Border Zone (video game)

Border Zone is a computer game of the U.S. company Infocom in 1987. It belongs to the genre of text adventures ( interactive fiction ).

Action

The plot in the style of a spy novel set at the time of the Cold War in the fictional town Ostnitz, which lies on the border between the ( also fictional) states Frobnia and Litzenburg. In the three parts of the Adventures of each player takes the role of an American businessman, a wounded American agent and a US-Soviet double agent. The three game parts are interrelated; so the player hits, for example in the first part as an American businessman wounded agents, a non-player character that he embodies in the second part yourself. The aim of the game is to prevent an attack on the American ambassador in Ostnitz.

Gameplay

The text adventure is controlled via keyboard, with English words, short sentences and complex sentences are entered via a text parser. Border Zone is played in real time. The leaflet contains a Frobnia Guide, a map of the border region between Frobnia and Litzenburg and another useful solution for game objects.

Development and production details

Border Zone has no graphics and no sound. Technical development base is the Z -machine; the reaction was carried out for the C 64, DOS, Atari ST, Mac OS and Apple II Although all other Infocom text adventures are appearing for the Amiga, Border Zone has not appeared on the Amiga. This is all the more surprising since BorderZone problems with the Amiga version of the Infocom interpreter is running. Developer was Marc Blank.

Reception

In a review of New York magazine from 1987 Border Zone was characterized as an exciting text adventure with elements of style of Alfred Hitchcock, Ian Fleming and John le Carré. A study on computer game history and theory from 2006 praised the one hand, the hand- made ​​game convincingly and well-written story. On the other hand, the " real-time" play of Border Zone was criticized when it had indeed an interesting, but for text adventures ( interactive fiction ) ultimately traded unsuitable experiment.