For other uses, see suspension.

Suspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare is an interactive fiction computer game written by Michael Berlyn and published by Infocom in 1983. It belongs to the science fiction genre, and is considered by many fans to be one of Infocom's better non-Zork-related titles. Like most Infocom titles, it was ported to most popular personal computers of the day, such as the Apple II, PC, Atari ST and Commodore 64. It was Infocom's sixth game.

Background

The player's character has been embedded within a facility that controls vital systems, such as moving public transportation belts and weather control, for an Earth-settled planet called Contra. During this five-hundred-year tenure, the player would normally be kept in stasis while his sleeping mind serves as the Central Mentality for the largely self-maintaining systems. As the game opens, however, he is awakened by severe error messages; something is going catastrophically wrong. The facility has suffered catastrophic damage from an earthquake, and the Filtering Computers are shutting down or becoming dangerously unstable. The inhabitants of the city assume that the Central Mentality has gone insane and is purposely harming the city, as a previous CM had infamously done. The player's task is to repair the damage and restore the systems to normal states before a crew arrives at the facility to "disconnect" his mind, effectively killing him, to be replaced with a clone.

Gameplay

• Iris - The only robot with visual sensors, Iris can provide visual descriptions of locations and objects. As the game begins, however, Iris has suffered a burnt-out microchip and cannot see. Iris is confined to the area surrounding the Central Chamber.
• Whiz - The most technical robot, Whiz is used mainly for interfacing with a central library computer for historical and technical information.
• Waldo - The most capable physical manipulator, with several limbs for grasping and holding objects. Waldo perceives the world using sonar. (The term "Waldo" was originally coined by Robert A. Heinlein to describe teleoperated robots.)
• Auda - Auda is equipped with sensitive audio receptors and can provide information on sounds and vibrations.
• Poet - A diagnostic robot, Poet can sense the flow of electricity; he tends to communicate in somewhat cryptic language.
• Sensa - Sensa is specialized for the detection of magnetic and photon emissions.

So, for example, Auda will describe a room primarily in terms of the sounds being generated there, Poet will describe it in terms of diagnostics of the equipment there (and phrase it in amusingly metaphorical language), and Iris will provide a visual description. All six of the robots can be given orders in conjunction, and some of the challenges the player faces require that several of the robots work together to solve them.