Codename: ICEMAN is one of Sierra's most infamous (and difficult) games, mostly renown for the frustrating submarine driving sequence. As part of this year's Extra Life charity stream I decided put myself through the ringer and tackle a game I started 35 years ago, but never did manage to complete. Here are some tips and tricks I learned from playing through this game, which will hopefully assist any future gamer who is foolish brave enough to play this game.
Dice Game
The primary reason why I was warded off from trying to return to this game after so many years was due to the nefarious dice mini-game that you play against one of the sub's many useless and lazy crew.
Gambling sequences are nothing new in Sierra games. Each of the inaugural games in the Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry series contained gambling mini-games. I even modeled my first Playdate game One-Armed Space Bandit after one of these games. The major difference between those games and the unnamed dice game in Codename: ICEMAN is that you could save scum those processes. It was pretty much a necessity, since like in real life, the odds were against you. Continual saving and restoring is the only way you will earn enough money to progress. But in Codename: ICEMAN, nothing can be easy. The game can detect if you are trying to reload too often, and if that happens, then the Old Salt will accuse you of cheating and will stop playing. Unfortunately, this game of chance hinges more upon winning a bottle of rum and an electronic device (in addition to some money which serves no purpose in this game.), so it is important to succeed here.
Thinking about other emulation systems which contain methods to save the state, I looked around if there was a way to do so in one of the DOS game emulators. While I did not find anything in ScummVM or the standard DOSBox, I did find the Save State feature in DOSBox-X. I confirmed that DOSBox-X's Save State can be used during the dice game and the Old Salt is none the wiser.
According to the hint book, if you didn't win the bottle or the electronic device, there will be other options later in the game, it will just be more complicated. This is a rare case of an alternative solution in a Jim Walls game, which tend to be quite linear and rife with many dead-man walking situations (but this game is not immune to those cases, either).
Codes
Periodically, you will receive coded transmissions from the radio man on the USS Blackhawk submarine. There are two groupings delivered each time, one from Washington and another from the CIA. The primary difference in decoding these is that the CIA codes have an offset of 3, so for each decoded value, add 3 to the number. However, the number will remain a single digit and will roll over if the value is greater than 9. If the number is initially 8, adding 3 would result in the value being 1, instead of 11.
There is certainly the possibility of more codes, but these are the culmination of all of the codes I have learned from both recent and ancient notes (scribbled down by the childhood versions of my brother and I).
| FI-F-D | 17-1-4 | ARIZONA |
| FD-D-B | 14-4-8 | WAR |
| FF-F-C | 11-1-6 | REDWOOD |
| FI-D-B | 17-4-8 | OCEAN |
| H-G-E | 5-3-2 | DESTROY |
| FH-E-D | 15-2-4 | STEER |
| I-C-H | 7-6-5 | COURSE |
| FH-I-C | 15-7-6 | DIRECTLY |
| I-I-I | 7-7-7 | SHIP |
| BF-J-J | 14-2-2 | TACTIC |
| BB-J-E | 11-2-5 | 4100 |
| D-G-E | 7-6-5 | COURSE |
| C-A-B | 9-3-1 | LATITUDE |
| E-E-F | 5-5-4 | COONTZ |
| BD-F-H | 17-4-8 | OCEAN |
| E-H-A | 5-8-3 | DEGREE |
| C-G-F | 9-6-4 | RUSSIAN |
Note: When entering in the key words into the computer, enter the word in either all CAPS or lower case, otherwise word with a capital letter like "Arizona" will not work.
[Update: 26 December 2025] WilcoWeb dove into the scripting of this game and has uncovered all 15 codes which can be decoded. That's some fine discovery work. Thank you, WilcoWeb!
Here is the full list:
| WASHINGTON Code | CIA Code | Decoded Word |
|---|---|---|
| H-G-E | E-A-J | DESTROY |
| H-H-D | E-E-F | COONTZ |
| H-B-G | E-H-A | DEGREE |
| I-C-H | D-G-E | COURSE |
| I-I-I | D-D-D | SHIP |
| J-G-F | C-A-B | LATITUDE |
| J-C-D | C-G-F | RUSSIAN |
| FF-F-C | BB-B-G | REDWOOD |
| FF-E-H | BB-J-E | 4100 |
| FD-E-E | BF-J-J | TACTIC |
| FD-D-B | BF-F-H | WAR |
| FH-E-D | BE-J-F | STEER |
| FH-I-C | BE-D-G | DIRECTLY |
| FI-F-D | BD-B-F | ARIZONA |
| FI-D-B | BD-F-H | OCEAN |
Submarine Controls Keyboard Shortcuts
The part of this game which most people tend to remember is the "sub driving simulator". There are 33 controls, which can be controlled via keyboard shortcuts or the mouse (if you were fortunate enough to have one in 1990). However like several sections of this game, by the time you have gotten a sense of how to work the controls, that part of the game is done. The manual does tell what most of these keyboard shortcuts, just not in one nice collated table like this:
| Command | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Speed | +/- |
| Depth | Up/Down Arrows |
| Turn | Left/Right Arrows |
| Toggle Monitor | Shift-F1 |
| Toggle Fire Control Panel | Shift-F2 |
| Toggle Active Sonar | Shift-F3 |
| Silent Running | Shift-F4 |
| Select Weapon | Shift-F5 |
| Lock on Target | Shift-F6 |
| 3-D Imaging Display | Shift-F7 |
| Fire | Shift-F8 |
Submarine Battle
One of the most frustrating parts of this game is fighting against the RNG elements in the battles. You are not given enough weapons or decoys to effectively fight, and the randomness of a successful attack or getting hit is mostly a crapshoot. No more so than in the battle with the Russian Alpha submarine. I spent a couple hours in this fight, and came very close to win numerous times, but would inevitably die each time from a torpedo I could not avoid. Watching several YouTube videos also showed that other players also had to play through these battle sequences multiple times before they finally got lucky. The walkthroughs and hints I came across mention an inversion layer around 1000-1100 feet, which seems to help not getting hit as much, but it isn't nearly fullproof.
It wasn't until I watched Major Thriftwood's YouTube playthrough that I got a hint to try something new. Instead of hovering around 1000 feet in depth, I dove down to 2300 feet. Major Thriftwood hung around this depth in the trench, and eventually the enemy submarine got close enough for battle. I tried this tactic, as well, but still had problems winning this fight. I then tried an alternative tactic by diving down to 2300 feet and then doing...NOTHING. I just stopped and rested. The Alpha fired numerous torpedoes, but they all missed. And by just laying low and silent, the Alpha finally gave up and left. A far easier (and more peaceful) way to get past this scenario.
It is interesting that the on-line walkthroughs try and give various methods to win this fight, but none of them mention trying to evade it. However, the official hint book does give a couple of these hints about this:
- Begin fast dive to below 1100' (inversion layer).
- Continue diving while reducing speed to "slow" or "stop"
- Turn active sonar off.
- Turn on silent running.
- Keep diving sub until reaching 2300' (bottom)
- If the Blackhawk runs out of weapons, sit and remain silent until enemy has left the area.
The End
Here it is! The hypothetical ending to the game! An ending which no one — not even the game developers — has ever seen before! That's because nobody has ever completed this game — until now! OK, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the number of people who have completed this game has to be far fewer than Sierra's other (and more well known) games.
Considering the level of difficulty and grief this game brings, I'm surprised this game got made at all, or it didn't die during production. It is an interesting concept, created at a time when Sierra made some alternative games like Manhunter or Police Quest, and not just focused on fantasy or sci-fi tropes. ICEMAN was released around March 1990, around the same time that the movie Hunt for the Red October hit the theaters, so there could have been some mutual crossover attraction. Ultimately, this was soured by too much procedure, dead ends, frustrating arcade sequences, a nearly impossible dice game, bad text parsing, limited hints on how to progress, and so much more.
There were some initial rumblings about a sequel named Codename: Phoenix, but the limited reports suggest the game didn't make it past the research phase before being shelved. Much like how the Police Quest series morphed into the more action-oriented SWAT games, I can image how future "Codename" games could have explored alternate routes, perhaps even more like a James Bond game.
But if you want to play an entertaining game inspired by Codename: ICEMAN, then I highly recommend the fan-made game KIDNAME: ICEBOY.
As much as Sierra fans love to rag on this game, it wouldn't be fair if we didn't at least point out the good parts of this game. The game came out in 1990 and does feature some of the best EGA graphics, very much in the style of Sierra's other early SCI-era games of the late 80s and early 90s. The music was composed by Mark Seibert, who is one of my favorite Sierra composers who also wrote the music for other Sierra games like Hero's Quest and Conquests of Camelot. The final arcade sequence did include a merciful "skip button", which I wish the sea battles had included. There are some educational bits, such as performing CPR or even the section I call "shop class" where you need to fix a broken machine. As I perused the hint book, I could see some areas of potential for this game, but that was often lost due to the poor implementation of many areas.
I came back to this game as a way to "torment" myself during an Extra Life stream, but it is absolutely nothing in comparison to the real struggles, trauma and heartbreak of a child who is in the hospital and needs dire medical help. If you, a friend, or family has been in such a position, you know that medical bills can rack up really quickly. As proud as I am to have finally completed this game, I am far prouder for the cause that Extra Life stands for. If you have come across this blog and read about my (mis-)adventures under the seas in Codename: ICEMAN, I thank you greatly. But if you can donate to Extra Life or your local children's hospital, I thank you many times over.
Play games. Heal kids. Change Futures.