Rank and Play ID: RNP-IGDB-7564

Deadline

Rank and Play

No ratings

Critic rating

78.7 / 100

13 votes

Release

Dec 31, 1982

Genres

Puzzle, Adventure

Overview

Deadline is an interactive fiction computer game published by Infocom in 1982. Written by Marc Blank, it was one of the first murder mystery interactive fiction games. Like most Infocom titles, Deadline was created using ZIL, which allowed the easy porting of the game to popular computer platforms of the time such as the Apple II and the Commodore 64. It is Infocom's third game. The player's character in Deadline is an unnamed police detective, summoned to a sprawling Connecticut estate to investigate the apparent suicide of wealthy industrialist Marshall Robner. At first, it seems a very straightforward case: the body was discovered in the…

Storyline

A wealthy industrialist, Mr. Marshall Robner, locked himself in the upstairs library of his New England colonial estate one night and committed suicide by taking a lethal overdose of anti-depressants. Or did he? You are the Chief of Detectives. You’ve been asked by Robner’s attorney to make a thorough investigation of the case, simply to “quash the suspicions which are inevitable” when a moneyed man dies a sudden and unnatural death. The Medical Examiner found nothing unusual, and interviews with family members and family associates are consistent with the idea that Robner committed suicide. Everything fits neatly—maybe too neatly. You smel…