Suspended is an excellent adventure game and possibly one of the most advanced games to play. It is a completely text-oriented game with no pictures or sounds. Everything is done in the imagination of the player, with a large amount of detail supplied by the game.
Let me explain the story of the game. You are put into suspended animation in the world of Contra. If an emergency occurs and the automatic controls are not working, then you are to be awakened. Unfortunately, an earthquake has occurred, damaging the cables in the primary and secondary control systems. You, meanwhile, find yourself underground in a complex of equipment and machinery.
Since it is dangerous to remove you from your cryogenic chamber, you will have six robots, each representing different skills, abilities and senses, to act for you. Their names are Auda, Iris, Poet, Sensa, Waldo and Whiz.
Auda represents the sense of hearing and can hear if problems develop. Iris is the sense of SIGHT, a most useful attribute. Poet knows about electronics and can diagnose electrical flows. Since he is a poet, his answers may not make much sense. Sensa perceives things magnetic and electronic. Waldo has the sense of touch and a great deal of dexterity, so he is the main worker robot. Finally, Whiz commands the informational computer and can do errands.
The object of the game is to fix all of the equipment. In order to do this, you have to assign the correct robot to the correct job. To learn all the details and to get it right is what makes this game a lot of fun.
Besides the normal difficulties of Suspended, there are other details used to make the game more realistic and enjoyable. First, the game is played in real time. There are people on the surface of Contra that are being killed because of the problems. The longer you take to solve them, the more people killed and the lower your score. Second, the game changes as you play. There are some events that occur during play. The first event is an earthquake at cycle 15 which causes an acid spill. The acid will kill any robot that passes through until the acid is shut off. At cycle 75, there is another earthquake which destroys the hydrophonics and transit equipment on the surface. These have to be repaired quickly because of starvation that occurs. Finally, at cycle 100, the surface humans break into the underground complex to find out why you have not repaired everything.
To command your robot, use complete sentences, such as Poet, go to the weather control, or Whiz, take container and grasper. Aside from the complexity of the commands possible, Suspended has the touch that makes it an excellent game.
You can SAVE the game at any time and RESTORE it after you have destroyed too many robots. You can use the LOOK AROUND command to find out information and if you have a printer, you can use the SCRIPT command to get a written transcript.
The instruction manual is complete and explains the background needed to start the game. There is a good quality board supplied for the Underground complex, and plastic stick-on-tokens representing the robots are also supplied.
This is an excellent game. It is imaginative and very well thought out. It is a puzzle worthy of the many hours which are needed to solve the game. Infocom has made a worthy successor to the Zork series.
Thanks to André St-Aubin for transcribing and donating this article.