Deadline is the first in a series of all-text mystery adventure games from the Zork bunch. Totally engrossed, you are seemingly pulled directly through the CRT and right into the mansion with the suspects. You, as the Detective, are called upon to investigate the apparent suicide of a wealthy and philanthropic industrialist. There are no monsters, treasures, mazes, wizards, or magicians; just seven characters in a house having some forty-eight mappable locations. Sounds simple? Guess again! There are several tricky puzzles, a very involved plot, an abundance of well-written text, characters moving independently of one another (and of you), a second suicide / homicide of one of the characters (under certain conditions) and the possibility of twenty-five different endings, including your own early demise.

Like any good mystery, Deadline unravels slowly, and is complete with false leads and subplots. You have twelve hours to establish your case and resolve the conflicting issues. Don't try to do it all in the first hour; events transpire at specific times which will alter your suspicions or influence your investigation. Because of these events, a complete solution is not possible until early in the afternoon, even if you know exactly what needs to be done. Physical evidence, also time dependent, is hard to come by, despite a multitude of objects.

Regardless of which of four principal suspects you attempt to convict, it is necessary to prove the motive, opportunity, and means. When you believe you have enough proof, you may arrest your suspect(s). A summary letter advises you of the result, ranging from dismissal by the Grand jury, to conviction by the Trial Jury. Some endings come with shocking suddenness, while others are quite a surprise or contain a strange twist or clue for your next attempt. While some are simply variations of others, there is one "complete" solution, distinguished by a three-screen analysis of the crime by the author.

The game suggests the quality, feel, and humor of its Zork predecessors, from which Deadline's flexible, multiple command parser has been adapted. The vocabulary and synonymous word recognitions are excellent, although there are a few "missing" words which a good detective would use; for example, Who, Why, When, and Where. Then, too, there is a fast sequence of events near one ending that is illogical. Lastly, there is an obscure but fatal bug-don't shake a bottle known to be empty unless you have made use of the Save / Restore game feature.

The response time of the game is excellent, and the disk-interactive nature of the game is hardly noticed. Deadline will play on a 32K system, run faster on a 48K system, and really zip on a 64K configuration. While the puzzle quality and difficulty level are moderate, the puzzles are quite involved and interactive, requiring more deductive logic than is usually called for in adventures. After seeing the many screens of possible responses and descriptions, perhaps the biggest single puzzle is, how did Infocom manage to get all that text onto one disk?