DOS

Bureaucracy

Description

(From the Infocom Home Page)

Once upon a time, a man moved from one apartment in London to another. He dutifully notified everyone of his new address, including his bank; he went to the bank and filled out a change of address form himself. The man was very happy in his new apartment.

Then, one day, the man tried to use his credit card but couldn't. He discovered that his bank had invalidated his credit card. Apparently, the bank had sent a new card to his old address.

For weeks, this man tried to get the bank to acknowledge his change of address form. He talked to many blank officials, and filled out new forms, and tried to get a new credit card issued, but nothing worked. The man had no credit, and the bank behaved like, well, a bank.

It's a sad story, one that gets replayed every day for millions of people worldwide. Of course, sometimes it's not a bank at fault: sometimes it's the postal service, or an insurance company, or the telephone company, or an airline, or the Government. But all of us, at one time or another, feel persecuted by a bureaucracy.

You begin in your new house. As per the letter in your package, you will fly to Paris just as soon as you get some money to take you to the airport. That money should be in today's mail, so you should be off soon... unless, of course, there's been some problem with the mail.

Oh by the way: The man in our story about the bank was Douglas Adams, the principal author of this game. The bank did finally send him a letter, apologizing for the inconvenience - but they sent it to his old address.

Alternate Titles

• "Bureaucracy - A Paranoid Fantasy" -- Tag-lined title

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User Reviews

Hilarious and difficult with a twisted logic of its own	Ingold (125)
An interesting and funny game concept is very frustrating in practice due to the difficulty of the puzzles and the lack of direction in the game	Droog (468)	unrated
Awesome, laugh-out-loud, text game	Terrence Bosky (5239)
Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?	Mirrorshades2k (278)

The Press Says

Happy Computer	Jul, 1987	87 out of 100	87
The Good Old Days	Jun 23, 2000	5 out of 6	83
Just Games Retro	May 10, 2008	80 out of 100	80
SPAG	Apr 19, 1995	7.1 out of 10	71

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Trivia

Unlike the other Infocom grey-box releases, which featured positive comments from publications and players on the inside box flap, Bureaucracy (in the spirit of the game's content) reprints some of the complaints Infocom received. (See the covers section. --Editor)