The Shelf - West of House

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The Shelf
The Desk · The Shelf · Gentle Hints · The New Interactive Fiction

West Stacks
Tall shelves of gray boxes stand in rows here, smelling faintly of old cardboard and someone else's basement. Each box is labeled in a tidy hand on a strip of masking tape along its spine. There is a gap at the end of the bottom shelf, wide enough for four more.

>EXAMINE GAP
It looks hopeful.

Here is everything on my shelf, in the order the games came out. Thirty-one boxes, of the thirty-five games I count as Infocom's interactive fiction. For each one, the year, the author or authors, and what was in my box when it came to me. Most of these I bought secondhand, so some arrived with all their feelies and some with nothing but a disk and a manual and a story about whose attic they'd been in.

Prices, since people always ask: anywhere from a quarter to more than I'll admit to in public. I don't sell or trade. I do lend, to people I know, one at a time, with a due date. Old habits.

The game	In my box
1. Zork I: The Great Underground Empire 1980 Marc Blank and Dave Lebling	The first one I ever played, though not this copy. This copy came from a church rummage sale in 1991 for a dollar: disk, manual, and someone's hand-drawn map of the maze on graph paper, folded into eighths. It's my favorite feelie, and Infocom didn't make it.
2. Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz 1981 Marc Blank and Dave Lebling	Disk and manual. One corner of the box chewed by somebody's dog, long before it came to me.
3. Zork III: The Dungeon Master 1982 Marc Blank and Dave Lebling	The quietest and strangest of the three, and the one I like best. Complete, from a man in Ohio who sold me five games for the price of postage.
4. Deadline 1982 Marc Blank	The first Infocom mystery, packed like a police file: the interview transcripts, the lab report, a photograph of the scene, and three small white pills in a plastic bag. Mine still has all three pills. I counted them twice before I paid.
5. Starcross 1982 Dave Lebling	The first edition came in a plastic flying saucer. Mine is the later gray box. I am still looking for a saucer I can afford.
6. Suspended 1983 Michael Berlyn	The early edition, with the molded plastic face on the front of the box. Mine has a crack across the nose. You run a planet's systems through six robots, each of whom sees the world differently.
7. The Witness 1983 Stu Galley	A murder in 1930s Los Angeles, written like a detective paperback. The box was empty of its papers when I bought it, so I've never seen them. Someday.
8. Planetfall 1983 Steve Meretzky	My favorite, and a complete copy, with the Stellar Patrol ID card and the postcards. Floyd lives here.
9. Enchanter 1983 Marc Blank and Dave Lebling	First of the spell-casting trilogy. Disk and manual. The game is all here, and so is the magic.
10. Infidel 1983 Michael Berlyn	A pyramid in the Egyptian desert and the least likable hero Infocom ever wrote, on purpose. You'll see.
11. Sorcerer 1984 Steve Meretzky	With the Infotater, the cardboard wheel you turn to look up creatures. It's in beautiful shape, which makes me think the first owner never got far.
12. Seastalker 1984 Stu Galley and Jim Lawrence	Written for younger players. A submarine, a sea monster, and a great deal of enthusiasm. My nephew finished it before I did and has not let me forget it.
13. Cutthroats 1984 Michael Berlyn and Jerry Wolper	Treasure diving with a crew you shouldn't trust, off a little island full of shipwrecks. Box a bit water-stained, which seems right.
14. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 1984 Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky	The famous box. A pair of peril-sensitive sunglasses (solid black cardboard), a microscopic space fleet (an empty plastic bag; yes, I checked), pocket fluff, a Don't Panic button, and the orders to demolish your house and the Earth. The most complete box on my shelf.
15. Suspect 1984 Dave Lebling	You go to a costume party as a reporter, someone is murdered, and you're framed. Disk and manual.
16. Wishbringer 1985 Brian Moriarty	The gentlest Infocom game, meant as a first one, and the box with the stone. It still glows in the dark if you leave it under the lamp a few minutes. I check every so often.
17. A Mind Forever Voyaging 1985 Steve Meretzky	One of my four favorites. Very few puzzles and a great deal to think about. A gift from Liz, the roommate who started all this, on my thirtieth birthday.
18. Spellbreaker 1985 Dave Lebling	The last of the trilogy and the hardest Infocom game I own. It has beaten me twice. I'm not ready to try a third time.
19. Ballyhoo 1985 Jeff O'Neill	A mystery at a traveling circus. Disk, manual, and a strong smell of somebody's basement, which I've aired out as best I can.
20. Trinity 1986 Brian Moriarty	The comic book about the atomic bomb and the cardboard sundial, both perfect. I paid more for this one than for any other box, and I've never once been sorry.
21. Moonmist 1986 Stu Galley and Jim Lawrence	A ghost story in a castle in Cornwall, with four different mysteries depending on a choice you make at the start. A good one to play on a stormy night.
22. Leather Goddesses of Phobos 1986 Steve Meretzky	With the 3-D glasses, the 3-D comic and the scratch-and-sniff card. A pulp science-fiction romp, and very silly. It lives on the top shelf.
23. Hollywood Hijinx 1986 Dave Anderson	You have one night to find the treasures hidden around the estate of your late uncle, who made movies. Disk and manual.
24. Bureaucracy 1987 Douglas Adams	A game about a change-of-address form your bank never got around to processing. It keeps track of your blood pressure. It's the most stressful game I own, and I work at a public library.
25. Stationfall 1987 Steve Meretzky	The sequel to Planetfall. Floyd is back. That's all I'll say.
26. The Lurking Horror 1987 Dave Lebling	Something terrible in the basement of a technical university, during a snowstorm, in the middle of the night. I played it once in the middle of the night. Once.
27. Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It 1987 Jeff O'Neill	Puns. Nothing but puns. The patrons at my desk have suffered for this one.
28. Plundered Hearts 1987 Amy Briggs	One of my four favorites. Pirates, a heroine who rescues herself, and the only box I keep face out.
29. Beyond Zork 1987 Brian Moriarty	Zork with character statistics and a map that draws itself on the screen. Disk and manual, nicely kept.
30. Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels 1987 Bob Bates	London, Victorian fog, and you play Watson. Disk and manual, from a library book sale. Not mine, I promise.
31. Zork Zero 1988 Steve Meretzky	Pictures on the screen at last, and the Flathead calendar in the box. A big, generous game.

Still Hunting

The gap on the bottom shelf. These came late in Infocom's life, in smaller numbers, and they rarely turn up at yard sales:

Border Zone (1987, Marc Blank)
Shogun (1989, Dave Lebling)
Journey (1989, Marc Blank)
Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur (1989, Bob Bates)

I've played all four, one way or another, on borrowed disks, so I'm not missing the games, only the boxes. If you have one in your closet and you'd like it to go to a good home, please write. It would be shelved with care, in an acid-free sleeve, and never, ever lent to my nephew.

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Last updated September 21, 1999