A letter from Hermit Crab the President Racing Seepages The Status Line See pages 6 & 7 Volume VI Number 2 Formerly The New Zork Times Summer 1987 The Lurking Horror and Stationfall Do panic! A demon on Floyd returns in boffoid the loose at GUE Tech sequel to Planetfall It's a dark and stormy night. The wind howls When the results came in from the recent Status around the monolithic buildings of G.U.E. Tech, Line poll, high on the list of favorite Infocom sending the heavy snow into blinding swirls. In games was Steve Meretzky's Planetfall®. We the Computer Center, you huddle over your weren't surprised. Planetfall has long been terminal, struggling to complete an assignment. popular with interactive fiction fans. And Floyd, Suddenly, strange images appear on the your mischievous robot companion in the game, screen, hinting at a ghastly fate close at hand. easily takes the prize for best-loved Infocom Darkness overcomes you as you're drawn into a character. fiendish world full of unimaginable horrors. Planetfall is also a favorite of reviewers and When you struggle awake (for surely it must be a critics. Meretzky won a Best Computer Software dream), you find yourself clutching an object last Designer award for Planetfall in 1983, and seen in your nightmare ... additional awards include Best Adventure Game Thus begins The Lurking Horror™, Infocom's ~~iiii=:;::::::::::--l_of 1983 from InfoWorld. One reviewer mirrored first interactive horror story. the enthusiasm of many when he said, "Planetfall is just about worth the purchase of a computer." G.U.E. Tech In The Lurking Horror, you're a student at Requests for Planetfall sequel George Undeiwood Edwards Institute of Steve Meretzky has received countless re­ Technology. Although you're dedicated to the quests for a sequel to Planetfall. Now he has pursuit of knowledge, once you "awake" from made everyone happy by writing Station/all ™. your nightmare, you've got more on your mind All the elements which made Planetfall one of than your term paper. As though pulled by a Infocom's best-loved games are here in powerful force within the object you've so myster­ Stationfall: the ever-efficient Stellar Patrol, the iously acquired, you leave your computer and comical characters and situations, the amazing venture into the dark nether regions of the tools and machines of the future, the ingenious Institute. puzzles, and the endearing little robot Floyd. Now you're treading on dangerous ground Although Planetfall fans will delight in meeting indeed. For beneath the Institute lies a warren of old friends, it's not necessary to have played one dimly-lit corridors and storage rooms, some so game to enjoy the other. ancient that they contain only rotting piles of At the start of Station/all, you're still enlisted That Lurking Horror package really makes eye unidentifiable junk. There are miles of decrepit in the Stellar Patrol. Your heroics in saving the contact, doesn't it? And the cover of Stationfall tunnels, crumbling into hazardous piles of timber planet Resida in Planetfall earned you a f eatures you in your new job as a member of the and brick. But negotiating the terrain is the least promotion to Lieutenant First Class, but that was Stellar Patrol's Paperwork Task Force. of your problems. five long years ago, and since then nothing has Shapes emerge from dark corners. Eerie changed at all. You've merely gone from a sounds draw closer. Slimy passageways lead to scrubworker to a paperpusher. sights so horrifying that they will feed your And today promises to be just as boring as nightmares for weeks. A ghastly presence is at Marathons from every other day. You're being sent to a nearby work here, committing unspeakably loathsome space station to pick up a supply of Request for acts. Can you stop it .. .before it stops you? Stellar Patrol Issue Regulation Black Form coast to coast Binders Request Form Forms. H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King The motley crew of seven settled down at the But wait ... all is not lost. By a happy twist of The Lurking Horror follows in the tradition of two-foot-high table for the big game. Six-foot­ fate, your companion for the journey turns out to H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, as author four Steve Meretzky was a bit uncomfotable on be your old pal Floyd! That's right, it's the very Dave Lebling turns an everyday world into a the 18-inch seats-but it did not matter. The same mischievous little robot who was your frightening web of uncertainty. The numerous stakes were high. "I'll raise you two paper clips playful buddy in Planetfall. puzzles , ill challenge both first-time and and five rubber bands," bluffed Tim Anderson. experienced players, and Lebling's chilling Another Monday night of poker at Infocoin? No, Floyd and his paddleball descriptions will leave you with images you'll it was the first "international" Marathon of the With Floyd and his paddleball set in tow, never forget. Minds, at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto. you're soon on your way to the space station. As As with all Infocom games, the package in­ As Infocom and Science Centre staff battled it you can see from your packet of blueprints, the cludes items to introduce you to your role as the out with a deck of cards, 15 teams, representing station has nine levels of offices and living areas, main character in the story. There's a copy of high schools from the entire Province of Ontario not to mention a huge plant for printing Stellar "G.U.E. at a Glance," chock-full of photos, tips, raced to be the first to solve Station/all. The Patrol forms. Not included on the official blue­ and inside info on George Underwood Edwards overnight event on March 6-7 was the eighth prints, but fully visible from the spacetruck, is a Institute of Technology. And to make sure you such grueling competition. In our last issue, Stu space village, a seedy cluster of tubes, bubbles, can get your delicious dining hall lunch, there's Galley reported on Marathons 3 and 4, held in and discarded rockets which has grown up also a genuine G.U.E. Tech student I.D. card. San Francisco and Seattle. Since then, Infocom around the space station in blatant violation of all Please turn to page 4 Please turn to page 10 Please turn to page 4 Page 2 The Status Line Summer 1987 TSL Editor Susan >Read the letters Goldman resigns I Gentlemen: Dear Editor "I must go, perhaps into oblivion, but to those You guys are just incredible! Can't find a name (or Susan or whatever): with whom I've worked and sweated these past for the stuff you design, huh? You've been The enclosed list of games was found in my months I say move forward without regret. Keep working at it for years, and you still don't know clothes dryer. Since I know for a fact that my the proud name of The Status Line as a beacon to what it's called, eh? My god, if you would just socks enter the 8th dimension via the dryer, I all those who seek to interact. And remember, take the effort to remove your heads from the assume that my counterpart at the other end automatic hyphenation is just around the comer." dark hole they are stuck in, you would be able to keeps his important papers in his dryer, thus With those words, Susan Goldman, editor-in­ see what this particular forest is composed of. indirectly proving the existence of Infocom as a chief of TSL for the past year, bid a fond "Interactive fiction." Great zot, the hyper­ metaphysical constant. farewell to her former staff and other assorted tensive poobah who came up with that over­ Feel free to publish this in The Status Line, cronies at an intimate affair held in the TSL press inflated term ought to have some of the air let but please don't make any real games out of these room. out of his ego. You see, it's quite simple to spot without paying me lots and lots of real U.S. Reacting quickly to the situation, Mike if you just put your minds to it. For no matter currency. Dornbrook, chief theorist of the TSL, what you name them, Planetfall or Suspended, Infocom Games from the 8th Dimension: announced, in a terse communique, that " I am in Infidel or Trinity, they are one and all, all of the A Mime Forever Voyaging: You're a mime on control here." He went on to say that Goldman's same class and species .. by all that's holy, they the Love Boat and you've got to convince people time at the TSL had been marked by great strides are ZORKS!!! that you really are drowning in the pool and not in both hard news and publishing technology. Really, folks , it's your term. Belongs to you, just practicing your craft. Try to get saved Although Ms. Goldman's departure was a and you thought it up, now use it. Why is every without talking. shock to many of her co-workers, it was not tissue a Kleenex, and every photocopier a Xerox, Bali Hai: You're stuck in an elevator and the totally unforeseen. "The heat she took on that and every cola a Coke? Because these great record is skipping at Muzak.