Masquerade
Name: Masquerade
Programmer(s): Dale Johnson
Publisher: Phoenix
Year: 1983
Description:
Solution:http://www.textfiles.com/apple/WALKTHROUGHS/masquerade
Masquerade is one of those old-school detective games that will absolutely wreck your brain if you're not careful. You play as a detective trying to catch this crime boss named Mr. Topp, and honestly, it's way harder than it sounds.
The game starts when you follow some criminal to a hotel and knock him out. From there, you have to figure out how to use the stuff you find on him to solve your case. The graphics are pretty decent for 1983, especially since they got Rick Incrocci to do the art (the same guy who did Lucifer's Realm). The pictures actually help you understand what's going on in each location.
But here's the thing that makes this game super frustrating: there's only ONE correct way to win. You can use items in different ways, but if you mess up early on, you're basically screwed and might not even know it until way later. The game keeps going even when you've already lost, which is just mean.
Phoenix Software rated this as a "Class 5" adventure, which basically means it's for experts only. They weren't kidding around. This is probably one of the most difficult adventure games ever made for the Apple II. The puzzles are really tough, and the text parser (the thing that understands what you type) can be pretty picky about which words it accepts.
If you like really challenging detective stories and don't mind getting stuck for hours, Masquerade might be worth checking out. Just don't expect to beat it without looking up a walkthrough at some point.