Ludography
Trinity cover

1986 · Infocom · Adventure · Strategy

Trinity

Trinity is an interactive fiction computer game written by Brian Moriarty and published in 1986 by Infocom.

Released
9 May 1986
Platforms
AmigaApple IIAtari STAtari ST/STECommodore 128Commodore C64/128/MAXMS-DOSmacOS
Genres
AdventureStrategyWorld War II
Developers
Infocom
Publishers
Infocom
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Text
Themes
Science fictionThriller
Engine
Z-machine
Country
United States

About

Trinity is an interactive fiction video game written by Brian Moriarty and published in 1986 by Infocom. It is widely regarded as one of the company's best works.

The plot blends historical and fantastic elements as part of a prose poem regarding the destructive power of the atomic bomb and the futile nature of war in the atomic age. The name refers to the Trinity test, the first nuclear explosion, which took place in July 1945. It is Infocom's twentieth game and the last game released by the company when it was solvent.

›Story

You're neither an adventurer nor a professional thrill-seeker. You're simply an American tourist in London, enjoying a relaxing stroll through the famous Kensington Gardens. When World War III starts and the city is vaporized moments after the story begins, you have no hope of survival.

Unless you enter another time, another place, another dimension.

Escaping the destruction of London is not the end of your problems, but rather the beginning of new, more bizarre riddles. You'll find yourself in an exotic world teeming with giant fly traps, strange creatures, and other inconveniences. Time and space will behave with their own intricate and mischievous logic. You'll visit fantastic places and acquire curious objects as you seek to discover the logic behind your newfound universe.

And if you can figure out the patter of events, you'll wind up in the New Mexico desert, minutes before the culmination of the greatest scientific experiment of all time: the world's first atomic explosion, code-named Trinity.

Keywords

  • time travel
  • interactive fiction
  • turn-based
  • edutainment
  • anthropomorphism
  • text adventure
  • nuclear war
  • scummvm compatible

Media

Trinity screenshot 1

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Story

As the game begins, the player's character is spending a final day of a London vacation in the Kensington Gardens. The evening flight back to the United States is looking increasingly unlikely for a number of unusual reasons. Hordes of nannies are blocking all exits from the Gardens, and the grass actively resists efforts to be walked upon. Worst of all, a gleam on the horizon soon heralds the unwelcome arrival of a Soviet nuclear missile.

Time begins to slow as the missile approaches, and with some ingenuity the player's character finds an incongruous door hovering in mid-air. There's no telling where it may lead, but it cannot possibly be worse than the alternative of being at ground zero of a nuclear detonation...

Development

Brian Moriarty created Trinity's story in 1983. After joining Infocom in 1984 he proposed it to the company, but management believed that it was too large for the z-machine at the time. After completing Wishbringer Moriarty began working on Trinity in May 1985, researching the history of nuclear weapons and visiting the Trinity site and Los Alamos, New Mexico. He attempted to make the game accurately depict the geography of New Mexico and Kensington Gardens.

Moriarty completed the game in June 1986, and later stated that "writing it wasn't a pleasant experience, I can tell you that. It's not easy to sit down and write that stuff ... It was hard to live with that game for a year". He added, however, that "Trinity is not a funeral, and [don't] be afraid of it.

Reception

In 1996, Next Generation listed Trinity at number 100 in their "Top 100 Games of All Time", commenting that "Trinity takes the same types of serious themes of A Mind Forever Voyaging, and adds to them a heavy dose of mythology and fantasy. ... this is not only one of the most socially and politically powerful game experiences ever created, but also a landscape upon which puzzles of trademark Infocom quality can appear." Later the same year, Computer Gaming World listed Trinity at #120 among their top 150 best games of all time. The editors called it "a tense, ethical tightrope walk through the Cold War".

Legacy

Trinity was included as one of the titles in the 2010 book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.

Video game designer and programmer Jonathan Blow mentioned Trinity as one of his formative influences

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Commodore C64/128/MAX9 May 1986North America
MS-DOS9 May 1986North America
Atari ST/STE9 May 1986North America
Amiga9 May 1986North America
macOS9 May 1986North America
Apple II31 December 1986North America

Editions and related releases

Included in
The Lost Treasures of Infocom IIThe Adventure Collection

Games like this

Collections4 collections

Platform libraries

Genres

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.