Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It is an interactive fiction video game written by Jeff O'Neill and published by Infocom in 1987. It was released simultaneously for MS-DOS, Commodore 64, and other platforms. Nord and Bert was unique among Infocom games in that it used the game engine to present wordplay puzzles rather than an adventure story. It was Infocom's twenty-seventh game. Plot Each chapter of Nord and Bert is dedicated to a different style of wordplay. The first seven chapters can be played in any order, since each exists as an independent "short story" unrelated to the other chapters; to begin the eighth, however, the player must provide seven "passwords" provided by completing each of the other sections. The only effort made to interlink the separate parts of the game is as follows: reality has somehow been altered around the town of Punster. Idioms and clichés are suddenly manifesting themselves quite literally, and it falls to the player, as it always does, to sort things out. The sections of the game: "The Shopping Bizarre" - this portion takes place in a grocery store where normal products have been replaced by outlandish homonyms. The player must change all the oddities back to their original form by simply typing the correct names. For instance, when confronted with a large, awkward-looking mammal sporting hooves and antlers that smells of fudge, the player must type "" (a homonym for "moose"). "Playing Jacks" - this section is rather short and unfocused, and involves a gadget called the "Jack of All Traits" (which is, of course, a play on the phrase "Jack of all trades"). When presented with a series of unusual situations, this item proves useful by displaying attributes of other items whose name contains "Jack". For instance, when a mermaid tangled in fishing line washes ashore, the player can turn the Jack of All Traits into a Jackknife and cut the lines. "Buy the Farm" - this chapter takes place around a farm and requires the player to use a variety of clichéd expressions literally, for instance or . "Eat Your Words" - another section of idioms presented literally, this time revolving around a diner. The player must alternately insult and apologize to a waitress by using phrases such as or . When the waitress is sufficiently exasperated, she allows the player to enter the kitchen, where the chef