Cutthroats: Won!

At the end of my last session, I found the sunken treasure ship São Vera, but got stranded in its middle deck, unable to ascend topside nor descend further thanks to a tipped bunk blocking the exit.

It turns out that the thing I needed was part of a room description:

This area is full of barnacle-encrusted iron bars, probably pikes used by the sailors for fending off boarding parties.

Normally, things you can interact with are listed separate from the room description, but you can take a bar here and lift the obstructing bunks out of your way with it, and they can be propped up with the bar so that they don't fall down again and crush your air hose.

The passage leads below deck, where I found a giant squid that kills you if you stick around too long, and two chests, each by a porthole. I couldn't find a way to open either chest, but either can be taken out the portholes, where they can be tied to Weasel's line. The other one can be used as a footstool to get back to the middle decks. But I could find no way back above deck, and was doomed to run out of air and drown.

Turning to a walkthrough, it first confirmed something I suspected - Weasel is indeed a traitor, and you're supposed to have exposed him by now. Too late for that, but I was determined to see this timeline to its end. The way to get back above deck is to grab a sword (in a room below deck where the game doesn't tell you there's a sword to take), and then in the middle deck, use it to cut a rope that the game explicitly told you was out of reach. Then you can climb it above deck, and depending on which treasure chest you sent up (is there a way to know which is the good one)?, either find that it contains garbage and go home disappointed and broke, or find it contains gold and then Weasel cuts your throat.

I had a feeling that envelope in McGinty's office was key to exposing Weasel, but how could I get it?

Restarting, I went to the back alley behind McGinty's and noticed a window as well as a door. This had to be the trick. Going in while McGinty's in, though, will get you killed.

I restarted and went through the motions up until meeting Johnny at Outfitter's International. This time, Johnny's treasure was a Hollywood Cruise dinner plate instead of a Portuguese coin, indicating that the shipwreck would be the S.S. Leviathan this time, and being only 150ft deep, this time Johnny rented the Night Wind for only $89, leaving me with $529.

With this much money, I could afford an electromagnet, and figured it would be required given that the São Vera rental doesn't leave you with enough for one. I figured the nautical charts and diving books weren't necessary, and was able to purchase one of everything else - an air compressor, net, anchor, flashlight, shark repellent, putty, dry cell, and C battery, at a total cost of $515.

I then went to McGinty's and hung around until 12:15, when he came back from his little conspiracy with an envelope, and then loitered for another 20 minutes until he left for another smoke break. I circled around the back, and was able to sneak in through the window, steal the envelope, and leave for the Night Wind.

There, I waited for the crew, and gave Johnny the envelope, proving to him that Weasel works for McGinty. Turns out this is the wrong move - he chases Weasel off, leaving the ship short crewed, and calls off the hunt. But holding onto it is no good either; Weasel will see it on your person and kill you.

I instead hid the envelope under my mattress, and gave Johnny the coordinates as before. After arriving, I retrieved and showed it to him, and he went above deck and forcibly restrained Weasel.

Now I had to dive, and being in shallow waters, I'd need to use my wetsuit and air tank, which I could fill with the compressor. As before, I needed the flashlight and shark repellent to reach the wreck. The Leviathan is more of a maze than the São Vera, but apart from one deadly passage between decks full of mines that explode should you try to cross it, it isn't too bad, and I soon located a safe in the middle deck, behind a watertight bulkhead that kept the other side of the deck dry until I opened it. 

The ship had a portable drill, which I figured could help crack the safe, and it operated on the C battery. Incidentally, is that even a thing? The weakest cordless drill I've ever had was six volts, and that thing could barely drill cardboard.

I worked my way back to the wreck site, this time taking with me everything except the anchor, which was too heavy. The drill worked, using the awkward phrasing "drill safe with drill," revealing a postage stamp collection in a cracked glass case, which I sealed with putty. Unfortunately, some water got in already, and the motion from ascending to the surface ruined the stamps.

I'd need to get through the mine-filled corridor and avoid opening the bulkhead to keep my side of it nice and dry. And I was sure the electromagnet was needed here, but turning it on just causes a loose mine to detonate.

The solution, which I had to look up, is to first touch the electromagnet to the mine before turning it on. After doing that, dropping the electromagnet causes the mine to be held in place, and you can now swim upward to the middle deck, and get to the safe.

I'm having a hard time visualizing this solution. The initial problem here is that the loose mine blocks your way. Nothing indicated that the correct solution causes the mine to move out of your way (and indeed the wrong solution does, causing it to touch something and blow up). All we're told is the magnet is holding the mine in place. I don't see how this helps, and I also don't see what's stopping the mine from bobbing around with a magnet stuck to it.

After drilling through the safe, I had to very quickly get the case, go back to the mine room, dive down, swim around and back up to the dry half of the middle deck, and then use the drill to enlarge the crack and drain the water. Do anything too slowly, and water leaks through the crack, ruining the stamps. You can't just seal the crack first either - you only have enough putty to plug it up once! This took me a few tries, as everything, including some finagling with the oxygen tank to fit through the Leviathan's narrow corridors, must be done perfectly, and even carrying too much stuff, as you likely are if you don't know which items are necessary, can mess you up.

This final challenge completed, I ascended to the Night Wind.

You get out of the water and reboard your ship...

When your shipmates find that you've recovered these priceless stamps, they congratulate you. Johnny slaps you on the back. "Good job, matey!" As you return to the island over the calm, dazzling blue sea, you contemplate your wealth with a touch of sadness. You think of Hevlin and hope his soul is resting a little easier now.

Your score is 250 out of a possible 250.
This score gives you the rank of a rich diver.

 

Kind of an anticlimax. Say what you will about Infidel's sucker punch ending - and I did - at least its writing wasn't boring.

A walkthrough revealed that there are only two shipwrecks, so I'm done.

GAB rating: Below average. Infocom couldn't always reach the heights of Zork or Planetfall, but this is the first time one of their games felt like it was made to reach a quota. Infocom's worst titles, up until now (e.g. Seastalker), were at least interesting, if not always successful. To its credit, unlike Seastalker, Cutthroats generally behaves as intended, seems fairly bug free (though I still have no idea why McGinty bugs out when he sees you carrying your own bank passbook), and despite having to look up solutions a few times I feel inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's reasonably solvable, but the game world and design is just boring.

For starters, Infocom's prose is uncharacteristically dry, like so many contemporaries whose room descriptions merely described without providing character or flavor. Compare this description of your starting room:

You're in your room in the Red Boar Inn. It's sparsely furnished, but comfortable enough. To the north is the door, and there's a closet without a door to the west.
On the floor is a note that must have been slipped under the door while you slept.
In a corner of the room is a lopsided wooden dresser.

With the one from Berlyn's own Infidel the previous year:

You are in your tent. Golden rays of the sun filter through the open tent flaps on the southern wall, but no breeze makes its way through. The dry, searing heat in the tent would be bearable if only the air stirred, even a little.
At the foot of the cot is a large, unwieldy trunk. The trunk is closed and locked with a padlock.

 

Cutthroats' dull design is hardly limited to its prose either. Hardscrabble Island, which most of the game is set on, gives you so little to do. Apart from the subplot of exposing Weasel, and making the decision of what gear to buy at Outfitter's (itself an impossible one without forward knowledge of the situation), there are no choices, decisions, challenges, or puzzles here. You just meet up with Johnny and follow his instructions until it's time to leave. The treasure diving conclusions are more interesting, the wrecks acting as miniature puzzle dungeons, but are far too brief, and as if to make up for this lack of content, Cutthroats pads it out with multiple forced restarts from unwinnable situations that you can't anticipate.

This was Berlyn's last game at Infocom until 1997, when he'd team with Marc Blank on the promotional minigame Zork: The Undiscovered Underground, but we'll see more of his works before then. Until then, we've got two more Infocom games this phase, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Suspect.

My Trizbort map: