Missed Classic: A Mind Forever Voyaging - Won! And Final Rating

Written by Joe Pranevich

“Only you can view the future. And only you know what must be done to save humanity.” Those words on the back of the box kicked off this adventure, but now it is time to see whether humanity is truly saved. As we wrap up this game, I can already tell from the comments that some of you will be disappointed no matter what the final score ends up being. Is it a great Infocom game? Is it the greatest Infocom game? Or is it just another game on the pile? We’ll have to finish to find out.

We ended the previous session having unlocked the simulation for the year 2081. We had explored the city of Rockvil in each of the previous decades and slowly watched the city slump into decay. By 2071, it was a theocracy where a group of schoolboys stoned me to death for being a nonbeliever. My creator, Dr. Perelman, still believes that there is hope and so we need to take a look at this final time period before he can decide whether all is truly lost. Let’s jump into the simulation and see just how wrong he is.

Missed Classic: A Mind Forever Voyaging - Hell on Earth

Written by Joe Pranevich

In Wishbringer, we learned that a little magic and a lost cat could turn the world into a dark place. In A Mind Forever Voyaging, we learn that people can do that even without the magic and that cats are not essential to the equation. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, but last week we had finally been given the “real” mission in the game: explore the simulation and collect data that would prove that Senator Ryder’s plan is flawed. I had already looked at a fairly happy 2041 and a less happy 2051. Now, we are challenged to plunge even further in the future to find data that supports or undercuts the success of the Plan. I apologize but in my previous post, I got the dates wrong a couple of times: the real world of the game takes place in 2031, not 2021. It doesn’t matter quite enough to go back and fix it now, but I hope I did not confuse things too much. Just keep in mind that the two variations we saw were current year plus ten and plus twenty.

I am going to have a lot to say about this game as we get closer to the final rating. If it does one thing well, it encourages you to think about its message and the way in which it presents that message. Does that make it a good “game”? I’m not sure yet. Please join me as we travel to the far off and exotic year 2061 in the dreamscape that once was the United States of North America.

Missed Classic: A Mind Forever Voyaging - Jewel of the Quad-State Area

Written by Joe Pranevich

A Mind Forever Voyaging isn’t like any game that I have played before. It takes its time introducing you to the characters and the plot, encouraging you to explore rather than setting out a stream of puzzles for you to solve. It is content to follow its own rules. I absolutely love that Infocom is unafraid to experiment with their conventions; it makes their games a joy to experience for the first time. If you think back on how different Deadline and Suspended were from the puzzle-adventures that preceded them, you have an inkling for how I feel experiencing this game for the first time. It might even be a game that is best experienced in a second playthrough. As I wrap up another five or so hours of playing, I am just now seeing the shape of the game that Steve Meretzky has built and it is impressive. I’m just not sure yet how it will play out as an “adventure game” and whether I will run out of patience before I run out of game. Only time will tell.

As we left off last week, I had just entered the 2031 simulation for the very first time with a set of tasks to complete, nine events or places that I need to make recordings of, and return them to my boss/creator, Dr. Perelman. I had mapped out 30 locations, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. This is a big game, the first that has come close to the 150+ rooms of the original mainframe Zork. Welcome to Rockvil, the “Jewel of the Quad-State Area”!

Missed Classic 62: A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) - Introduction

Written by Joe Pranevich

I keep just missing all of the possible holiday tie-ins. Wishbringer, as it turns out, would have been absolutely perfect for Halloween with its child-friendly monsters and campy darkness. A Mind Forever Voyaging could have been an “Election Day Special” to connect with the recent midterm elections in the United States on November 6. I’m not sure exactly what it says that a game is a good tie-in to an election, but it makes some thematic sense. Truth is, and I’ve only played this game for a bit over two hours for the introduction, this game isn’t like any that I’ve seen before. I have trust in Steve Meretzky, but this one won’t be our usual fare.

This seems especially odd in light of the overall Infocom story at this point. For all that the Business Products writing was on the wall when Wishbringer was published, A Mind Forever Voyaging had the writing on the pink slips themselves. September 1985 saw the start of layoffs at the company which would continue at regular intervals through the end. It was essential that Infocom produce another hit, and the previous two games had been some of the most successful in the company’s history, but AMFV wasn’t-- and probably could not have been, for reasons I’ll get to in a moment-- the commercial success that they needed. Maybe in the era of President Reagan, Meretzky had hoped to stoke controversy and have the game go “viral”. Maybe Infocom had hoped that inventing a new genre would pave the way to new markets. Maybe no one was watching the store and this was just a vanity project that went too far. I have no idea, but I am curious how this one is going to play out.