter of circus director was kidnapped. The player, a circus visitors, she tries to get free. Disguised as a clown he searches to the entire circus grounds, collect evidence and interviewed animal trainers, artists and other circus employees.

Gameplay

The game is controlled via the keyboard, where the player enters English words and phrases in a text parser. He must consult with other figures, find items and solve several puzzles. The package insert of the game are settled some useful for the achievement of the objective game objects, such as the circus program booklet.

Development and production details

The text adventure without graphics and sound has been developed on the technical basis of the Z -machine and for the C 64, DOS, Atari 8- bit, Atari ST, Amiga, MSX, Amstrad, TRS -80, TRS -80 CoCo, Mac OS and Apple II implemented. Developers of the game was Jeff O'Neill.

Reception

The computer magazine Happy Computer emphasized especially the typical Infocom Adventures high artificial intelligence of the parser, the interaction with other characters and the quality of the descriptive texts in a test report.

In a study of computer game history and theory of the black humor of the texts and the Mystery style of the plot were named as the characteristics of Ballyhoo. Despite some similarities, however, outweigh, just like Moonmist, the differences from previous Mystery Adventures by Infocom as Suspect, Deadline and The Witness.