Missed Classic: Cutthroats - Won! Twice! And Final Rating

Written by Joe Pranevich

And it was such a nice dream, too...

Last week on Cutthroats, I lost. I successfully teamed up with my fellow treasure hunters, identified the location of the sunken cruise liner, solved a few underwater puzzles, and made it back to the surface with a priceless (and surprisingly dry) stamp collection. That sounds like the end, but then I was murdered in my sleep. Someone in our crew is a traitor, but who could it be? The Weasel? Pete the Rat? Johnny Red? This isn’t the most trustworthy crew and just about anyone could have done it.

At the beginning of last week’s session, I felt that the game was pedestrian. Now that I’ve found Berlyn’s “unexpected” twist, I am not so sure. I’ll have more thoughts about this once I unravel the mystery, but for now I am more annoyed than anything else. Let’s jump back in the game and discover the killer. Who could it be?

Missed Classic: Cutthroats - Lost!?

Written by Joe Pranevich

Our target: the Leviathan.

Welcome back! Last week in Cutthroats, the game began with my friend handing me a map to sunken treasure just moments before he was murdered. The following day, wholesome undersea explorers with names like “The Weasel” and “Pete the Rat” approached me to help them search for a treasure that “they” knew about, coincidentally one of the treasures that only I know the location for thanks to my new map. Even better, I have to pay not only a share of the boat, but also buy all of the provisions for the journey. I feel used! As I ended last time, I sat in the outfitters looking glumly at the cashier. I have a price list and some cash, but absolutely no idea what I will need to make my adventure a success. I suspect that picking incorrectly will mean a dead end and potentially hours of backtracking.

Thus far, I am surprised by how “normal” this game seems. Other than the suggestion in the manual that there are multiple shipwrecks, it has played very vanilla. We have neither the “asshole protagonist” of Infidel, nor the interface-bending antics of Suspended. This seems like a pretty normal game, albeit one set in the real world rather than a science-fiction or fantasy setting. The game is slow to get started, but we’ll see if that impression holds this week.

Missed Classic 53: Cutthroats - Introduction (1984)

Written by Joe Pranevich

In 1984, Infocom had a fantastic idea: let’s make two nautical-themed adventures in a row! More to the point, Infocom was working hard to keep each of their key developers working on a game to release this year: Steve Meretzky on Sorcerer and Hitchhiker’s Guide, Stu Galley on Seastalker, Mike Berlyn on Cutthroats, and Dave Lebling on Suspect. (Marc Blank even produced one: the Tutorial Game that I looked at in my last bonus post.) The nautical comparison isn’t quite fair: while Mr. Galley had produced a rolicking sci-fi adventure in a submarine, Mr. Berlyn was aiming for a modern-day tale of treasure hunting and piracy on the high seas. Still, it seems odd to have two superficially similar games in a row.

For this game, Mike Berlyn picked up an accomplice: Jerry Wolper. Mr. Wolper was an Infocom programmer who would work on the technical aspects of the production while Mr. Berlyn worked on the story. Berlyn had already proven himself more than capable of handling the technical side, but this freed him up to be more of a creative presence than before and was well-aligned with other creator/programmer pairings the company was experimenting with. Seastalker had been built the same way, and Hitchhiker’s Guide will follow the same model in just a few months. Will this change help Berlyn to write the best possible game? Possibly, although it could also suffer from having a less experienced programmer at the helm. I guess I’ll have to play to find out.