Moonmist

Moon Mist 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 in the style of a gothic novel with elements of a detective story takes place in the fictional English castle Tresyllian Castle. The player takes on the role of a young American detective. Tamara Lynd, the fiancee of the castle owner Lord Jack Tresyllian and a good friend of the player, asking for help in uncovering a castle ghost. The aim of the game is to debunk the ghosts and to find a hidden treasure. The player has to interview a number of castle guests and solve numerous puzzles.

Gameplay

The management of Moonmist via keyboard. Using a text parser are entered English words and phrases. The game has a time limit and can be played in several variants: In the beginning, the player is asked about his favorite color; depending on his answer there own game histories with different game solutions. The package insert of Moonmist contains, among other things, the book The Legendary Ghosts of Cornwall and the brochure A Visitor's Guide to Tresyllian Castle Book with maps and a brief outline of its history.

Development and production details

The adventure has no graphics and no sound. It was developed based on the Z -machine; the reaction was carried out for the C 64, DOS, Atari 8- bit, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad, TI99/4A, Mac OS and Apple II developers were Stu Galley and Jim Lawrence.

Reception

In two German game reviews of the 1980s Moonmist was referred to as " stylish horror - thriller" with excellent parser and well thought out storyline. The adventure was evaluated once with 11 of 12 rating points and once with 84 out of 100. An American reviewer emphasized the differences between Moonmist and earlier Infocom adventures ( "For Infocom veteran, Moonmist demons trates how text adventures have changed since the heyday of Zork. " ) The plot is complex and the player will be more drawn into the story. We also find the time limit for a realistic gaming experience would be useful.

A study on computer game history and theory characterized Moonmist as a mystery adventure. Similar to Ballyhoo there were however more differences than similarities to the early Mystery Adventures by Infocom as Suspect, Deadline and The Witness.