Play Countdown Online

Countdown is a detective and mystery adventure game released in 1990 for MS-DOS. Developed and published by Access Software, Inc., it is a third-person point and click adventure. The player assumes the role of Mason Powers, a former CIA agent who awakens in a Turkish asylum with amnesia, accused of murdering his supervisor.

The player guides Mason through his investigation by selecting verb commands such as Look, Get, or Taste to interact with the environment, with no visual indicators for interactive objects. Progression involves traveling to various international locations, though each area is confined. A significant portion of gameplay is dedicated to conversations, which utilize special dialogue commands like Help, Hassle, Pleasant, and Bluff. Choosing incorrect actions during these interactions or while exploring can lead to a premature end to the game or an unwinnable state. The entire investigation operates under a ninety six hour in game time limit, with player choices like selecting faster travel methods influencing the ability to complete objectives within this constraint.

Gameplay occasionally shifts to navigating top down mazes. Countdown integrates digitized photography and hand painted graphics for its scenes, with character portraits created from scanned photos. The audio design uses digitized music and speech samples, which were engineered to be playable through a standard PC speaker.