Something Stupid

You pull the lever down -- the fatal connection is made. The red lights begin to flash with a strobe-like rapidity, a screaming siren starts up and a great rumbling goes through the ship. From all around you a deep machine voice booms out:

REACTOR CORE NOW UNSHIELDED

TERMINAL MALFUNCTION IN T MINUS TWO MINUTES

DESTRUCTION OF VANDERVECKEN WILL FOLLOW IN T MINUS SIX MINUTES

Realizing that you've really done it this time, you run from the room, throwing yourself through the hatchway into the tunnel beyond. Will you take the left tunnel (turn to 21) or the right tunnel (turn to 281)?

* * *

Space Assassin is not one of the most highly regarded Fighting Fantasy books, even for one of the science-fiction titles in the range, but I've always had a soft spot for its sense of humour and flairs of creativity. I am also really drawn to game overs in interactive fiction which allow the player character to do something really stupid, and Space Assassin devotes a not insignificant number of sections to letting the player character enter a maintenance hatch deep in the bowels of the Vandervecken marked "WARNING -- EXTREME DANGER -- ENTER ONLY WITH AUTHORITY" and muck about with a control panel until they accidentally unshield the reactor core of the spaceship's engines (red lights pulsing and menacing tones sounding as you do so, basically making it as clear as possible without actually saying so that this is an unbelievably ill-advised course of action). The ship's reaction when the hero first starts messing with the controls is so ominous that they pause in fear for several minutes, and they're still given the option to carry on!

Unsurprisingly, this action renders the book unwinnable, and the remaining choices in this branch only determine if you manage to get off the ship before it's blown to kingdom come. It's a surprisingly tense and dramatic sequence, which in my view author Andrew Chapman doesn't get nearly enough credit for (perhaps because he seems to have spent more time on this sequence than the successful ending to the book!)

The absolute capper, though, is right at the end of the path where you reach an escape pod with one minute to spare:

You find yourself in a circular room. In the opposite wall is an airlock door on which is written ESCAPE POD in bold yellow letters. Will you attempt to get through to the pod (turn to 116) or search the room (turn to 154)?

Like I said, I've just got a fondness for moments where the game lets you do something incredibly stupid, and allowing you to stop and search the room with the large cheery 'ESCAPE POD' sign written on the only exit, with less than sixty seconds to live in hand, is the only thing which tops blowing up the spaceship in the first place.

* * *

Unfortunately, you have wasted just a bit too much time. As sirens scream, the machine voice finishes the count-down. The Vandervecken is destroyed in a mighty blast and, as a consequence, you are killed.