Recording

Recording is the game’s scoring mechanic and, more significantly, its thematic heart. PRISM does not merely experience the simulation — PRISM documents it. The record buffer captures observations, and the Project staff reviews them. The mechanic transforms the player from passive tourist into active witness.

The Record Buffer

PRISM maintains a RECORD-BUFFER object (prism.zil lines 223-231), described as “record buffer” with synonyms BUFFER, RECORDING, RECORD. It lives in GLOBAL-OBJECTS and carries the BUFFERBIT and UNSEENBIT flags. Its SIZE property tracks capacity: when it exceeds 90 entries, recording cannot be activated. The buffer must be periodically “fed” — presumably transmitted to the Project staff for analysis — before it can hold more observations.

The buffer’s action routine (RECORD-BUFFER-F) delegates to V-RECORD-ON and V-ROFF for activation and deactivation.

Activating and Deactivating Recording

V-RECORD-ON (verbs.zil line 1544) activates the recording feature. It is gated by several conditions: it cannot activate during REVIEWING-RECORDINGS (another user accessing the buffer), when already active, outside certain locations (only works in NEWS, OFFICE, ROOFTOP, CORE, CONTROL-CENTER, CAFETERIA), when the buffer is full (>90), or after Part 4 when the Project has been dismantled.

V-ROFF (verbs.zil line 1602) is a shortcut: it sets PRSO to ROOMS and calls V-RECORD-OFF, which checks that recording is actually active before disabling it.

The key global is RECORDING (verbs.zil line 1540): when true, the SCORE routine in prism.zil processes observations.

The SCORE Table: 100+ Observations of Decline

The SCORE-TABLE in prism.zil (lines 267-405) is the game’s master catalog of decline — a sequential list indexed 1 through approximately 135, each entry carrying a point value and a year condition. The SCORE routine (prism.zil lines 239-251) fires when RECORDING is true: it checks the score table index, awards points, and accumulates them into per-decade globals:

• 2051-SCORE — points earned in 2051
• 2061-SCORE — points earned in 2061
• 2071-SCORE — points earned in 2071
• 2081-SCORE — points earned in 2081

No 2041-SCORE exists — 2041 is the baseline, the “before” picture. Points range from 1 (minor observations like “elevators off as usual” or “water tastes rusty”) to 15 (cannibalism in 2081). The escalating value of later observations reflects both their severity and the game’s argument that things get much worse.

A separate set of globals — 2051-RECORDED, 2061-RECORDED, 2071-RECORDED, 2081-RECORDED — tracks whether any recording was made in that year, regardless of content.

What Earns Points

The SCORE calls are embedded throughout the source code in room descriptions, object interactions, and interrupt routines. Examples:

• Score 5 (3 pts, 2051): Looking out the apartment window and seeing dying forests from acidic rain (APARTMENT-WINDOW-F in apartment.zil)
• Score 11 (1 pt, 2071): Noticing City Hall is crumbling (ROCKVILLE-CENTRE-F in rockvil.zil)
• Score 119 (4 pts, 2061): Jill tells you Mitchell has joined the Church (I-JILL in interrupts.zil)
• Score 120 (9 pts, 2071): Mitchell drags Jill away as a heretic (I-MITCHELL-RAID in apartment.zil)
• Score 111 (15 pts, 2081): Cannibalism — the highest-value item in the game (SCORE-TABLE)

This mechanic means that thorough exploration is rewarded, but it also encodes a moral argument: you are scored not on heroism or puzzle-solving, but on your willingness to bear witness.

Reviewing Recordings

Messages D and E (prism.zil lines 34-93) handle the review cycle. I-MESSAGE-D sets REVIEWING-RECORDINGS true, and Perelman’s team reviews the buffer: “We’re getting ready to review your new recordings. I hope everything’s there this time.” The Project depends on this data. I-MESSAGE-E becomes increasingly insistent if PRISM ignores the request — after the fourth ignore, Perelman disconnects PRISM: “Why have you been ignoring my requests?”

The WNN Feeder and News Buffer

Beyond the record buffer, PRISM has a NEWS-BUFFER (“World News buffer”) and REPORT-BUFFER (“Special Report buffer”), both defined in prism.zil (lines 209-221). The WNN (World News Network) feeder is introduced with message Z: it streams news reports into the buffer, providing contextual information about the world beyond Rockvil. Together with the record buffer, these form a multi-channel information-gathering apparatus — PRISM is not just a simulator but an intelligence asset.

Thematic Meaning

The recording mechanic redefines what it means to “win” an interactive fiction game. You are not collecting treasure or defeating enemies. You are documenting atrocity. The score is a measure of how much suffering you were willing to see. In a game about societal collapse, the player who looks the other way — who stays in the apartment, who ignores the news, who leaves the recorder off — is the player who “loses.” The game insists that witnessing is an act of moral consequence, and it quantifies that act in points to make the argument unavoidable.

See Also

• simulation-mode — The mode in which recording takes place
• societal-decay — What the SCORE table documents across five decades
• the-project — How the Project staff use the recordings
• Senator Richard Ryder — The recording target whose threats must be caught to win
• The Winning Ending — how transmitting the recordings resolves the game
• interface-mode — The Library Mode and Comm Mode outside the simulation