The Alpine Encounter

The Alpine Encounter is an interactive fiction game with graphics, telling the story of a stolen vase, stolen missile plans, and the secret agent hunting them down in an alpine ski resort. You have a mere twelve in-game hours to beat the criminal masterminds, each action taking away a small amount of your time limit.

The resort is rather large and only a small number of the rooms are going to be of any help to you in solving the case, but failure is not an option. Time is against you in finding the VODOC World Domination Conspiracy, and only a skilled player will get the vase and plans back.

The game works on a text parser system, but don’t expect anything as good as later games have; it works on specific commands for specific actions and will not accept anything else. Making it more complicated is the fact that the game gives you no hints about what actions are possible, and where you can do them, at all. This game is not meant to be beaten in one playthrough. No, the player is meant to play over and over again, collecting more and more information each time before he/she finally beats the game. If this style of gaming is what you are after, you will already have some paper and pens for note-taking. If this is your first time playing a game like Alpine Encounter, then get some out and start taking notes and making a map straight away.

The graphical images are nothing special and are rather lacklustre in the PC version, with the other versions of this game being much better in that sense. CGA colours and very basic images are all you have to guide you; the images are the only hint a lot of the time about where you are going to be able to move. Looking at the scene will not tell you anything nor will asking the game to list exits. Sometimes the descriptions will give you the information you need, but other times they will not. The resort is also filled with other people; working out who they are, and whether they are the criminal, is the entire point of the game. Do not expect any sounds to help you out; this game just does not have any.

Alpine Encounter is going to test your brain power, mettle and patience. The game is complicated but at the same time not overly long. Although, with the many rooms that have no purpose, and the time clicking away at every action, the player is going to feel rather rushed and confused about what to do and where to go. Stick it out, though. Don’t go looking for a walkthrough, just keep plugging away at it and see what you can learn about the people in the resort, and if you can find the stolen vase and plans.

The game is tricky to rate. Graphics and sound are not important to this genre, but this game's parser and lack of descriptions lead it to being only average to me. Still, for people who like this kind of game, it will be a welcome addition to their collection.