Suspended: Won!

This whole freeze a guy underground for 500 years and wake him up in case of an emergency so he can control a bunch of blind robots to fix it scheme is insane. Contran society seems to really like acronyms, so I'd have called it CCCC, for Contra Cryogenic Catastrophic Contingency. Why is there no means of controlling the robots or systems from the planet surface? Why limit each robot's usefulness by giving it only one sense? Just what is Auda supposed to do down here? And if they can send people down here, why not just have them fix the problem, instead of going to the trouble of replacing me with a clone and hoping it does a better job?

Contra's Underground Complex is also humorously overdesigned, like a satire of overcomplicated and technically unfeasible designs by committee. The planetary controls and monitors on the exact opposite sides of the complex, where the control operator can't see what the effect is. The main computers and their reset device are also on opposite sides of the complex, and the code needed to activate the reset is on the computer side, where the only robot capable of reading it can't go. The two floors are separated by a dropoff to deliberately restrict robots to the second floor, but we're also provided with a portable ramp so that they can descend it, and the robots themselves (other than Iris) all have navigation data for the lower floor. And good job putting the computer room cooling system out of the robots' reach.

All of this whimsical insanity makes perfect sense in context. Contra is very much the embodiment of a zany technocratic dystopia, where society relies on badly engineered plans, machines, and infrastructures, all built by the lowest bidder and maintained by no one.

During my first session, I encountered the following problems:

• Iris is damaged and can't see.
• The computer reset mechanism has improper chips inserted and doesn't function.
• An earthquake loosens cables in the computer room. Planetary weather is out of control. This is the event that starts the game proper.
  
• On turn 15, an aftershock damages a coolant device, making the computer room deadly to enter.
• On turn 75, a third shock damages the controls for traffic and hydroponics.
• On turn 100, a security team enters the complex.
• Around turn 160, they disconnect me and put a clone in my place.

 

Once the third shock occurs, the transit system goes out of control and kills people, and the hydroponics monitor shows dropping levels of water, minerals, and lighting, resulting in poor output. The robots refuse to touch the transit controls, and the levers in the hydroponics controls have no effect.

I needed a clue, so I turned to Invisiclues, which suggested using people to shut off the acidic coolant controller, but gave no suggestions on how. I had Auda wait for their intrustion, then follow them and listen.

• Turn 100: Sterilization chamber.
• Turn 101: Decontamination chamber.
• Turn 102: Entry area.
• Turn 103: Small supply room. They retrieve a toolbag, and decide to take a nap.
  
• Turn 105: Activity area.
• Turn 106: Sleep area. They rest.
• Turn 128: They awaken. They decide to go to the library for more information.
  
• Turn 129: Hallway corner.
• Turn 130: Hallway branch.
• Turn 131: Library entrance. Dialog is inaudible.
• Turn 132: Library core.
• Turn 134: They agree to replace me.
• Turn 135: Library entrance.
• Turn 136: Hallway end. They take car to the biology area.
• Turn 151: They return.
• Turn 152: Library entrance.
• Turn 153: Hallway branch.
• Turn 154: Hallway corner.
• Turn 155: Hallway.
• Turn 156: Access hallway.
• Turn 157: Sloping corridor.
• Turn 158: Hallway junction.
• Turn 159: Bending corridor.
• Turn 160: Angling corridor.
• Turn 161: Central corridor. Game over.

 

I tried again but had Poet disrupt their routine by stealing the car to the biology area. Their activity diverged accordingly.

• Turn 136: They decide to wait for the car.
• Turn 146: They complain.
• Turn 166: They complain again.
• Turn 181: They complain more.
• Turn 211: They decide to forget about the clone and just disconnect me.
• Turn 212: Library entrance.

 

From there, the itineraries converge with a 60 turn delay.

By stealing the toolbag while they sleep, they'll wake up and try to retrieve it from you. I had Auda do this and lead them into the maintenance access, where they saw the acid-spewing pipes overhead. They fixed them and decided to wait and see if that was enough.

I restarted the game and focused on preparing Waldo for the computer room repair job. I had him fix Iris and the computer reset device in the supply rooms. I sent him to the lower level and used the ramp to retrieve the cable-cutter in the humans-only supply room, and then to the biology lab to get the TV camera. I had him replace the ramp and go to the Gamma Repair Room with Sensa to haul Fred out of his aluminum coffin. Turn 100 was approaching, so I had Auda go to the sleep chamber to wait for the humans and then do her thing.

The cooling system was fixed, but Waldo needed two spare cables to finish the job. I had one cut out of Fred and knew of two others; a sixteen-inch cable in the supply room that the manual warns not to use, and a fourteen-inch cable inside the reset device, which electrocutes any robot that tries to disconnect it. Getting this is simple; you just remove a fuse from the device first, get the cable, and replace the fuse.

I sent Waldo into the computer room with the camera and spare cables, broadcasted the reset code to Iris, and replaced the bad cables. The computer announced it was ready for reset codes. Iris punched it into the device - it works fine without the cable just as long you replace the fuse - and the game ended.

All systems returning to normal.
  Weather systems slowly approaching balance.
  Hydroponic systems working at full capacity.
Surface life in recovery mode.

Extrapolation based on current weather systems and food supplies:
  Total recovery in 82 cycles.
  Current surface casualties: 4,277,000
  Projected casualties during recovery: 3,417,000
  Original population: 30,172,000
  Total possible survivors: 22,478,000

This score gives you the possibility of being considered for being burned in effigy. On a scale of 1 (the best) to 7 (the worst), your ranking was 7.

Could I do better by being more efficient? Perhaps I didn't need to waste time on the security team - the robots do not die immediately on entering the hazardous computer room, and although it wouldn't be possible to replace the cables and come back alive, maybe they're expendable. Most importantly, I hadn't been multitasking. Waldo may be the most useful robot, but he can't be in two places at once, and having him do almost all of the manual work couldn't possibly be the most efficient approach.

I sent Waldo to the middle supply room where the spare parts were, Sensa and Poet to the Gamma Repair where Fred was stashed, Whiz to the sub supply room where the ramp was, and Iris to the main supply room where the reset machine was. Auda would be little use; she can't interact with anything she can't hear, which isn't much.

Sensa got there first, and I had her open the cabinet. The rest soon arrived at their destinations. Whiz carried the ramp to the hallway junction. Poet and Sensa moved Fred and I then directed Poet to the hallway junction. As Whiz and Poet walked, Waldo did his repairs, which can be made more efficient by taking multiple objects in a single command, and by using "replace <thing1> with <thing2>" to consolidate get & put actions into one.

The rest involved three robots in motion, doing simultaneous jobs. I needed careful micromanagement to minimize idle turns.

• Waldo fixes the device, retrieves the cable safely, and goes to the computer room, dying as he replaces the bad cable in the secondary channel.
• Whiz carries the ramp to the small supply room, retrieves the cable cutter, brings the ramp back to the hallway junction, cuts Fred's cable out, and goes to the computer room, dying as he replaces the bad cable in the secondary channel.
• Poet retrieves the camera, and once Whiz has replaced the ramp, goes to the computer room to broadcast the reset code, dying soon after that.
  

 

Victory was achieved faster, but my score wasn't much better.

All systems returning to normal.
  Weather systems slowly approaching balance.
  Hydroponic systems working at full capacity.
Surface life in recovery mode.

Extrapolation based on current weather systems and food supplies:
  Total recovery in 66 cycles.
  Current surface casualties: 1,165,000
  Projected casualties during recovery: 2,101,000
  Original population: 30,172,000
  Total possible survivors: 26,906,000

This score gives you the possibility of being considered for being burned in effigy. On a scale of 1 (the best) to 7 (the worst), your ranking was 7.

What did I have to do differently for a better rank?

From perusing Invisiclues, it turns out the damaged planetary controls are functional, just not accurate. Weather tower two's dial should be set to its maximum value ASAP in order to slow down the damage. The transit controls, which the robots previously refused to touch, must be FLIPPED to operate them. I had to scan a walkthrough to determine that "flip" was the correct verb; touch, press, throw, and move had all failed to impress on them.

I had another go at it, this time using Sensa to man the control stations once Fred was removed. The second weather control tower's dial was set to the highest value, and then I killed the planet's taxi and glider ramp systems. Several turns later, when it seemed that nobody must be using the air transit, I killed that too. Hydroponics adjustment would just have to wait until the third shock, at which point the game was nearly over anyway.

I finished on the 79th turn.

All systems returning to normal.
  Weather systems slowly approaching balance.
  Hydroponic systems working at full capacity.
Surface life in recovery mode.

Extrapolation based on current weather systems and food supplies:
  Total recovery in 3 cycles.
  Current surface casualties: 220,000
  Projected casualties during recovery: 58,000
  Original population: 30,172,000
  Total possible survivors: 29,894,000

This score gives you the possibility of being considered for savior of a planet. On a scale of 1 (the best) to 7 (the worst), your ranking was 3.

Not bad, but better is possible! I had no wish, though, to spend any more time puzzling out the most optimal solution. I followed a walkthrough which solved the game in 71 turns, before any damage to transit or hydroponics occurs, saving thousands of lives. This walkthrough solves all of the puzzles in the same manner as my own solution, but in a different order, and I don't especially care to do the analysis to determine why this one is more efficient.

All systems returning to normal.
  Weather systems slowly approaching balance.
  Hydroponic systems working at full capacity.
Surface life in recovery mode.

Extrapolation based on current weather systems and food supplies:
  Total recovery in 0 cycles.
  Current surface casualties: 8,000
  Projected casualties during recovery: 0
  Original population: 30,172,000
  Total possible survivors: 30,164,000

This score gives you the possibility of being considered for a home in the country and an unlimited bank account. On a scale of 1 (the best) to 7 (the worst), your ranking was 3.

Suspended also features an advanced mode, but it isn't all that interesting - it disables Whiz, causes damage to the transit and hydroponics controls immediately, and the security team enters on turn 80 instead of turn 100, killing you on turn 141. There are no additional challenges; bad stuff just happens sooner. You can also configure a custom difficulty where you define each robot's starting point, alive/dead status, and how soon each of the bad events happen.

There's also an impossible mode. This causes the sun to go nova one turn after the game starts. Cool.

 

GAB rating: Good. 

I enjoyed Suspended while it lasted. It's a short, compact game, fairly well polished as usual for Infocom, and a big change in style for both Infocom and Berlyn, best thought of as one elaborate, multi-stage puzzle. There's definitely an initial sense of impenetrability here; until you've mastered the multi-robot interface and figured out the game's "script," it can feel like a hopeless situation where things keep blowing up for no reason as you struggle to process what's even going on, let alone piece together how to solve anything. It can take multiple failed playthroughs before you start feeling like you made any progress at all.

For me, the most enjoyable part was figuring out the complex and what you find in it. Every object has four to six different descriptions from the robots that can observe it, plus as many as three more from the computer peripherals that Whiz can query. Sometimes these queries reveal more information than they should, even outright revealing the solution to a puzzle, but too much information is better than too little, and Suspended remains one of Infocom's most challenging games, being one of only four ranked "expert" in difficulty.

What's more is that despite being made by a novelist and a relative newbie to game design, Suspended never feels like it wants to be a novel, and the temptation to use Z-Machine's virtual memory and text compression abilities to expound words at the player must have been immense. That sort of storytelling is thankfully confined to the manual (and to a lesser extent the library computer's History Peripheral), and Berlyn allows ludic narrative to come through naturally through room descriptions, world layout, and ingame events. Even after it becomes clear that the various disasters in Suspended are on a rigidly scripted schedule, there's always a sense of dreadful chaos, as calamities build up and cascade faster than you can put band-aid fixes on the last ones.

Suspended is weird, but in a good, memorable way, and it's fun for awhile, though the replay value isn't as strong as promised. I happily induct it into my ivory deck.