History Creator / Infocom

* CrappyCarnival: In ''Ballyhoo'', T.P. Munrab's Travelling Circus that Time Forgot. Not creepy or scary but somewhat run down and noted it's presence of a strictly old-school [[FreakShow freakshow with midgets and a fat lady]]. Even when the game was made, Munrab's circus would be heavily subject to a lot of criticism concerning exploitation, both of people and animals.

* ''[[VideoGame/AstekaIITemploDelSol Tombs & Treasure]]''

* CrappyCarnival: In ''Ballyhoo'', T.P. Munrab's Travelling Circus that Time Forgot. Not creepy or scary but somewhat run down and noted it's presence of a strictly [[SocietyMarchesOn old-school]] [[FreakShow freakshow with midgets and a fat lady]]. Even when the game was made, Munrab's circus would be heavily subject to a lot of criticism concerning exploitation, both of people and animals.

* {{Orientalism}}: ''Witness'' is a blatant example. Freeman Linder, the man who calls your detective character to his home, is clearly a White man with a ForeignCultureFetish. His home has many Asian touches of decoration and Linder goes on about how he [[GoingNative went native]] during his years over in China. His [[OldRetainer servant]], [[StockForeignName Phong]], is stereotypically dressed in mandarin clothes with the queue hair braid. The story is set in the 1930s so such stereotypes were normal back then.

These days many of their games are available on {{Abandonware}} sites - indeed the games (being entirely text) are ''incredibly'' small files by today's standards. ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', which was a very verbose game, is only 128k - smaller than most modern digital pictures.

* ArcNumber: 69,105
* DevelopersForesight: Infocom's parsers were incredibly smart, probably due to having more memory to work with as the games didn't have any graphics.
* EasterEgg
* FeaturelessProtagonist
* {{Feelies}}
* FictionalDocument
* GuideDangIt: Many of the games were DEVILISHLY hard, but particularly: [[VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Babel Fish]]
* InteractiveFiction
* InventoryManagementPuzzle
* KleptomaniacHero
* LockedDoor
* SecondPersonNarration
* UnwinnableByDesign: Infocom actually [[UnwinnableByDesign/{{Infocom}} have their own page]] and their games rarely rated ''above'' "Nasty", and were more often than not "Cruel".

* ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''

* {{Orientalism}}: ''Witness'' is a blatant example. Freeman Linder, the man who calls your detective character to his home, is clearly a White man with a ForeignCultureFetish. His [[OldRetainer servant]], [[StockForeignName Phong]], is stereotypically dressed in mandarin clothes with the queue hair braid. The story is set in the 1930s so such stereotypes were normal back then.

In 1986, struggling with competition from video games with fancy graphics and badly damaged by an ill-fated foray into the business software market, Infocom was bought by Activision. Shortly after the acquisition, Infocom's champion on the Activision board left the company, and his successor [[ExecutiveMeddling spent three years "improving" Infocom]] before pulling the plug in 1989.

* DifficultyLevels: Early in ''Moonmist'', the player is asked their favorite color, and the answer determines which of four different mysteries (differing in complexity, and each with a different guilty party and a different reward) the game subsequently presents to the player. The options in order of ascending difficulty are green, blue, red, or yellow.

* FakingTheDead: In the red variation of ''Moonmist'', we discover that [[spoiler:Lord Jack Tresyllian attempted to kill his former fiancée, Deirdre Hallam, after murdering his uncle Lionel for his inheritance and fortune. However, she escaped Jack's clutches by jumping into the well in the castle basement and swimming her way to safety, thus faking her own murder and setting the one reason for "NeverFoundTheBody"; she then masqueraded as the legendary "White Lady" in her effort to haunt Jack and her successor Tamara Lynd.]]

* ForeignRemake: In 1992, six years after the original ''Moonmist'', Japanese software development company [=SystemSoft=] developed and published its [[http://pc98library.tistory.com/1571 remake for]] [[UsefulNotes/PC98 the PC-9801]] entitled ''Moonmist: Shiroki Kifujin no Nazo'' (ムーンミスト ～白き貴夫人の謎～; ''[[TheForeignSubtitle Moonmist: The Mystery of the Noble White Lady]]''). Unlike the original, this game has some of the most common verb commands ("look", "take", etc.) that can be accessed by pressing a corresponding button (the player still has to type the name of an object, though), and enchanced graphics for the unique background pictures on which the text is super-imposed.

** ''Moonmist'' asks you for your name and title at the beginning.

* NeverFoundTheBody: We are told in ''Moonmist'' that Deirdre Hallam apparently died when she allegedly jumped or fell into a deep well at the basement of Tresyllian Castle, and her body was never found, [[spoiler:although it is later revealed in the red variation that she was actually FakingTheDead.]]

* PurelyAestheticGender:
** A bit of a difference depending on which version of ''Moonmist'' you've played: while the original game only has you customize your character in the forms of HelloInsertNameHere and SchrodingersGun, the [[UsefulNotes/PC98 PC-9801 version]] not only ditched the prefix in place of this "Purely Aesthetic Gender" (with an option of either male, female or "okama", i.e., DragQueen), but it also allowed you to type in the number of your age.
** Combined with SchrodingersGun: In ''Ballyhoo'', your player's gender is indeterminate as you explore, but eventually you'll come across a punch-dotted ticket, with a blue dot for male and a pink one for female. Whichever dot you punch out as you put the ticket into the slot retroactively becomes the correct answer.

* ShoutOut: In the yellow variation of ''Moonmist'', three of the four clues you are sent to find are references to the works of Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, namely, "The Bells", "Annabel Lee", and "Literature/TheCaskOfAmontillado".
* TitleDrop: [[spoiler: In ''Moonmist'' the hidden treasure of the green variation is a rare South American tribal remedy by that name. It doesn't factor into any of the other versions at all though.]]

** ''Bureaucracy'' customizes your protagonist in the form of HelloInsertNameHere and others such as your sex, street, city, state and zip code and so forth.

** ''Bureaucracy'' also starts out a bit like ''Moonmist'', except that it also customizes your protagonist in the form of HelloInsertNameHere and others such as your street, city, state and zip code and so forth.

** A bit of a difference depending on which version of ''Moonmist'' you've played: while the original game only has you customize your character in the forms of HelloInsertNameHere and SchrodingersGun, the [[UsefulNotes/PC98 PC-9801 version]] not only ditched the prefix in place of this "Purely Aesthetic Gender" (with an option of either male, female or "okama", i.e., DragQueen), but it also allowed you to type in the number of your age!

* AllHallowsEve: ''Suspect'' takes place in a Halloween costume ball... at the time that a murder has already occurred... a murder you're falsely accused of committing.

If you’re interested in a truly deep dive into Infocom history, [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4834 4000 pages]] of Steve Meretzky’s meticulously archived files are uploaded to the Internet Archive.

* EverybodyLives: Including [[spoiler:the villain]] in ''Seastalker''. This can also occur at the end of ''Ballyhoo'' if you play your cards right.

* EverybodyLives: Including [[spoiler:the villain]] in ''Seastalker''. This can also occur at the end of ''Ballyhoo'' if you play the cards right.

* KnockKnockJoke: One of the levels ("Act the Part") has some of these in ''Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It''.
* LiteralMinded: In ''Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It'', you have to get past all the idioms by being literal-minded in three of the stages (Buy the Farm, Eat Your Words, and [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Meet the Mayor]]).

* {{Spoonerism}}: One of the stages has quite a lot of it in ''Nord and Bert''.
* WorldOfPun[=/=][[WorldOfSymbolism Symbolism]]: Dear Lord, there's quite a lot in ''Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It''.

* UnwinnableByDesign: Infocom actually [[Infocom/UnwinnableByDesign have their own page]] and their games rarely rated ''above'' "Nasty", and were more often than not "Cruel".

* RedHerring: Lampshaded in ''Deadline''. The dead man's son George acts very suspicious. However, if you enter the dining room when he's there, you will witness him eating an entire plate of red herrings. [[spoiler:Needless to say, he's innocent of the murder.]]