Supernova is an Interactive Fiction written by Scott Miller and Terry Nagy, before the founding of and publication under Apogee Software.
The main character, a random miner on the planet Barre-An, is experiencing the dwindling metal output and starts to look for a new fortune. After overhearing a possible lead, he flies his spacecraft to a remote planet and searches the pyramid for a valuable crystal, claimed to be worshipped as a god. Shortly thereafter, he stumbles upon another more advanced civilization that seemingly abandoned their installations, and who are aware of their own solar system about to be destroyed.
Supernova provides examples of:
- Acid Pool: In addition to the lethal acidic stream in the wilderness, there's two acid pits in the pyramid. The first is hazardous if the crystal isn't properly retrieved, and the second is a retracting floor.
- Apocalypse How: Stellar physical destruction, which the civilization's scientists thinks will happen at any moment.
- Deadly Gas: The "Holey Hall", which is described in-game as a long featureless hall, releases gas after you taken the item in the secret room. These gas sprays come from unseen slots.
- Descending Ceiling: A third in a sequence of escape traps, and it's stopped by a single rod.
- Easter Egg: If you dig the ground outside the pyramid, you fall into a pit containing skeletons of the authors. The clue for the room implies it's a forever trap, but touching the bone returns you. Note that there's also another forever trap in the pyramid itself, which has no escape, and has no clue.
- Guide Dang It!: The information not presented to the user is only obtained by using unique commands specific to the situation that requires it. Additionally, there's no explicit prompt to examine a non-descript wall, nor a specific reason to examine something with an additional adverb when normally examining something gives a proper response.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Before the game starts, the player types their name. They have to retype it when they start using their ship to disable the defense system.
- Hint System: You can get a room-specific hint by typing "clue". Each hint costs 25 points of score, bypassed by saving and reloading, and is not updated based on context.
- Mineral MacGuffin: There's a clear crystal that's valuable and that player wants to sell for profit. However, the player is unable leave on his own ship with no explanation given. Instead, it's used as a compatible timing crystal used in the central reactor.
- Over 100% Completion: Bug. The player can get 1005 out of 1000 points, but the game doesn't have a rank for it. Specifically, "Turn device on" and "turn on device" both award 5 points for the same effect, but are tracked under different score flags.
- Point of No Return: Travelling to the jungle planet is the first, followed by the cyan button in the transporter booth, then the proper entry into the final ship. The second point is also egregious, considering that the miner was only there to grab the treasure rather than solve what's going on with the installations - as far as he's concerned, it would have only been a sidequest.
- Quicksand Sucks: There's a quicksand pit on the jungle planet in one of the forks, escaped by grabbing a vine.
- Sdrawkcab Speech:
- The display screens in the late game have all words (not sentences) written backwards. Also, when you first meet the scientist, his words are also backwards before he adjust his wristband.
- This is also written into some of the nouns. Drazil (small creature) and Erusaert (room name) are both backwards spellings.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: The first encountered droid doesn't attack if you wear a security uniform. When you reach a security scanner, you're then recognized as an intruder even though you're sent there by the scientist and trying to fix the reactor.
- The Maze: The mirror maze has walls that randomly appear and disappear, requiring multiple command entries to pass. It is also homogeneous (each room is described identically), and tricky because an exact sequence of moves are needed (which don't seem to match with a natural layout).
- Timed Mission: Once you enter the final area, you have about 90 turns. This timer is reset to 40 turns once you speak with the scientist, and there's also a point where you get injured leaving only 15 turns to change the crystal.
- Translator Microbes: The scientist's wristband serves as a translation device, which works once he adjusts it.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: There's a few dead-ends, with limited indication that they're specifically dangerous. There's also guesswork with the transporter buttons, picking Cyan too early means you lack an item needed to progress.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: Saving the game costs a turn. If done so one turn before disaster, the player dies in the current session, and upon reloading.
- Unwinnable by Design: Cruel on Zarf's Cruelty Scale. You can miss a single-time important clue at the beginning (although it doesn't change on future playthroughs). It's also easy to skip a key item in the communications room (specifically the security suit), and thus be unable to safely navigate the planet-ship. Also, the game includes what amounts to a time-delay "inorganic vaporizer ray" - entering the final area requires you to immediately drop everything to avoid having the items destroyed.
- Wizard Needs Food Badly: The water (130 turns), food (175 turns), and sleepyness (230 turns) timers. The sleepy one doesn't give too much warning of the player is too far away from their ship, and is the only one that can't be handled early, requiring a rest before attempting a new location. There is also a limited supply of food, creating a maximum turn limit for the player.
- You Can't Get Ye Flask: Two required commands require adverbs that should otherwise be unnecessary. First is "Listen carefully", requires to hear the coordinates. Second is "examine robot carefully", in order to learn that there's a panel to open. This adverb also has a few in-parser synonyms, allowing the player to get the same result by doing those two actions gently, softly, calmly, quietly, lightly or easily; the latter also accepts any adverb group such as slowly, powerfully, or quickly.
