Lost New York
From IFWiki
 Science Fiction  City  Finalist - Best Game, Best NPCs, Best Puzzles, Best Setting, Best Story, Best Writing |
| Lost New York | |
|---|---|
| |
| Author(s) | Neil deMause |
| Publisher(s) | n/a |
| Release date(s) | 1996 |
| Authoring system | TADS 2 |
| Platform(s) | TADS 2 |
| Language(s) | English |
| License(s) | Freeware (or Shareware if you want to unlock the hints) |
| Multimedia | |
| Color effects | none |
| Graphics | none |
| Sound/Music | none |
| Ratings | |
| Cruelty scale | Cruel |
How It Begins
It begins with two short quotes, one by former NYC mayor Philip Hone, and one by Luc Sante.
You are a visitor to New York City with some time to kill, so you decided to visit the Statue of Liberty. You are wearing a wristwatch and a knapsack, the latter of which has your credit card and four subway tokens. Unfortunately, heavy fog has both blocked the view from the statue and interrupted the ferry service to and from Liberty Island. You're stuck here until you can find another way off.
Notable Features
- Time travel and significant amounts of historical content. The player, if successful, will travel to several eras of New York City.
- In-game hints are locked. Players must register their copy of the game in order to receive a file that explains how to access the hints.
- When you end the game, your "rank" is the name of New York City's mayors, accompanied by a paragraph about what that mayor was noted for.
- Difficult puzzle game. It is easy to strand or destroy needed items and make the game unwinnable.
- Several dispenser-type items which create new identical objects.
Trivia and Comments
- On August 12, 1996, the author announced a mini-contest which was called the LOST NEW YORK Easter Egg Hunt. It consisted of a list of ten responses from the game (see Spoilers below) that players could evoke from the game using particular commands. Players were to try to be the first to discover all ten of these commands as they could before January 1st, 1997. The prize was the book You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890s to World War II by Jeff Kisseloff. (Q: Who won this contest?)
- Early discussion of the game often mistakenly called it Lost In New York. Eventually, a much different and much shorter game with that name was written: Lost In New York (Mikko Vuorinen; 2000; Alan).
- A joke game, Lost Anaheim Hills, or, Pick Up Anaheim Hills and Die (Adam Cadre; Z-code), was likely inspired by both Lost New York and Pick Up The Phone Booth And Die (Rob Noyes; 1996; Z-code).
Versions
Early versions
- Lost New York (Neil deMause; 1996; TADS 2).
- One version was version 1.02.
- Version 1.1 was released on August 12, 1996.
- XYZZY Awards 1996: Finalist for Best Game, Best NPCs, Best Puzzles, Best Setting, Best Story, Best Writing.
Version 1.4 (latest)
- Lost New York (Neil deMause; 1997; TADS 2).
- Download lostny14.gam from the IF Archive - TADS story file.
- Download lostny14.sit from the IF Archive - Macintosh version.
- Download lostny14.zip from the IF Archive - MS-DOS bundled version.
Feelies from feelies.org were once available for this game, but this particular package has been discontinued. The items in this package were:
- A guide to the history of New York.
- A genuine New York subway token.
- A postcard of old New York.
- A software key to unlock the in-game hints. This last item was a file sent by e-mail.
Links
General info
- Lost New York (archived) - at Baf's Guide.
- Lost New York (archive) at Feelies.org.
Reviews
- Lost New York - at SPAG - Reviews by J. D. Berry and Adam Cadre.
- Review - "Puzzles vs. History" by Adam Cadre at IF-Review, October 2001.
- Review (archive) by Rob Daviau for XYZZYnews issue 10.
- Review by David Ledgard.
Spoilers
- Download lostny.sol from the IF Archive - Solution by Russ Bryan. Note that this is not a step-by-step list of commands, but a description of how one figures things out.
- Download lostny.egg from the IF Archive - List of Easter eggs for LNY Easter Egg Hunt (see Trivia above).