1989 · Cliff Johnson · Puzzle · Quiz

3 in Three

In this metapuzzle game, created by puzzle designer Cliff Johnson, the player is the letter 3, which, during a power surge, has been zapped from a spreadsheet report into the bowels of the computer. 3 needs to repair the system, avoiding a virus detector and outwitting the taunting pi symbol, and ultimately get back home.

Released: 1989
Platforms: macOS
Genres: Puzzle Quiz
Developers: Cliff Johnson
Publishers: Cinemaware
Modes: Single-player
Country: United States

About

3 in Three is a 1989 metapuzzle video game designed by Cliff Johnson and published by Cinemaware and Inline Design.

While bearing some similarities to his previous game, The Fool's Errand, 3 in Three took place inside a computer. The game is about a number 3, lost in the innards of the computer by a power surge. The 3 attempts to repair the damage caused by the power surge and make her way back to the spreadsheet, providing the background story for the game.

›Story

One day in Corporate America, a freak power surge zaps the number 3 off her cozy spreadsheet home and into the heart of the computer where numbers don’t count and the letters spell disaster.

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game consists of many separate sections, each of which contains one puzzle. However, unlike Fool's Errand, each section may need to be visited multiple times, as it may carry along part of the story at times when it does not contain a puzzle. Each puzzle (upon completion) places one letter in the Letter Legislature. When the entire legislature is in place, a logic puzzle (see below) is used to properly order them, at which point the endgame begins; the hints found in previous puzzles are used to complete the meta-puzzle and finish the game.

Unlike The Fool's Errand, the puzzles in 3 in Three are rarely traditional puzzles like cryptograms or word searches; instead, the puzzles tend to take advantage of the possibilities of computer games. Some of the prominent puzzle types include:

Reception

3 in Three was reviewed positively in Macworld, which described it as "an ultramodern Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" with an "obsessively good set" of puzzles. Macworld noted occasional issues with puzzles that were too easy or frustrating, but overall praised the game as mostly "creative, fun, entertaining, and best of all, challenging." Macworld named 3 in Three as runner-up to Tesserae in the Best Brain Game category of its 1991 Macintosh Game Hall of Fame.

MacUser awarded 3 in Three five out of five mice, claiming that Cliff Johnson had "achieved a new level of weirdness" with the game's variety of puzzles. MacUser called the game's plot "a bit Tron-esque", with abundant humor and infuriating puzzles. The review praised the game's graphics, sound, animation, and stability. MacUser named 3 in Three best game in its 1991 Editors' Choice Awards, ahead of Spaceship Warlock and Spectre.