Missed Classic: The Paradise Threat – WON! (with Final Rating)

 

Written by Will Moczarski

Did I say I was stuck? Well, that didn’t last long. Just a short recap to get you up to speed: My protagonist had reached a room with a sleeping dragon who ate me when I woke him up by attempting to talk to him, climb him, or attack him. I found out rather by coincidence that I was able to plant the seeds from the beginning once more here, causing a giant plant to grow right away. However, when I tried to “climb plant”, the dragon woke up and ate me. When I tried again...it worked! What had I done wrong?

This is how it's done.

It was a typo! In my transcript I could see that I typed in “climb plano” which caused the parser to understand “climb [wrong word]”, assuming I’d want to climb the dragon. In other words, it is vital to type “climb plant” and only that will work. Be very wary of typos, kids, or the dragon will eat you. It’s an educational game!

With its bare claws?

With that sorted out I was still unable to climb the plant because my inventory was too heavy, causing the plant to sway dangerously. I was only able to carry one item with me which proved to be a major pain, padding the game’s content in a rather tedious way. At first I picked the wrong one, going with the golden ring. I climbed up to a sequence of two smelly tunnels. The first contained a sign advertising the Deecula Statue, only 500ft. from here! That kind of reminded me of the endgame of Simon the Sorcerer which took place in a tourist trap. There was no follow-up to that sign, instead there was a dead Nazi just lying there in the next part of the tunnel. Maybe that’s the reason for the smell? I carried all of my inventory items up there one at a time but whatever I tried the only interaction that got a specific response was “undress Nazi”, and it was merely humorous:

Ah, I get it! It's the red herring that stinks!

Moving on, there was a hall to the south. A demon in a tattered Nazi uniform – possibly our former quiz master – was blocking the way, swinging a sword and going all Mary Poppins on me: “It slices, dices, and makes hundreds of fries in seconds.” I saw no reason not to trust him and attacked him with my sword, cutting his hand off. But ha-ha, said the foe, surprise! He’s ambidextrous! I felt a Monty Python quote solidifying but after one more blow the demon vanished and left behind a dismembered hand. Once again, the first thing I tried here worked, putting the golden ring on it. The hand suddenly sprang to life and crawled up to the keyhole of the locked door blocking my way forward. Then it vanished along with the ring and I was able to proceed to another small room. It was there I was truly stuck for about an hour. There were no objects in the room and I was only able to examine the door which had a small metal plate attached to it. All of the verbs from the manual and more didn’t enable me to find out more about the metal plate. I gathered all of my loose ends and tried a systematic approach, like this:

• interact with the dark figure running S laughing in the dark, eerie tunnel.
• interact with the dead Nazi.
• interact with the dragon or find out anything about the moist room to his south.
• interact with the small metal plate in the room I was stuck in.

Those were the most likely candidates for puzzles so I tried out a lot of things, waking up the dragon again and again. Because I sometimes softlocked myself by dying and not having the right items on my person to get back to where I last was I had to restart the game quite often. Save states didn’t work in my emulator which turned out to be a major pain but also part of my breakthrough. I had written down a list of commands to get back to where I was as quickly as possible, however, I hadn’t done so for the intro sequence because it was so tedious to just type “look” and “listen” all the time. This is when I thought: maybe I can talk to other people than Churchill and Lincoln there! And lo and behold, Groucho Marx will tell me that the secret word is “me”. Could you be more specific, sir? Is it “me”? Is it “Groucho”? “Marx”? Or “Groucho Marx”? I decided to brute-force it and try all four of them in every location of the game. While I was at it, I thought, I might as well “listen” (like Abe told me) in every location lest I may have forgotten to do so in one of them (I thought not but just wait for it!).

Is that you, Beaker?

“Me”, “Groucho”, “Marx”, and “Groucho Marx” did not work in any location. However, I found out that listening in a completely random part of a tunnel linking the opening area to Eichmann’s Nazi camp will cause Abraham Lincoln to shout “HERE !!!” and toss a flashlight at you. Now this is clued by Abe’s opening remarks but still requiring you to plough through the game like a bulldozer. Not a good puzzle, Jyym, not at all! At least I knew what would happen next. The game made a point that it was too dark to see in the moist room south of the dragon, so the flashlight may be helpful there. It worked! I found a magnet and proved my theory that I was actually inside the dragon: the moist room turned out to be the dragon’s mouth. The most likely thing to do now was to connect the magnet with the metal plate on the mysterious door upstairs...er...upplants?

Jyym went through a magnetism phase while writing this game.

This worked as well – I was on a winning streak! A strange force pulled me in, and I entered a steel pipe. The steel pipe consisted of two rooms with no content. I tried listening and shouting “Groucho” and all but nothing happened. South of the pipe there was yet another crevice. I had to backtrack for a third time to pick up the board but it worked once again. I think I never had to reuse items so many times in a Jyym Pearson game or in any game of this vintage, really (apart from basic items like lamps, food, water, that kind of thing). Beyond the crevice there was a steel door with a tiny keyhole. Argh, more backtracking! I had left the tiny key behind after having used it to unlock Eichmann’s desk drawer. After some more bouts of inventory management, being killed by the dragon while holding the necessary items to return there (including, of course, the board) and more carrying my inventory up the plant one piece at a time I was able to unlock the steel door to find yet another breach of the fourth wall: I was at Med Systems where I met William Denman, president of the company, watching over his programming slaves. This was a bit surprising because I had always assumed that Jyym Pearson had developed his games on his own and didn’t care whether Adventure International or Med Systems published them. However, the relationship must have run a little deeper if he added another cameo for William Denman (who coded himself into Asylum II as well). The sequence is only a joke, though, and Denman escorts me back out after one or two turns and the game won’t let me re-enter the offices. 

Are you available for an interview now, Mr. Denman?

I'm so meta, even this acronym

Now I was stuck once again but if you type “climb crevice” instead of “climb” you enter a different room: the one with the Deecula statue! Here, once more listening was key. When I tried that, Abe asked me “Did you listen to Marx?” You mean about the development of the industrial bourgeoisie? The workers' control of the means of production? The struggle of the urban proletariat? Yeah, of course, Abe...oh, you mean Groucho! This was were the password finally worked and it was thankfully as easy as typing “Groucho”. A 100 ton stone came crushing down on the statue and somehow that counted as it being destroyed by me. And that was it – I reached the ending (back at a “familiar podium”) which was quite anticlimactic and a bit of a cop-out, really. But see for yourself: 

The Paradise Threat was a rather short game compared to The Institute or Lucifer’s Realm – but maybe it only felt like that because it was easier and more straightforward. I didn’t have any major problems solving it and when I was stuck, no guess-the-verb atrocities were the reason but rather me not following Abe’s directions down to a T. The ending was a bit anticlimactic but I had fun with the game and it didn’t overstay its welcome. Let’s see how that translates to our PISSED (and SPIED) rating.

Session time: 1.5 hrs
Total time: 3 hrs

Puzzles & Solvability: 6.

Surprisingly doable! Everything adhered to (adventure game) logic and most things neatly fell into place. Some of the “puzzles” were really padding to avoid making the game even shorter but that was not as bad as, say, locking all the doors in Asylum II in order to get a key item. I liked the vine/scepter/magnet puzzle as well as climbing into the latrine to molest the Nazi guard with your unbearable stench. The trivia quiz was more than a bit odd, especially as it didn’t have any later equivalent. All things considered, this was a major step forward from Lucifer’s Realm. 

Interface & Inventory: 3.

No major parser issues but the six-item inventory limit really felt like a burden this time. Backtracking with the right items was enjoyable for three or four times but when the plant only allowed me to carry one item at a time that got old pretty quickly. This could have gone higher because there were no unusual verbs involved this time which is commendable for a 1982 game. It’s still not a brilliant parser, so I’ll rate it just a bit above Lucifer’s Realm (which had the same parser, of course, but The Paradise Threat made better use of it). Also, the necessity to LOOK and LISTEN frequently is stressed in-game as well as in the manual, making the game easier to handle for the novice player of Jyym Pearson’s games. I count that as a serious improvement.

Story & Setting: 2.

The setting is less inspired than the hellish landscapes of Lucifer’s Realm or the weird environments of The Institute. Heaven didn’t feel so much different from hell (in Lucifer’s Realm) or even Vietnam (in Saigon: The Final Days). Also, the story really falls apart at the end. It seems like Jyym Pearson ran out of time (or memory) in the end. The two meta-rooms (half-programmed room, Med Systems HQ) were quite nicely done. I usually don’t care too much for this kind of inside joke but in the already not-so-serious environment of The Paradise Threat they fit in nicely. 

Sound & Graphics: 1.

Although ShaddamIVth (whose honorary point this really is) was a bit disappointed with the ASCII graphics this time I still enjoyed it enough to award it our obligatory Jyym Pearson text adventure point. The Atari version has some sound and even some music in the beginning but that’s not what I’m rating here. 

Environment & Atmosphere: 3.

Less coherent than in Pearson’s other games. With The Paradise Threat I never knew quite what he was aiming for. The opening sequence is quite nice, especially as a bridge from Lucifer’s Realm, but you quickly leave heaven for more hell but a sort-of less hellish hell than last time because the Nazis haven’t quite won yet and as I wrote above it feels more like the Vietnam of Saigon in the end. At the same time, the game world is separated into nice little sections which works quite well. The demons in tattered Nazi uniforms also add to the atmosphere but what about that bloody dragon?

Dialogue & Acting: 3.

This game contains Pearson’s best writing so far. Maybe the game is so short because of it – the memory has to be used up somewhere! The long introductory sequence and the wordy ending both take their time to explain the backstory and the message of the game. Jyym Pearson always tried something different with his games and in this instance he’s all about ethics. No acting, obviously, and the NPCs are simple but effective stereotypes but not more.

That comes down to a score of 30 points which makes sense because I thought that The Paradise Threat was less coherent but still a better game than Lucifer’s Realm. Michael got it exactly right – congratulations, Michael! CAPs will be distributed with the next main game rating. 

The text adventure-specific SPIED rating would be 34, by the way, so it doesn’t make that much of a difference. Also, this is the fourth-highest rating for a Jyym Pearson game (out of 7) , meaning I thought it was better than Escape from Traam (13), Lucifer’s Realm (26) and Earthquake – San Francisco 1906 (27) but weaker than Curse of Crowley Manor (31), Saigon: The Final Days (33), and The Institute (35). That seems about right to me. In the broader context of Med Systems games, The Institute (35) still holds the pole position, with Asylum II (33) and Asylum (32) coming in second and third. The Paradise Threat is in a tied fourth position with Microworld (both 30). In hindsight, I may have rated one (or both) of the Asylum games too generously but that may also have to do with the graphics figuring into the rating. Also, unfair though they were, they offered quite the ride, so maybe it’s all good.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Jason fared in his simultaneous coverage of the game. In the beginning it seemed that his experience was very different from mine. Be sure to check out his blog Renga in Blue for his playthrough of the Atari version. I will be back with the marathon for one last game, The Farvar Legacy, also by Jyym Pearson, when Jason reaches his gaming year of 1983. Also, my next post on Pepper’s Adventures in Time will be up soon. Oh, and 20 CAPs for the first one who spots the very obscure Monty Python reference in this post. 

Med Systems Marathon Overview:
(a) 1980 Summary
(b) Reality Ends (1980)
(c) Rat’s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980)
(d) Labyrinth (1980)
(e) Asylum (1981)
(f) Microworld (1981)
(g) The Institute (1981)
(h) 1981 Summary
(i) Asylum II (1982)
(j) Lucifer’s Realm (1982)
(k) The Paradise Threat (1982)
(l) The Farvar Legacy (1983) [not yet played]

Jyym & Robyn Pearson Mini-Marathon Overview:
(a) Curse of Crowley Manor (1981)
(b) Escape from Traam (1981)
(c) Earthquake - San Francisco 1906 (1981)
(d) Saigon: The Final Days (1981)