'''''Nord & Bert Couldn't Produce Head or even Rump of it''''' is an interactive fiction computer game written by Jeff O'Neill and published by Infocom in 1987. It was freed at a same instance for many popular computer platforms of the time, like the PC and Commodore 64. Nord & Bert was unique among Infocom games in this it was extremely surrealistic, centering around wordplay and puns.

Plot
Nord & Bert defies real life description, & when a matter of fact well-nigh seems to develop been created inside an effort to become when unknown as conceivable. E.g., a title & front pack illustration (deuce farmers staring at an brute that consists of deuce cows' tail halves amalgamate together) stand nothing to run by owning a game. Like, Nord & Bert revolves as much as many different kindthe paronomasia, using a "chapter" of the game dedicated to every style. A number one seven chapters may be played in any choose, since every is as an independent "short story" unrelated to a more chapters; to commence a eighth, all the same, the streaming video player must provide septenary "passwords" provided by completing every of the more sections.

A just effort processed to interlink a separate area of a game is when follows: reality has somehow been altered in the area of the town of Punster. Idioms and clichés are suddenly manifesting themselves quite literally, & it lessens to the streaming video player, when it universally does, to sort items retired.

A sections of the game: "The Shopping Bizarre" - this part will require place inside the grocery in which normal products stand been replaced by off-the-wall homonyms. A streaming video player must vary all the oddities back to their original form by just entering the correct list. For example, when confronted using a big, awkward-shopping mammalian sporting hooves & antlers & smells of fudge, the streaming video player must nature and severity "chocolate mousse" (a homonym for "moose"). "Playing Jacks" - this part is like short & unfocussed, & involves a gizmo known as the "Jack of All Traits" (which is, naturally, the play on the sentence "Jack of all trades"). After presented using the series of unusual situations, this item proves utile by displaying attributes of more things whose title contains "Jack". E.g., once the mermaid convoluted within camping line washes on land, a streaming video player could turn the Jack of Everthing Traits into a Jackknife and cut the lines. "Buy the Farm" - this chapter go on in the domestic & takes the streaming video player to have a kind of clichéd expressions literally. A bit of players will call for two or three one expressions somewhat obscure, like BEAT SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES or even BargaWithin The PIG IN The POKE. "Eat Your Words" - an additional segment of idioms presented literally, this period revolving about the diner. the streaming video player must alternately insult & apologize to a waitress by utilizing phrases like GIVE A WAITRESS A EVIL EYE or even EAT HUMBLE PIE. Whenever a waitress is sufficiently exasperated, she allows a streaming video streaming video player to enter a kitchen, in which a chef is murderously hostile until a player "leaves the cook to his own devices" & "gores his ox". "Act the Part" - the super unknown part of the super unknown game. By having little explanation, the streaming video player must participate around a 50s-style sitcom & perform visual gags and bits of slapstick comedy, including giving mortal the "hotfoot" & swimming along sustaining knock-knock jokes. "Manor of Speaking" - this chapter will require place inside the home filled sustaining gonzo rooms. Although this subdivision has many puzzles redolent of Infocom's "straightforward" interactional fiction games, it is played for surreal humor. For instance: A room known as The Kremlin has a talking portrait of Karl Marx. a streaming video player must wind the clock & place it in a pack, and so enter the Kremlin. the portrait of Marx assumes that a ticking pack occurs as bomb & lessens off a wall, revealing a safe which may be opened using the clock's "winding" key. "Shake a Tower" - this division ties the total of situations into an absurd story applying Spoonerisms. A convoluted sentence may be entered by itself, like "pretty girl" for "gritty pearl". Periodically certain actions must exist as performed number one, like feeding stones to install a vary from either "fed rocks" to the "red fox". "Meet the Mayor" - a final chapter could merely become played fallowing a rest of the game has been with success completed. Elements of numerous of a past sections come mixed on this text when the streaming video player seeks to convince Punster's city manager to sign a law. Occasionally puzzle solutions come phrases that come simply hinted at per surroundings, like "Possession is nine-tenths of the law" or even "taking something under false pretenses."

Feelies
For years, for each one game freed by Infocom contained feelies, or more objects, inside its packaging. A lone "feelie" involved by owning Nord & Bert was Front yard on the Range, the pamphlet of wordplay-themed cartoons drawn by Kevin Pope (who too illustrated a front & back of the stake pack). A cartoons typically illustrate many of the types of puzzles in the game, like "All Alone on a Desserted Isle", which shows the castaway sitting in the petite isl& (complete by using needed palm) surrounded by pies, cakes, and ice cream. For each one cartoon corresponds to the part of the game.

Notes
Per period Nord & Bert was freed, Infocom got abandoned their habit of printing games' difficulty level on the external pack. Fan opinion of the difficulty level of Nord & Bert ranges from either "Standard" to "Expert", based largely on the streaming video player's preference for paronomasia.

Inside an effort to simplify a "menial tasks" of interactional fiction, a classic "compass point"-style exits were seldom utilized & mapping was unneeded. Available exits were displayed at the top of the screen, & when a location got been visited it can be revisited (when hanker when it was approachable) by just entering its title. Nord & Bert too featured hints available by using a HINT command.

Since Nord & Bert makes extensive utilise of English-language wordplay, clichés & idioms when plot points, a game may be super hard for non-native English speakers to complete forgoing assistance.

This proved to exist as one of Infocom's virtually all unusual releases. Promulgated in their waning times of fiscal difficulty & pressure from either parent company Activision, Nord and Bert proved quite hard to market; its apparent target audience of punning enthusiasts was quite little, & uneven gameplay doomed a title to sell super ill.

Befittingly plenty, Pun was a working title of this game.