Missed Classic 121: Plundered Hearts - Introduction (1987)

Written by Joe Pranevich

In the words of an “Amazing” series of movies, “Alright, let’s do this one last time…”

In 1987, Infocom was in serious trouble. Despite creative high-points (Stationfall) and some sales successes (Leather Goddesses of Phobos), the text adventure market was collapsing. Infocom had only been recently purchased by Activision, and the new management was not rising to the changing industry conditions. Activision demanded that sales increase; if not by selling more copies, then by selling more titles. Infocom would eventually launch eight games in 1987, more than any other year and double their haul from 1986. We’ve made it to the sixth of those games now.

Despite these challenges– or perhaps because of them– Infocom embarked on one of their most creative periods. Over just a few months Infocom launched their first horror game, puzzle game, romance, spy thriller, and RPG. Plundered Hearts was not just their first “romance” title, but also the first game by Infocom to be solely written by a woman (Amy Briggs) and the first to have only a female protagonist. Infocom’s risk-taking did not ultimately save them, but their embrace of new ideas is one of the things I have come to love about late-era Infocom. I missed nearly all of these games as a kid, but I am so happy to be playing them now.

I am excited! Can you tell?

Minneapolis is home to quirky people and quirky statues. (This is from my summer vacation!)

We have many “firsts” to talk about, but we should focus first on the real star of this story: Amy Briggs. Briggs was born in Minnesota and attended Macalester College in St. Paul, one of the so-called “Twin Cities”. (St. Paul is the capital of the state, but the nearby larger city of Minneapolis has pretty much swallowed its neighbor into a single metro area. If you feel like you’ve heard me talk about Minnesota lately, it’s because much of the cast and crew from Consulting Detective and Dracula Unleashed were based there.) A strange claim to fame is that Briggs was the former babysitter of Ron Gilbert, the designer of the Monkey Island series. In an interview with Gilbert in 2012, he admitted (jokingly) to stealing the idea for The Secret of Monkey Island from her. 

Briggs had fallen in love with Infocom games in college and jumped on the chance to join the company in 1985. She started in the test team, the same pathway that Steve Meretzky had taken a few years earlier, and seems to have come to see him as a mentor in the organization. It’s difficult to under-estimate the importance that QA has on game design, nor on the impact that Briggs and her fellow testers had on Infocom’s products. Having well-playtested games was one of the hallmarks of Infocom design. Infocom was slow to credit the broader teams behind their games, instead clinging to the fiction that they were the works of solitary designers with their names on the box, but we know that Briggs worked on many– and perhaps all– of the Infocom titles developed while she was there. 

Her first credited contribution was on 1985’s Spellbreaker. The hint book for that game gives her and her teammates sly credits, remarking that she named the Dark Room cube in that game “Inky”, perhaps after the ghost from Pac-Man. We know from credits in other hint books that she worked on Ballyhoo (plus wrote part of the hint book itself), Leather Goddesses of Phobos, and Wishbringer. Briggs was officially credited in-game on both A Mind Forever Voyaging and Trinity. These six games likely represent only a fraction of the games that she tested during her tenure, but sadly our records from the QA department at Infocom are somewhat lacking.

Much like Meretzky, Briggs spent time learning ZIL and crafting her own sample games. When Activision demanded more games more quickly, she jumped at the chance to switch from tester to designer. Based on her sample games and years of experience knowing what made Infocom games fun to play, she broke through the “men’s club” of Implementors and put forth some options for games that she could create. In short order, Infocom approved Plundered Hearts, a risky game by an unproven developer, but one that (they hoped) could bring interactive fiction to an entirely new market. We will shortly see how that worked out. Perhaps suggesting a lack of confidence in Briggs, or perhaps just because she was more familiar with it, Plundered Hearts is the final game to be released using the original ZIL interpreter. In that respect, this is the last “original style” text adventure from Infocom. 

Surely no sexism was intended that Infocom’s major “feelie” for Plundered Hearts was a tiny cloth purse.

First Female Protagonist?

As we will shortly see, Plundered Hearts stars Lady Dimsford, a noblewoman from 17th century England that is about to have a pirate adventure. Infocom had allowed players to play as a female protagonist before (in both Leather Goddesses and Moonmist), and a few games were at least ambiguous about gender (Zork I, but not its sequels), but this is the first Infocom game to be played solely from a female perspective. It was the first female protagonist for Infocom, but was it the first across all adventure games?

If you search online for “first female protagonist of an adventure game”, you almost invariably come across King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, developed by Roberta Williams. That is an excellent adventure game, but Plundered Hearts beat it to market by several months. Based on publicly known sales figures, King’s Quest IV sold at least 50x as many copies as Plundered Hearts, and outsold Infocom’s title within a week of launch. To put Infocom’s relatives sales in perspective, that single Sierra title sold more copies than all of Infocom’s 1986 releases combined. Given the relative sales of the two games, it’s natural (if unfortunate) that King’s Quest gets all of the credit. 

Kim Kimberley, perhaps the first ever female protagonist of an adventure game.

Although Plundered Hearts was an early game with a female protagonist, it is neither the first game with a female protagonist, nor even the first that we played! That credit must go to Level 9’s Snowball, released in 1983. Snowball (and its sequel, Return to Eden) stars Kim Kimberley, a “secret agent” who has to discover why a colony ship on a terraforming mission goes awry. Ilmari played both games back in 2017, but he did not know (or neglected to mention) their place in adventure game history. There may be a reason for this: although Kim is depicted as a woman on the cover, the game and manual are scrupulous in erasing all gender and gendered pronouns from the experience. Later covers would not even depict her at all. Pete Austin, the designer of that game, admitted in an interview that the decision to make her character as unisex as possible was a deliberate one. She was created as a female protagonist, but stripped of all context she might as well not have been. It is unfortunate that he was so shy about creating gaming history!

A different game is perhaps a better candidate for the “first” adventure with a female protagonist: Rhiannon Software’s Jenny of the Prairie. This game, also released in 1983, stars a young girl named Jenny who explores the wilderness in a third-personal graphical adventure, similar to the early King’s Quest games. The game includes non-adventure elements, especially what appears to be Oregon Trail-like resource management, but keyboard commands and player inventory supports it being an early adventure game. Rhiannon Software created a whole series of these games, all marketed at young women and all featuring young female protagonists surviving in challenging circumstances. Could there be earlier female protagonists in adventure games? Most likely. The barrier to creating a text adventure wasn’t tremendously high even in 1983 and an obscure type-in (or even an adult game) could easily have taken the prize. 

The history of female representation in video games has been covered well by our friend and colleague, “Critical Kate” Willaert and I am indebted to her for her deep knowledge on this topic. She has a fantastic YouTube channel and her “Video Dames” series will be chronicling the history of female representation in gaming. Much of that representation is poor at best (there is a shocking amount of smut), but her work shines an important light on the topic. I highly recommend checking out her channel. 

Even though Plundered Hearts was not the “first” game, it remains one of the earliest adventure games to star a female protagonist and to be explicitly designed for adult women. Briggs created a game that she wanted to play and I look forward to experiencing it. 

Jenny is respectful of wildlife.

First Female Implementor?

While I feel like I’ve just robbed Briggs of her credit for designing the first female protagonist, I do not want to rob her of the credit that she rightly deserves for being the first woman to hold the coveted “Implementor” role at Infocom. That said, there are two women that we must credit for having shared design duties with a male colleague:

• Patricia Fogelman was the co-designer of Infidel, with Michael Berlyn. She’s not credited in the manual and she appears to have been brought on just for that game by Berlyn (while she was a graduate student at Harvard) rather than a full-time hire. I failed to even mention her in the Infidel review. 
  
  
• Liz Cyr-Jones was given “original concept by” credit in the Hollywood Hijinx manual, the first time that a woman was given a (very small) manual credit blurb by Infocom. Prior to that, she was given a brief in-game credit for her contributions to Bureaucracy. She, like Briggs, was primarily known for her work on the test team and likely contributed to more games than we know about. I have been able to verify that she worked on at least Trinity, Wishbringer, Beyond Zork, Arthur, Shogun, and Zork Zero.

As we will see when we get to 1988, some Infocom “Implementor” lists also add Elizabeth Langosy as the second female Imp. She is the designer of the two ZorkQuest games released in that year, but primarily worked as a writer and copyeditor for Infocom. She did not design any of Infocom’s canonical text adventures. If we go further into the future, Cecilia Barajas will be credited as co-designer on Zork Nemesis (1996), and Margie Stohl as co-designer on Zork Grand Inquisitor (1997), but surely by then there will be far more women making successful careers in game design…

Pretty vanilla manual.

The Manual & Feelies

The manual begins with an introduction that is a bit different from other Infocom adventures:

Plundered Hearts is set in the late 1600s, where you are living the genteel life of a beautiful young Englishwoman. You have received news (the note included in your game package) that your dear father is ailing, and so you are traveling to the West Indies to care for him. As the story opens, the ship you are aboard is attacked by pirates, and you are carried off by the dashing pirate captain! But this does not dissuade you from your determination to find your father. Along the way, you shall encounter danger, adventure, … and more than a touch of romance.

The letter fleshes out the introduction. Written by the governor of the fictional island of St. Sinistra, Jean Lafond, the letter informs us not only that our father has taken ill with a “wasting tropical disease”, but that he has only a few months to live. It is hoped that seeing his daughter in person will be enough to raise his spirits and allow him to recover. Our father is too ill to write the letter himself, so Lafond is kindly contacting us directly. He will be sending his flagship, the Lafond Deux, to London to pick us up and deliver us to St. Sinistra. Lafond also suggests that I will not be “suitably dressed” and sends along a banknote for 50 St. Sinistra guineas. I get the impression that his backhanded compliments (our “wit and gumption” to not wait for father’s permission, for example), plus the note about our wardrobe, may suggest that our character is a bit of a tomboy, although I could be letting my own biases in. Included in the packaging is also a blue pouch (a “reticule”, supposedly a type of purse worn in the time period) and the banknote. 

Let me make two observations off the bat:

• The game isn’t afraid to be funny! Lafond Deux is clearly a pun on “fondue”. I look forward to seeing how funny Briggs decides to make the game. 
  
  
• The game probably isn’t aiming for historical accuracy. 

This game seems to take place in the “Golden Age of Piracy”, or roughly somewhere from 1650 to 1680. “Guineas” only existed after 1663, so we must be some time after that. Paper money was not used by the British until 1725, but I suspect that including a banknote was a design choice by Infocom since providing coins as a “feely” would have been too expensive. Fifty guineas would have been a lavish sum; a single guinea was worth roughly a month of wages for a skilled craftsman. We’ll have to see how the amount is treated in the game when we get there. (Assuming our character hasn’t spent them already.) 

Lovely banknotes!

As for the banknote being from “The Bank of St. Sinistra” and signed by Lafond as the “King of the West Indies”, it’s unlikely that the notes would have been valid currency in London. Perhaps he intended them to only be spent on the island itself? As silly as this may sound, the idea of a Caribbean island minting their own money wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility: Bermuda minted their own coins (called “Hogge Money” because they had a picture of a pig on one side) starting in 1621. St. Sinistra seems to be based on a colony of similar stature and importance as Bermuda so having their own money, while unlikely, seems possible. 

On that note, Lafond calls himself the “King of the West Indies”. As he refers to himself in the letter as only the governor of St. Sinistra, I suppose that he is poorly hiding his wider aspirations. Is he a villain? Is this a trap? In real life, the Spanish crown has claimed the title of “King of the Indies” since at least the 1500s. They would not have cared much for an upstart to claim the title, although the whole story seems vague as to nationalities. Lafond sounds French, but he uses guineas and claims a Spanish title? More signs that we’re not supposed to take this quite as seriously as I am apparently trying. I’ll be quiet and just have fun.

Plundered Hearts was a sales disappointment. Between its release in July 1987 and the transition to Activision’s accounting team in March 1989, the game sold just over 15,000 copies, supplanting Nord and Bert as the #2 worst selling Infocom game. (Only Hollywood Hijinx sold fewer copies.) Infocom’s first game to explicitly target a female audience failed and they would not try the experiment a second time. Briggs would continue with Infocom for a while longer, working on both Gamma Force and Quarterstaff in 1988, plus taking a stab at the Hitchhiker’s Guide sequel. She is back to being credited as a tester on several of Infocom’s final games. 

Enough preliminaries, let’s play!

I didn’t type that!

The start of a pirate adventure!

Playing the Game

We open to a confusing pair of scenes. The first is either a flash forward or a dream where our character is trying to shoot a pirate that is advancing towards her. She misses, but the guy seems suave and handsome and claims to be her only protection from Jean Lafond. They kiss. Is this how introductions to romance novels go?

The second (real) introductory scene places us in the thick of the action. We’re aboard the Lafond Deux just as described in the letter, but clearly things are not how we expected. Pirates are boarding the ship and instead of protecting me, Captain Davis all but turns me over to them. He reveals that we were only a tool in Lafond’s scheme and it no longer matters if I live or die. Why exactly? What was the point of getting me on a ship to the Caribbean if it doesn’t matter whether or not I get there? Davis locks me in his cabin and suggests that I will “keep the pirates busy”. We’re only ten seconds in and already being threatened with rape. 

What is the game plan here? I’m on a ship filled with bad guys which is being attacked by other bad guys, some of whom want to rape me? I check my inventory and find a “reticule”. Thankfully I have a dictionary handy to learn that means a small bag or purse. That contains smelling salts and the fifty guinea banknote that is in our game box. (As I suspected, the banknotes would not have been much use in London. Why did he send them exactly? And if my life doesn’t matter, why bother sending me money and suggest I buy clothes at all?) I am wearing kid slippers, a linen chemise, and a cotton frock. My dictionary comes out again: a chemise is an undergarment, a frock is a type of dress, and “kid slippers” are soft leather slippers that might be worn by the wealthy. 

Checking under the bed, I discover a “coffer” (a small but strong chest for valuables). I feel sorry for any non-native speakers playing this game. These are uncommon words even for natives! The cabin door is locked and I see no obvious escape route. 

This is a coffer.

A moment later, that implied threat of rape comes crashing through the door:

   Crash! You whirl around to see the door shatter, kicked by a hulking man, his twisted visage blackened with soot and blood. “Me name’s Andy Crulley, and ladies learn to love me,” sniggers the pirate. 

   You recognize a voice from far away, “Don’t take that! Look in the cabin at the stern – you’ll find some fun there!” It sounds like Davis.

I beat Andy over the head with the coffer, but it doesn’t do much good. He keeps coming after me, but only for another moment:

   Crulley drags you, despite your resistance, towards him. Then suddenly he grunts, stiffens, and slumps into your arms. Stunned, Crulley collapses at your feet, his eyes rolling.

   A tall form blocks the shattered door, one fist still raised from striking your attacker. You catch a glimpse of the hard masculinity of his broad shoulders, the implied power in the scar that etches the stranger’s jaw, and feel tremors course through your veins. Then you realize how ragged are his shirt, patched breeches, and high boots. Intuitively, you understand – he is the dreaded Falcon, scourge of the sea! Alas, your fate is sealed. Resigned, you meet his sea-blue eyes.

Fortunately, this extremely-dangerous-but-also-dashing man turns out to be at least somewhat nice. He introduces himself as Captain Nicholas Jamison, otherwise known as “The Falcon”. He claims to have been sent by my father and even has a second letter– this time in father’s handwriting– that explains the situation. Lafond organized this overly-complicated kidnapping to bring me under his power and gain leverage over my father. Father sent Jamison after me, but he himself is off to rescue a second, unnamed, woman. Who could that be?

Jamison asks if I agree to go with him. I say “yes” because he is handsome and strong and probably hasn’t killed anyone recently… but I also want to stress that “Andy Crulley” is a member of his pirate crew and so I’m agreeing to be rescued by my would-be-rapist’s boss. Does that worry anyone else or am I supposed to be lost in his sea-blue eyes?

Jamison leads me up to the deck where we are attacked by Captain Davis. My former captor grabs me and holds a knife to my neck. He’ll kill me unless Jamison lets him go free! Jamison shows why he has a cool nickname like “The Falcon” by casually stabbing Davis with a rapier before he can even nick my throat. With Davis dead, I am led onto the pirate ship… and placed into a different bedroom where I am again held captive for several days. I considered ending the introduction post here, but that feels too short. Let’s see if we can find a better stopping point! 

A galleon that might look like the Helena Louise.

Aboard the Helena Louise

TWO DAYS LATER…

   You blear awake from a bored nap, focusing on something shiny. You discern it to be a new ring, on a strong hand in the act of tying a ribbon on a rapier. 

   The man with the rapier and the ring turns. “Sorry, I tried not to wake you.” You sit up as if the bed had caught fire, for this is the Falcon, changed from his rags to a finery all red velvet and white lace – and in your presence!

With the introductory two-room sequence over, we find ourselves pretty much back where we started: locked in a bedroom. This time we’re on the Helena Louise, but given that Jamison employs rapists, it doesn’t seem too much of a step up.

Jamison tells us that our father is being held prisoner somewhere. Apparently the rescue job that he had planned did not go well. While I was napping, we arrived at St. Sinistra and Jamison is dressed to the hilt so that he can sneak into a dance at Lafond’s mansion tonight. He believes that he can sneak in, save my father, and get some revenge. He also apologizes for keeping us locked in his quarters (though he has been enough of a gentleman to sleep elsewhere), but he says that he doesn’t trust his crew. “Crulley isn’t the only man aboard with few principles.” He lets me know that I can trust Cookie, a deaf sailor, if something goes wrong. 

I also learn his background: seven years ago, Lafond was a pirate who killed Jamison’s brother and captured his brother’s wife. Jamison vowed revenge, but Lafond has purchased respectability in the intervening years while Jamison seems to have slid deeper into piracy. Could my father have been trying to rescue Jamison’s sister-in-law? It seems that no one in this game has scruples, but again Jamison seems to make up for it by having sky-blue eyes.

Jamison leaves the room but returns moments later. He tries to pin a jeweled brooch on me, but the pin is damaged and must be repaired. He says that the brooch is his share of the Lafond Deux’s treasure and he wants me to have it. He also tells me that if the men abandon ship that they will be off to rescue him. If that happens, “Rodney” will stay behind to protect me. Who is Rodney? Is he the same as Cookie, or someone else? He leaves again and I am free to explore.

A 17th century brooch.

Is that it? Can I play? Jamison left the coffer on the floor. Inside is an invitation to the ball, addressed to Captain Davis, to be held in honor of Lafond’s recent promotion to Governor of St. Sinistre. (Not to the “King of West Indies” as is written on the banknote. Is that just a bit of fun by the artist or does he have greater ambitions?) It says that formal dress and an invitation is required. Did Jamison just leave his invitation in the coffer by mistake? Do I run after him and make sure that he gets his invitation or do I use this to break into the ball myself and have a dance with the handsome pirate before rescuing my own father? 

While I am considering, a rope ladder is dropped just outside Jamison’s bedroom window. We see our pirate beau descend to board a waiting skiff before heading to the island. 

Exploring our situation further, it appears that we have been locked in because of a large cupboard pushed against the door. When Jamison left the second time, he neglected to push it fully back into place and I can slip through. As I leave to explore the ship, I am annoyed that I’m supposed to use “aft”, “fore”, “port”, and “starboard” for directions, but thankfully the old-fashioned “NSEW” works just as well. I can never remember which directions “port” and “starboard” are supposed to be. Outside the door is a landing with stairs up and down. Heading up is blocked by a barred door so my only option is down. 

Downstairs, I emerge into a two-room hold and potentially the first major puzzle of the game. The supplies in the hold– gunpowder, food, etc.-- are all locked behind a tall fence and gate. No doubt this is to prevent pirates pilfering the provender. On the inside of the gate, where I cannot reach, I see a slow-burning fuse that is creeping towards the gunpowder stocks. The ship is a bomb! I am unable to pick or force the lock, nor can I climb up to slip through a 6-inch gap at the ceiling. There is a cloth hatch above, but that is fastened from the other side and on the near-side of the fence. Do I need to find something to stand on? I also cannot make too much noise as we can hear sailors on the deck clearly through the cloth. 

I continue exploring forward and find the crew quarters, but fortunately no one is home. Searching the room, I pick up a bottle of sleeping medicine and a broken piece of mirror. Neither help me with our explosive problem. While digging through stuff, we hear Crulley (the rapist) talking to himself up on deck. We learn that he is working for Lafond and that he is “doing in” the crew of the ship with some “mischief”. (Obviously, the fuse.) We hear him cut a piece of rope and dive into the sea, presumably to catch a waiting ship.

Unfortunately, that is the extent of the hold. We have two blocked passages to the top deck (a barred door and a locked cloth hatch), but not much else. I check everything again more carefully. The “cupboard” that Jamison used to lock me in is much larger than I thought! From the outside, there is a door and enough room that we can enter. It appears to be where the cabin boy would sleep, but Jamison has been using it himself while I was sleeping in his bed. That is charming actually, that he was sleeping just outside our door to prevent any of his pirate-rapists from getting in, but suggests once again that perhaps he should improve his hiring practices. We find some of the cabin boy’s clothing in the back and I change into them. We must be a “tomboy” because apparently I look just like him! That should (slightly?) reduce the risk of rape. 

A cabin boy circa 1799.

Unfortunately, I took too long:

   The sound of splintering wood reverates through the ship as it drifts onto the reefs. The next few minutes last forever as havoc breaks out. Grabbing a plank, you manage to stay afloat, but you are washed out to sea. A brig, Portuguese by its sails, rescues you. The sailors are brown-skinned and smooth, and the first mate, the ship’s and yours, is gentle. They leave you in Rio, alone and forgotten.

We have suffered a “fate worse than death”, although I am not sure whether that is bring raped by a Portuguese sailor or being stuck in Rio de Janeiro. I appreciate Brigg’s sly use of the term “first mate” here as a double entendre, but there is a shocking about of rape in this game. I am about to start over and do everything faster, but then I realize that the ship was destroyed by crashing into the reefs and not an explosion. Did Crulley set two traps just in case one was discovered? 

I play back to where I was more quickly and discover two important things:

• I can rip my own clothes to get a “rag”. This doesn’t help anything immediately, but will no doubt come in handy.
  
  
• I can break the window in Jamison’s quarters with the coffer! Unfortunately, I leave the invitation inside the first time and must restore again, but at least I have an open window and a ladder up to the deck. As expected, once I arrive on deck, the sailors assume that I am the cabin boy. I am not able to get back into Jamison’s window from the ladder and will have to locate a different way back down.

Now that I am on the deck, I can explore forward. The rear is the “poop” with Jamison’s ladder. Just fore of that is the “quarterdeck” where I find many casks roped to the deck. Inside one I grab some salted pork. It seems that I can climb into one of the casks and cut the rope, perhaps to send the pile falling into the sea, but my mirror isn’t sharp enough. The barred door down to below deck is also here, but my girly strength is unable to lift the bar. Further ahead is the “main deck” and here I can unlock the cloth hatch to give me a passage below decks. I also discover two barrels: one filled with rum and the other water. They are both bolted to the deck so I cannot bring the water down to deal with the fuse, but I will keep looking. 

At the “forecastle”, I discover a winch that controls the anchor. I lower it and the ship stops moving toward the reefs! I still need to stop the explosion, but I am getting somewhere. I am shocked that all of the experienced sailors on board wouldn’t have noticed they were about to crash.

I don’t have a good illustration for this, so here’s another vacation photo from my trip to the Caribbean a few years ago.

Inside the ship’s galley, I discover a friendly pirate named “Sam”. He sees through the cabin boy disguise quickly, but talking to him reveals that he is the “Cookie” that Jamison said I could trust. Wasn't he supposed to be deaf? He lets me know that they are watching for Jamison to make a signal from his house on shore (Jamison used to live in St. Sinistre?) and a crew member will see it from the crow’s nest. That will be a signal for all of the pirates to rush onto shore. I file away that information for later. I also locate and pocket a small dagger. I still do not know who “Rodney” is, but perhaps Sam/Cookie has a third name. 

The final location on the deck is the “bowsprit” where I can hang upside down and discover a cut rope. That seems to be the anchor cable that Crulley cut, but there is no way to fix it and nothing obvious to do. Now that I have a dagger, I try to cut the rope on the casks. I am smashed to death immediately. If I do the same while in a cask, I am told "not yet" and only to do that when the crew is safe. I found my exit plan! I climb the rigging and discover that there is no one in the crow’s nest. Isn’t someone supposed to be watching for Jamison? Could that have been Crulley? I am able to locate Jamison's home (somehow… I would have no idea which one it is) but there is no signal light yet. 

This is about when I run out of time and the ship explodes. 

I do everything again even more quickly this time. On my third pass through, I remember that I have a rag when I find the water barrel. I soak the rag with water and toss it over the fence in the hold to land (splat!) right on the burning fuse. I apparently have Robin Hood-levels proficiency in aiming, but the ship is saved! That done, I hide in one of the casks and cut the rope. This time, the game tosses me overboard and we float for a bit before ending up in the St. Sinistre lagoon. I made it to the island!

This seems like a great place to stop.

Time played: 3 hr 10 min
Score: 7/25
Inventory: slab of pork, reticule, frock, missive, jeweled Brooch, invitation, leather bottle (containing the sleeping medicine), broken mirror, smelling salts, banknote. I am wearing a shirt, breeches, kid slippers, and a linen chemise

Map of the Helena Louise.

We’ve made it to the end of the introduction and this means that it is time to register your score guesses. As of this point in our story, Infocom games are averaging 39 points but the swings are very wide. Nord and Bert and Bureaucracy both scored 27, but Stationfall managed 53. Will Plundered Hearts be more like the former or the latter? Thus far, I am having a lot of fun.

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introductory post, it's an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won't be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 50 CAPs in return. It's also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.