The Witness — twelve hours, one house, one storm Runs here
1983 · Infocom · System 6 · Mini vMac (Mac Plus) · 512×342 black and white
Guide updated September 2026
February 1938, somewhere near Los Angeles, raining. You are a detective from the Homicide Department and you have been called to a house by a man who thinks someone is going to kill him. He is right, and it happens while you are there.
The Witness is the second of Infocom's mysteries, after Deadline, and it is the tighter one. Fewer rooms, fewer suspects, a shorter clock — and a much better-written opening. Stu Galley wrote the prose in flat Chandler cadence and it holds up considerably better than most attempts at that voice.
Boots straight into the game. You arrive at the driveway entrance at 8:00 pm; the murder has not happened yet.
Controls
| Type + Return | Everything. This is a parser game. |
| ASK <person> ABOUT <thing> | The interrogation verb |
| SHOW <thing> TO <person> | Confront someone with evidence |
| ANALYZE <thing> | Sergeant Duffy will take it to the lab |
| SAVE / RESTORE | Save inside the emulated Mac |
Activision owns Infocom's catalogue and still exists. The Witness has not been sold since Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces went out of print in the late 1990s and is part of no current product.
Archives
- Internet Archive — the Macintosh floppy this copy was made from.
How it works & what to expect
| Machine | Macintosh Plus, 512×342, black and white |
|---|---|
| System | The floppy's own — this disk carries the System it shipped with |
| Emulator | Mini vMac, compiled to WebAssembly |
| Release | 22 / interpreter C |
| Saves | SAVE writes inside the emulated Mac, in your browser |
The Witness shipped with a National Detective Gazette, a matchbook, a telegram and a Physician's report. Those are not on the disk. Unlike Deadline, where the folder carried information you genuinely need, The Witness is close to self-contained — the feelies set the mood more than they carry clues.
Like all of Infocom's mysteries the clock runs on your commands. Standing still costs you nothing; typing does.
Why it is remembered
It is the best-written of the three mysteries. Deadline is the more ambitious simulation and Suspect has the better hook, but The Witness has the prose. The opening paragraphs — the rain, the search light, the Colt in your holster — are quoted more than anything else Infocom published outside Zork.
It is short on purpose. One house, one evening, a handful of people. After Deadline's sprawl, Infocom made a mystery you could actually hold in your head, and it is the one most often recommended to someone trying the genre for the first time.
The murder happens in front of you. You are not reconstructing a crime from the outside; you are present, and what you were doing at the time matters.
Getting started
Explore the house before anything happens. You have a little time and you will want to know the layout when things speed up.
Pay attention to what people are wearing and what they are carrying, and write it down. The Witness rewards noticing detail more than it rewards exhaustive searching.
ASK and SHOW are the two verbs that move the case. ANALYZE hands a thing to Sergeant Duffy for the lab; the result takes in-game time, so send anything promising as soon as you have it rather than saving it up.
Questions people ask
Do I need Deadline first?
No. They share Sergeant Duffy and a house-full-of-suspects structure but have nothing else in common. The Witness is the easier place to start.
Are the feelies included?
No. The Gazette, matchbook and telegram were physical inserts and are not on the disk. Unlike Deadline, the game is close to self-contained without them.
Is there a time limit?
Yes. The evening runs on a clock, and every command you type advances it.
Can I save?
Yes. Type SAVE. Saves live inside the emulated Macintosh in your browser.
How long is it?
Short by Infocom standards — a few hours if you are methodical, and it is designed to be replayed once you know what happened.
Who wrote it?
Stu Galley, who also wrote Seastalker and The Leather Goddesses of Phobos manual's better jokes.
Put The Witness on your own site
Free, no permission needed and no account. Paste this where you want the machine to appear; it brings its own emulator and asks nothing of your page.
<iframe src="https://macemu.com/embed/the-witness/"
width="512" height="342"
style="border:0;max-width:100%"
allowfullscreen
title="The Witness"></iframe>Sized to this title's real screen. How embedding works.
