Well met traveller! Come closer to the fire and warm your frozen bones a little before you continue the journey through those icy planes. While we are waiting for the clouds to clear up, let me tell you a story about a golden age… a golden age of role playing.
You know there was this game called Dungeons&Dragons, which was to many the epitome of pen&paper role playing. Don’t worry if it means nothing to you, the only thing you actually need to know right now is that it is a very nerdy yet strangely compelling way to waste a couple of hours with some friends while pretending, that is imagining, to crawl around the eponymous structures in search of the hoard of said lizards.
The universe of good computer game ideas may be large, but it is nowhere infinite. Ingenious ideas don't grow on trees, but they are rather rare like pearls. So it is not surprising that programmers – and those who wish to become one – often fall back to trusted and tried concepts instead. When one's own creativity is added to it, the original hopefully turns into an original clone. In this gaming universe, one well known means of transport is Space Taxi, which inspired a number of clones.
Los Angeles, February 1938. Freeman Linder has received what he believes to be death threats from a man called Stiles whom Mrs Linder had had an affair with before her suicide. Linder asks the police for their protection and he gets it. A detective (the player) is assigned to be present at the Linders' home on the evening Stiles' telegram to Linder talks about.
Even with a policeman sitting in the same room as him, Linder is shot in his office. A shadowy figure, whom Linder had apparantely identified as Stiles a split-second before his death, had stood in front of the window. As frustrating as losing the person you were supposed to watch after is, the case seems to be obvious. Or is there more to it?