Klaustrophobia

A winner in the 1994 AGT programming contest, the three-part epic Klaustrophobia chronicles your exploits as you leave on a two-week vacation from ICON Inc., your place of employment. Although strongly influenced by Infocom's Bureaucracy both in its humor as well as its events and puzzles, Klaustrophobia remains a very original, very challenging, and at times extraordinarily frustrating adventure. This is also one enormous game. It's so large, in fact, that it's been divided into three separate segments, apparently due to restrictions in AGT. When you reach the end of one section you can save your status and go on to the next portion, but you can't start from Parts 2 or 3 until you've solved the sections prior to them. The writing is also extremely well-done, with references to Bureaucracy, Hitchhiker's Guide, and the novels of Douglas Adam. This game is hard with a capital H. The difficulty stems equally from the puzzles - most of which are very good - and the AGT parser's limitations. Intelligent, hilarious, and occasionally so true-to-life that it's scary, Klaustrophobia deserves a place in every I-F hobbyist's library.