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Trinity (computer game)
Encyclopedia
Trinity is an interactive fiction
computer 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.
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 can't possibly be worse than the alternative of being at ground zero of a nuclear detonation...
The doorway leads to a strange land, where impossible objects exist. Space and time don't seem to behave in the familiar ways here. Exploring this new environment, the player finds several other mysterious doors, each of which leads to another chapter in the history of nuclear weaponry. After visiting test sites (including ones in Siberia
, Nevada
, and the Eniwetok Atoll
) and Nagasaki just before each device is detonated, the player has one scenario left to deal with. The final door leads to the New Mexico
desert on July 16, 1945, mere minutes before the test-firing that will change the course of history. But something is wrong at the "Trinity" site, and without the player's intervention things will go horribly awry.
Criss-cross time and space in this journey to the dawn of the atomic age.
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
computer game written by Brian Moriarty
Brian Moriarty
Brian Moriarty is an American video game developer who authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction titles, Wishbringer , Trinity and Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor ....
and published in 1986 by Infocom
Infocom
Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
. 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
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
in the atomic age. The name refers to the Trinity test
Trinity test
Trinity was the code name of the first test of a nuclear weapon. This test was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, at the new White Sands Proving Ground, which incorporated the Alamogordo Bombing...
, 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.
Plot
As the game begins, the player's character is spending a final day of a LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
vacation in the Kensington Gardens
Kensington Gardens
Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, is one of the Royal Parks of London, lying immediately to the west of Hyde Park. It is shared between the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The park covers an area of 111 hectares .The open spaces...
. The evening flight back to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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 can't possibly be worse than the alternative of being at ground zero of a nuclear detonation...
The doorway leads to a strange land, where impossible objects exist. Space and time don't seem to behave in the familiar ways here. Exploring this new environment, the player finds several other mysterious doors, each of which leads to another chapter in the history of nuclear weaponry. After visiting test sites (including ones in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, and the Eniwetok Atoll
Enewetak
Enewetak Atoll is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its land area totals less than , surrounding a deep central lagoon, in circumference...
) and Nagasaki just before each device is detonated, the player has one scenario left to deal with. The final door leads to the New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
desert on July 16, 1945, mere minutes before the test-firing that will change the course of history. But something is wrong at the "Trinity" site, and without the player's intervention things will go horribly awry.
Feelies
The packaging for Trinity contained several items, called feelies, related to the plot of the game. These feelies included:- A map of the Trinity site
- A cardboard sundial marked with odd symbols
- The Illustrated Story of the Atom Bomb, an "educational" comic bookComic bookA comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
laden with ironic statements regarding the feelings of patriotismPatriotismPatriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
, idealismIdealismIn philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
, and jingoismJingoismJingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests...
surrounding the production of atomic weaponry - Instructions on how to fold an origamiOrigamiis the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, which started in the 17th century AD at the latest and was popularized outside Japan in the mid-1900s. It has since then evolved into a modern art form...
craneCrane (bird)Cranes are a family, Gruidae, of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the order Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back...
(a reference to Sadako SasakiSadako Sasakiwas a Japanese girl who was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, near her home by Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan. Sadako is remembered through the story of attempting to fold a thousand origami cranes before her death, a wish which was memorialized in popular...
)
Taglines
The basic power of the universe has been unleashed. This is an allusion to U.S. President Harry S Truman's press release announcing the destruction of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945: "It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East."Criss-cross time and space in this journey to the dawn of the atomic age.