InvisiClues(tm) Introduction

If you are not familiar with Infocom's InvisiClues, you'll be wondering what is meant here by "Invisi". The original InvisiClue hints came in a booklet where the text of the answers was "invisible" (so readers wouldn't have the game spoiled by accidentally reading the answers). Using an InvisiClue pen, the answers were made visible. This effect has been replicated as closely as possible in this HTML version by making the color of the hint text the same as the color of the page background (white). This effectively hides the text from wandering eyes, and it allows the hints to be viewed only when intended. To view the answers, the reader must merely "develop" them by selecting (that is, dragging the mouse over) the invisible text. It should then be readable against the selection text background. (If this doesn't work, you might try using a different browser or changing your system's selection text colors.)

The InvisiClues provide everything you need to crack the toughest puzzles Infocom has to offer. The hints are amusingly and cunningly written to subtly provide solutions without giving answers away. Furthermore, Infocom didn't want the questions themselves to give too much away. If every InvisiClue question were pertinent to the game, the questions themselves would give far too much away. To counteract this, some topics contain random nonsense questions (i.e. questions that have nothing to do with the game). Therefore, do not use the presence or absence of a question on a certain topic as an indication of what is important, and don't assume that long answers indicate important questions.

Unlike the plain-text versions of the InvisiClues, the hypertext versions contained in these pages are an attempt to "protect" readers from accidentally reading answers. Readers can jump to appropriate topics from the table of contents. At the top of each section is a list of the questions for that topic. Each of these is a link to the answers. Each of the answers has a horizontal bar separating them.

Finally, a word of warning. The answers to all of the major problems of each of the games can be found in the InvisiClues. However, if you want to solve the problems yourself and do not want the game "ruined" then do not read the hints.

The InvisiClues contained in these homepages were derived from the text versions by Paul David Doherty, Peter Doherty, Graeme Cree, Thomas Schaefer, and Judy Lynch. Additional hints come from The Lost Treasures of Infocom I hintbook and online hints from those games that have them.

Pete Scheyen then took these texts and "webbified" them into an HTML format; a task for which I am (and other IFers are) very grateful. Two versions exist on his Infocom homepage. The original version which he created had each set of Invisiclues contained within a single HTML page. The problem with this version was that it was still relatively easy to see answers to other questions.

A second version was created. The second version divided up the questions and answers on separate HTML pages. Each new answer has a corresponding page so that the reader never got more information than desired. Many, many thanks should go to Pete Scheyen for this effort. This second version is highly recommended over these "invisified" pages because it is so much easier to use.

So... if the second version is so great, why do these pages exist? I wanted a set of Invisiclues which could be downloaded and carried with me on any computer so that I could use them without having to visit the Invisiclues website. I love the second version of Invisiclues on Pete Scheyen's site, but alas, it is far too large to be conveniently downloaded in its entirety. The original version is just about the right size, but it has the nasty problem of visible answers.

This "invisified" version is taken from Pete Scheyen's first version of Invisiclues. (Even this page is plagiarized, for the most part.) I just created a perl script to insert the font color tags, and then I used an HTML formatter to make the HTML code readable again.

As Pete Scheyen wrote...
Some of the InvisiClue pages may contain typos or formatting errors. This is due to the fact that I did not "webbify" the pages by hand and I didn't proofread the pages for the games that I have completed (after all, I don't want to have any game spoiled either).

I didn't "invisify" the pages by hand either (for the same reason). There still may be errors in these documents. If you find a significant error you can email me at james@bernsen.us .