A Conversation with David Marsh

Interview by Joe Pranevich

As we close out our coverage of Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, I am thrilled to have been able to speak to one of the masterminds behind ICOM Simulations’ success, David Marsh. In the first decades of his career, David helped bring us classics like Deja Vu, Shadowgate, and Uninvited. He was the art director for the Consulting Detective series. These days, David is the driving force behind Zojoi, the current owner of much of ICOM’s adventure gaming legacy. He and his team have recently released updated versions of the first three Consulting Detective cases plus a complete reimagining of the original Shadowgate.

In a wide-ranging conversation, David and I talk about all of those titles, games that didn’t quite make it, and even Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally. It was a lot of fun and I’m thrilled to be able to bring this interview with you.

Game 4: Déjà Vu - Final Rating

You’ve probably gathered by now that Déjà Vu is unlikely to head the leader board after getting the PISSED treatment. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the game at all, only that technical aspects get in the way of what was otherwise an entertaining and absorbing experience. Let’s see how much these negatives affect the final rating.

Puzzles and Solvability
This is actually a difficult aspect of Déjà Vu to rate. On the one hand, the puzzles are really quite logical and the use of well known detective techniques often does the trick. For example, finding a notepad and rubbing pencil across it to see what was written on the last sheet removed, or shooting the lock on a cabinet when no key is available. Most of the game revolves around following one clue to the next one, trying to find a cure to your condition while gradually piecing together the story while you’re at it. Unfortunately, as logical and enjoyable as the puzzles might be, the unnecessarily ruthless time limit, the clunky interface and the poor graphics hinder your progress, making what might be fairly straightforward tasks rather difficult. Since most of those elements have their own rating in the PISSED system, I won’t be too harsh on this one. I’m going with 5.

Locked hey!? Well we'll see about that! BAM!!!

Interface and Inventory
There’s absolutely no doubt that Déjà Vu was groundbreaking in its use of both interface and inventory, but any praise it should get for its achievements is negated by just how clunky it is. I'll start with inventory. Being able to drag and drop items from the game environment into an inventory was novel, as was the ability to select multiple items at once (coins for example) and “operate” them all at once. However, the limited space within each container, whether it be a basket, a wallet, a jacket, or anything else you pick up along the way, means you have to hold items within items within items, resulting in multiple inventories with no easy way to move objects between them or view everything at once. I found it frustrating early on and the games tendency to give you items that you don’t actually require (you don’t know that of course) makes things get ugly very quickly.

Déjà Vu - For those occasions when one crappy inventory isn't enough!

Déjà Vu was also the first PC graphic adventure game to have a first person viewpoint, after Sierra’s Quest games had to this point used a third person perspective.  Being in first person was ideal for this game, as it allowed all attention to focus on finding items and clues in the otherwise static environment. The point and click control was also pioneering, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, needed quite a bit of work before it would become the norm for the genre at large.  I struggled all the way through the game with the counter intuitive order of having to click the action you wanted prior to the item to want to act upon. I should however take back my criticism around the text parser as it turns out it’s only needed when telling cab drivers addresses or entering combinations into safes and cabinets. Other than these moments, which make total sense, I was never required to type a specific command to someone to gain otherwise unknown information. All up, while the game was unquestionably pioneering in all aspects of this category, I have to give it a 3.

The first person viewpoint means you focus on investigation, which is exactly what is needed.

Story and Setting

The story of Déjà Vu is typical of 1940s based hard-boiled detective novels and movies with amnesia thrown in to add to the intrigue. I admit that I’m not particularly excited by that type of thing, but can appreciate a well told mystery from time to time. There is a decent plot to be found here, but the reasonably non linear way that the story is revealed can lead to serious confusion. That being said, if you consider that the character you’re playing is utterly confused by the situation he finds himself in, having to piece together what the hell is going on for the majority of the game makes total sense. I admit I had to read over all the notes, diaries and invoices I’d collected quite a few times before things started to make any sort of sense, but I was only given the freedom to do that once the time limit was removed three quarters through. It’s a 6 from me.

Rather fittingly, I couldn't put all the pieces together until my character got his memory back.

Sound and Graphics

Where to start!? I don’t know whether the sound is not playing correctly through DOSBox or whether it’s just awful, but the majority of the effects sound like a combination of a toilet flushing and speaker feedback. Thankfully there’s not much of it, so I eventually listened to music instead. The graphics fair better, but DOS users got the raw end of the deal quite frankly. Comparing the sickly blues and pinks of the DOS version to the colourful Amiga, NES and C64 versions, it’s clear that the technical limitations of the PC at the time got in the way of the game’s vision. This is a little surprising however, given that the DOS port wasn’t created until 1987, at which point I would have thought things would have moved on from four coloured CGA. I have no choice here other than to give the game a lowly 2 for Sound and Graphics.

Even death looked attractive in the Windows 3.1 version!

Environment and Atmosphere
1941 Chicago isn’t exactly entirely reproduced for this noir mystery, but at least the environment feels gritty and downright dangerous. From filthy toilet cubicles and sewers right through to grand estates and swanky apartments, it all fits the time and the tale. The language found throughout the game also adds a great deal of atmosphere, with many of the text based clues given that gangster American flair, and I have to admit that the time limit I’ve whinged about certainly gives the whole thing a level of urgency that wouldn’t be there otherwise. If only the graphics and sound could have been more effective, this category would have been given a higher rating. As it is, I’ll have to settle for a 5.

The new paint job didn't attract the buyers Mr Sternwood expected.

Dialogue and Acting

While we’re still a long way from two-way conversations, not to mention acting, being introduced to adventure games, the genre itself evolved out of interactive fiction where description is everything. Déjà Vu plays very much like interactive fiction, only with a basic graphic interface that allows you to manipulate objects rather than typing in commands. There’s a lot of text to read as can be seen by checking out the screenshots in this blog, and for the most part it’s really very good. I’ve mentioned the graphic descriptions used for the various ways you can die and how they sit on the fence between vulgar and humorous, but the majority of the writing fits the tone, is of professional quality, and uses humour to great effect. This would have the be one of the games strongest points, so I’m giving it a 6.

It's hard not to smile at quality lines like this one.

So it's a 45 for Déjà Vu, which is the lowest score so far. That seems fitting to be honest as I definitely enjoyed the other three games more, despite the groundbreaking features. I only hope that there's some improvement in the graphics, sound and interface for the other ICOM adventures, particularly as I'll be playing Uninvited in around five games time. The supernatural theme of that game seems more up my alley, so I still hold some hope of getting something positive out of it.

Game 4: Déjà Vu - Won!

I’ve conquered Déjà Vu, but not without facing numerous frustrating moments of having no idea what it was I was meant to do next. Normally when getting stuck in adventure games, finding that next item / solution / clue means everything else falls into place, at least for a while. Not the case with Déjà Vu I’m afraid. I’d finally figure out how to gain entrance to a particular area, only for the feelings of excitement and triumph to dissipate once the items I subsequently discovered there really didn’t seem all that useful in progressing elsewhere. Thankfully I was able to cure my brain-cell melting condition once I gained access to Doctor Brodies’ office, meaning I no longer had a time limit to worry about. Once that element of the game was removed, I was able to spend as much time as I wanted organising my inventory and fully investigating every single area in the game. So much of the game is solved by examining everything and applying detective techniques, so feeling rushed isn't conducive to success.

A E F M C I P X...um...K..D R...um...don't tell me...T...L?

Unfortunately, the time limit challenge was merely replaced by a monetary one, and I spent the last couple of hours of the game getting a taxi to a location (and therefore spending another three quarters) to see if there was anything I’d missed there, only to reload back to the taxi if I didn’t find anything. I’d hoped that I would be able to go back to the casino and win another bunch of quarters, but my efforts only resulted in lost money. In the end I finished with no quarters left and I’d given the last two taxi drivers twenty dollar notes to find they gave no change! Let’s just say that I was more than a little relieved to finish the game at this point as having to start again just to manage my funds better on the way through was not very appealing. Some would say that modern adventure games are too easy, with no way of dying and no way of getting in a position where the game is not able to be completed, but playing an old game where both of these are regular occurrences clearly shows why the genre had to evolve the way it did.

A $19.25 tip for a 75 cent trip! You bastard!

One unexpected positive to come out of the game was the way getting my memory back played out. Immediately after stopping the degradation of my brain functions, memories started to come back to me fairly rapidly. Some of these memories were just random events from my childhood, but others reveal pieces of what happened leading up to me being captured and drugged. Not only that, but re-examining items in my inventory uncovered new information that I simply couldn’t remember while affected by the drugs. It’s a plot revealing technique that would only work in a game based around amnesia obviously, but I have to say it was a pretty satisfying one. The only downside to the way it’s handled in Déjà Vu is that the piecemeal way the story is revealed left me confused and at times feeling pretty stupid. It eventually all came together, but I generally struggled to figure out what role each character had played in the plot and how on earth I came to be involved in the first place. I actually thought I might have been the killer for a while! Finding a note here or there merely added to the confusion, but I guess that’s the sign of a good puzzle based thriller rather than a bad one.

It's actually quite refreshing that the character you play in Déjà Vu has some serious flaws

Another major plus is that I did get to give the “nice looking lady” the punishment she deserved, and the solution (punching her in the face!) was available to me all along. Doing so only gave me some more useless items to fill my inventory with, but it sure felt good. In the end, I’m thrilled to have finished Déjà Vu! It was the most challenging of the games on the list so far (Below the Root was not too far behind) and while there are many things I found frustrating about it (which I’ll mention in detail when I apply a PISSED rating to it tomorrow), I found myself eager to solve the mystery and put all the pieces of the puzzle together. I’m almost certain the experience would have been more agreeable had I been playing the Windows 3.1 remake, as the improved visuals and sound would not only have been easier on the senses, they would have had a positive impact on the gameplay also. Anyway, I have my certificate from The Ace Harding School of Investigation and it’s a reward I feel very satisfied to have earned.

Straight to the pool room!

Game 4: Déjà Vu - Death Comes in Pink and Blue

I can now categorically say that Déjà Vu is a challenging game made more difficult by unreasonable time limitations. I’m gradually getting one step further before dying from whatever it is I’ve been injected with, at which point I reload (or start the game again if I think I can do things a better way) and try to get back to that point as fast as humanly possible. This harsh time limit, as well as the way the game is constantly reminding me that the cops are right on my tail, is basically causing me to rush and panic through scenes rather than investigating things properly the way I’d like to. The CGA pixel hunting is without question the main source of frustration though, as items are all but invisible in the highly pixelated shades of pink and blue. Since I last posted, I’ve gone through each screen like a fine comb, trying to find any small items that evaded my attention the first time around. I’ve found a few too which makes me wonder what else I’m still not seeing!

I might have seen the earring on the top of the toilet if it looked like an earring.

As if these aspects of the game weren’t difficult enough, death is seemingly around every corner anyway. Go too far down the street and you fall to your death at a worksite with no warning. Every time I run into the “nice looking lady”, no matter what I try to do, she shoots me point blank. This isn’t really a game that you can use careful, logical thinking, and make it through unscathed. It’s a game where you learn harsh lessons, reload, and through trial and error, make progress one step at a time. There was one other issue that I was all set to complain about, and that’s cash. I was running out of funds really quickly, and given that you need to pay cab drivers constantly, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I was going to get any further. Thankfully, I’ve just figured out that you can gamble at the casino and within a couple of goes on the pokies will win enough to not have to worry about it for a while.

No-one questioned the guy walking down the street with a bin filled with quarters.

Déjà Vu doesn’t appear to contain any profanity (at least I haven’t come across any yet), but it doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to descriptions and graphically recounting the many ways you can die. Sometimes it’s fairly humorous stuff such as “You’re in a swanky penthouse pad. One look, and you instantly feel that the owner of this place deserves to be shot.” Other times it borders on tasteless, with my personal favourite being “the blood begins to fill your lungs and overflow out of your mouth and nostrils. You realise with horror that you will be found dead without a proper change of underwear”. The nasty tone certainly fits the harshness of the world you’re in though, so this is not a complaint, merely an observation. I’m actually looking forward to discovering a way to pump that “nice looking lady” full of lead!

Yes, I imagine that's the first thing that will run through my mind the day I'm shot in the chest.

I’ve still got a couple of leads to go on in my next session, so I don’t have that horrible feeling that you get when you know you’re in for a frustrating time next time you press play. There are currently two doors that I haven’t been able to find keys for and I’m really hoping that a cure for my condition is behind one of them (Doctor Brodie’s office). If I can’t find a solution to the time limit problem soon, I’m likely to start using a bit of profanity of my own, so the language of my next post will probably give you the answer. It probably sounds overly pedantic, but I’m sure I’d find more enjoyment in Déjà Vu if I only had time to sort my inventory in a logical way. If I even try to put all my coins in my wallet, the game will punish me by telling me my condition has deteriorated further and I’d better do something quick before I become a vegetable. OK…a few deep breaths…I’m going to crack this bad boy!

I was kind of hoping to find a box full of keys. What am I going to do with a dead fat lady?

Game 4: Déjà Vu - Amnesia and Alligators

Déjà Vu begins with the main character (the player) not remembering who they are, or how they came to be where they are currently located. In this case that location is a seedy toilet cubicle, and your character has a large bump on his head and an apparent needle mark on his arm, suggesting foul play. Strangely, you still pack a loaded .38 revolver, some cash in a wallet (that sadly doesn’t contain a license), a key with the word Office on it, and various other bits and pieces. The only indication of who you might be is the initials J.S. that appear on a few items. It’s a suitably mysterious opening to what is clearly a noir-influenced adventure game and one that immediately has you looking for any clue you can find just to figure out who you are. That quest is quickly given more urgency once you realise the clock is ticking, as your condition deteriorates fairly rapidly due to whatever drug you’ve been injected with.

Who am I? And why do I have pink and blue makeup on!?

It’s a good premise, and after playing the game for just over an hour so far, it’s clear that there’s a lot more intrigue and mystery to come. After exiting the bathroom, I’ve now made the gruesome discovery of a dead body in the office block, found a room with what appears to be a restraining chair and evidence of injection materials, and followed a few loose leads that I’ve discovered on notes and cards. I’ve come up with more questions than I have answers and have died multiple times, including being shot by a mugger, blown up by a car bomb, and most surprisingly, attacked by an alligator. Successfully gaining access to new areas and finding pieces of evidence regarding who I am is really satisfying, and bit by bit I’m progressing further and further into the story. But, despite how intriguing and well crafted the plot of Déjà Vu is, there are numerous issues that are making playing this game somewhat challenging.

As if traversing the sewers wasn't bad enough, now there's frickin alligators down there!!??

First, and most obviously, the graphics are really quite crappy. Yes, they have the same four colour palette that I was subjected to in Below the Root, but given a fair amount of Déjà Vu revolves around discovering items in static images, it’s far more detrimental to the experience. Having only played the game a short period, I can’t yet tell whether or not I’m missing items through lack of visibility, but CGA pixel hunting doesn’t sound like much fun to me. Secondly, the interface is clunky as, with the inventory in particular making the collection of evidence a chore rather than a pleasure. You store objects by dragging and dropping them into the inventory, but there’s no slot system to speak of, so you can drop them anywhere you want. This means items sit on top of each other in what is a very small window, making it difficult to find what you’re after. The space restrictions are lessened by the ability to store items within other items, such as your jacket, wallet and bins, but once you’ve got items spread throughout numerous “containers”, the item sourcing problem is only exacerbated.

I really don't look forward to a time when I need to find an item quickly amongst multiple inventories.

Removing the text parser, that had been part and parcel of adventure games to this point (and into the future for companies such as Sierra), was indeed pioneering and deserving of commendation. As the first true “point and click” adventure game, Déjà Vu contains a similar interface to the one that LucasArts would use for their SCUMM based adventure games such as Maniac Mansion, Secret of Monkey Island and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Unfortunately they didn’t get it exactly right on their first attempt, and I’ve found myself regularly struggling to get it to do precisely what I what it to do. The main issue is that you have to click on a command (such as Examine, Open and Operate) before clicking on an item, and if you try to do it the other way around, nothing happens. I don’t know how many times I’ve selected an object on screen and, after realising it’s something I can get more details about, clicked on Examine, only to find that now I’ve merely selected Examine and need to re-click on the object. It doesn’t sound like a big thing, but it’s these sorts of things that make interfaces feel counter-intuitive.

The game is unforgiving enough without having to deal with the interface.

It’s also worth mentioning that despite ICOM taking the text parser out of adventure gaming, there are a few times during the game that I’ve had to type in what I’d like to say to a character. Fine you say, just use the skills you’ve gained through playing the likes of King’s Quest, but with no basis for knowing how the text parser might work, it’s difficult to know what language it’s looking for. It’s fine when I get in a cab and he asks me where I want to go, as giving him an address is an obvious response. But when you’re confronted with a paperboy and an empty text box, it’s hardly apparent what it is I’m supposed to say (no, “buy paper” didn’t work). This aspect of the genre would eventually be replaced by dialogue branching, with the game giving the player a few pre-defined options of things to say, and that’s something ICOM could have made excellent use of in Déjà Vu.

Um...hello? Buy paper? Do you know who I am? Can you tell me how this text parser works?

Ignoring all of these interface issues, probably my biggest concern with the game right now is the time limit. It seems that my condition deteriorates even when I’m not doing anything, and given I’m having to check every room thoroughly on my first play-through, I’m finding my character very close to death before I’ve really achieved anything at all. I’m yet to know whether there’s a point in the game where the time limit no longer applies (perhaps I can get medical attention?), but if not, Déjà Vu is either a very short game or playing it through DOSBox is causing time to pass much quicker than it should, thereby making it impossible to finish. I’m hoping the former (unless there's a cure, in which case I welcome more plot development)! Of course all of this is made much worse by the fact I’m trying to blog my experience, as my character goes downhill while I take screenshots, fill in my map, and write notes on my progress. I think I’ll be restarting Déjà Vu many times during the next few days, quickly completing everything I know of and then saving my game (with a filename starting with A,B or C of course). Only time will tell whether I’ll actually be able to complete the game, unless someone out there can at least inform me of that?

Everyone loves an antidote red herring!

Game 4: Déjà Vu - Introduction

I haven't even started playing yet, but the nightmare has well and truly begun.

After rapidly playing through two games that I’d completed previously, I’m very excited to tackle something challenging. Game 4 on the list is one I’ve never played, and in fact knew very little about until today. It’s full title is Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True!!, and it was developed by a company called ICOM in 1985.  ICOM  Simulations was founded in 1983 in Wheeling, Illinois, and is best known for their MacVenture series of adventure games, of which Déjà Vu is the first. As the MacVenture title suggests, the series was created initially for Macintosh computers, before being ported to numerous other platforms later. The games are the first to be considered “point and click” adventures, which is no small achievement, especially given how successful other games of the subgenre (by companies such as LucasArts) would be in the years following. There were four MacVenture games in total, being Déjà Vu (1985), Uninvited (1986), Shadowgate (1987) and Déjà Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas (1988).

The original Macintosh version of the game

There are actually two versions of Déjà Vu released for PC. The first one was developed for DOS in 1987, while the second was developed for Windows 3.1 in 1991. The screenshots I’ve seen leave no doubt that the 1991 version is far prettier to look at, but since this blog follows the development of adventure games chronologically, it makes much more sense for me to play to DOS version. Unfortunately, from what I can see, the one I’ll be playing looks to be the ugliest of all the ports, but you get that. I’ve also read that the new graphics produced for the 1991 version don’t always adhere to the matching text descriptions (which were left unchanged), resulting in some confusion for players. Just as with Below the Root, I found Déjà Vu very quickly by Googling “déjà vu dosbox download”. I’ve also found the manual in text form here, although it’s clearly meant for the original Macintosh version.

The much prettier Windows 3.1 version which I will unfortunately not be playing.

Before I begin writing any posts for a game, I obviously want to make sure I’m going to be able to successfully play it. I’d had so little trouble running the first three games on the list that it actually came as a surprise when I ran into problems testing Déjà Vu. I’ve been using the latest version of DOSBox, which is version 0.74, up until now. I start games in it by dragging the game executable and dropping it on the DOSBox shortcut on my desktop, and this has worked fine for the likes of Below the Root. I started Déjà Vu using the same technique and everything looked great. I could even play the game successfully for a while, but ran into trouble the moment I tried to save my progress. Clicking Save brought up a screen asking me whether I wanted to save to the A: drive, or a different path, but whatever I clicked the game would simply lock up. After Googling the issue, I came across others having the same problem, and then discovered that the game only works in DOSBox 0.60.

The DOS version box cover.

So, I downloaded DOSBox 0.60, started the game and tried to save. If I tried to save the game to the A: drive, I’d get a Stack Overflow error, so I tried to change the path to the E: drive (my memory stick that contains the game files), only for the game to freeze up again. It was then that I read on a website that the game files need to be stored on the C drive for the game to work properly. I moved the Déjà Vu folder to the C drive, started up the game again, and this time I was able to save my game successfully. Unfortunately, as soon as I tried to restore, I received a message that there were no files available to restore. I could see my save file in the Déjà Vu game folder, but the game wouldn’t recognise it. After an hour of messing around and trying to run the game various different ways, I saved my game with the name “crap” and found I could restore it. A little while later I figured out that the restore process is only looking at the first file in the game folder. If that file happens to be a save file then it’s available to restore (a throwback to dedicated save game floppy disks I guess). Since my save files are appearing in the game folder, anything beginning alphabetically after DEJAGAME.D simply wasn’t being picked up. So, the game works fine once you know to use DOSBox 0.60, have the game folder on the C drive, and save your games beginning with A, B or C. I’m ready to go now!

Never have I been so happy to see crap!