History VideoGame / Suspended

* {{Feelies}}: This is an Infocom game, after all. The feelies included a booklet about the facility and the robots, a letter congratulating you on being chosen to serve as CM, a lottery card, and a map of the facility (with tokens to help you keep track of your robots). In some editions, the box itself was a really cool/creepy looking mask of someone in cryogenic animations.

The story is set on Contra, a human-settled planet in the distant future. Civilization’s higher functions are tended to by three Filtering Computers, which control the weather, food production, and the transportation system correspondingly. These computers are monitored by the Central Mentality, a random guy who won a lottery and has been turned into a HumanPopsicle while his brain runs everything. The ideal is for the CM to stay in such a state for five hundred years, at which point they’ll be revived and replaced with the next one.

The current CM is suddenly woken by a series of error messages. An earthquake has damaged all three Filtering Computers, causing chaos and death on the surface. The guys that put him in there had no backup plans in case of such a catastrophic failure, leaving the CM to try and fix all three before too much damage occurs. Unfortunately, because he’s still in a tube, he has to mentally control six robots in the facility, each of whom has a very specific function. Even worse, a previous CM (Gregory Franklin) went insane and tried to destroy the planet, meaning the public has very little tolerance for this kind of situation. If the death toll gets too high, they’ll be coming down to fix the problem themselves... by shutting you down.

!!This Game Contains Examples Of:

* AndIMustScream: "A Cryogenic Nightmare" indeed. You can't see or move. You have six robots that between them ''almost'' make up one complete, functional human. And no way to communicate with the technicians coming to disconnect you.

* FailsafeFailure: The small informational booklet constantly mentions that nothing can possibly go wrong and, as such, leaves no real directions behind in case of a failure (and the ones they DO give are either BlatantLies or filled with half-truths). The problem is, you ARE the Failsafe, and when you wake up, you have no directions, your robots are in terrible shape, and the REAL damage has just barely begun. In particular, they never bothered to fix the incredibly helpful multitasking Fred robot [[spoiler:and neither can you]].
* {{Feelies}}: This is an Infocom game, after all. The Feelies included a booklet about the facility and the robots, a letter congratulating you on being chosen to serve as CM, a lottery card, and a map of the facility (with tokens to help you keep track of your robots). In some editions, the box itself was a really cool/creepy looking mask of someone in cryogenic animations.
* FridgeLogic: Invoked in-universe, the manual implies that people who bring up objections to the system mentioned on the FridgeLogic page tend to get "lucky" in the next lottery.

* GuideDangIt: You know that map we mentioned back in the {{Feelies}} entry? Well, the game neglects to tell you where the room exits are, which room is which, etc. You know, the things you need to know in order to get anywhere? The game also fails to tell you what each robot does and what commands they’ll respond to. Meaning, if you try to play without the Feelies... good luck.
* HarderThanHard: The highest difficulty level, "Impossible", is accurately named -- shortly after the game begins, the sun explodes and everybody dies.

* LotteryOfDoom: Congratulations! You've won the lottery! And your prize is being locked up over twenty miles underground, frozen for five hundred years, while your brain is used to run your entire civilization!
* MeaningfulName: Each of the robots has a name that matches their function. There’s Iris (the vision robot), Waldo (the grabbing robot), Sensa (who senses photonic emissions and ionic discharges), Auda (who can hear things), Poet (who speaks in a kind of cipher at times), and Whiz (who connects you with the Central Library Core).

* PressStartToGameOver: By selecting impossible difficulty.
* RedHerring: Fred, the seventh robot. He's a multipurpose model, which would make him the most useful machine in the room, right? Too bad that Franklin completely destroyed him. You can find his body all right, but you’re wasting your time if you try to repair him. [[spoiler: That wire inside him might be of use though.]]
* RocksFallEveryoneDies: The inevitable outcome of "Impossible" mode.
* ShoutOut: After you've helped the technicians [[spoiler:fix the pipe leak from the Filtering Computers in the Maintenance Area]], when they return to the Sleep Chamber, they mention playing a game of ''VideoGame/{{Starcross}}'', another Creator/{{Infocom}} game.

* TimedMission: From the start of the game, you have to fix all the Filtering Computers before the people come down and kill you. You CAN shut down the transport system[[note]]or steal the repair crew's equipment, or lead them to some of the damage[[/note]] to give yourself a little more time, but if it comes to that, you’re pretty much dead.

* UnwinnableJokeGame: [[HarderThanHard Impossible Mode]] is just that. The sun goes nova after only a few turns, destroying Contra.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: Winning the game in the fewest turns possible involves the deaths of at least two of the robots as they must go through an acid leak, the damage from which will eventually kill them, but if you take your time by having one of the robots steal the repair crew's tools and lead them to the damaged pipes, it becomes much easier to finish with all six robots still operational.[[note]] In Normal Mode, anyway; in Hard Mode, Whiz is disabled throughout.[[/note]]

* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: ... until they come down and turn you off.

* SpeaksInShoutOuts: Poet can be a whiz at this sometimes, making references to Creator/WilliamShakespeare and the ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'' series, for example.