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The era of the text-only adventure ended

While the number of traditional adventures that are commercially released is quite close to zero these days, how about the free Interactive Fiction Archiveand friends? Spending some time trying text adventures again is on the ever-growing list of things that I will try to get time for at some point.

If you haven't already done so, be sure to upload your game to Interactive Fiction Archive at http://www.ifarchive.org./ It's a central download site for everything IF.

The games that I really hated involved you having to perform some off-the-wall action to get a result that made no sense what so ever.

Modern text adventures no longer do that. There were a couple of playability problems that have been largely addressed by modern games. Remember that this is a genre that has seen a huge amount of input from many people fixing irritations (much like the OSS community) and has had two decades to polish out imperfections:

* Parsing -- Well, this will never be perfect as long as we lack human-class AI. However, modern parsing is *much* more reasonable than the original games, where you could play "hunt the verb". There are still a few bad games, however, any decent modern TADS-based game is going to be pretty playable -- might take you a little bit to get used to things, but you aren't going to throw your keyboard across the wall because you couldn't figure out what particular command the game wanted you to use. ADRIFT games are another story, and mostly suck badly at this.

* Missed an action somewhere in the game, now cannot win. Game designers have realized that this is frusterating. Modern text-based adventures don't do this. Basically, if you screwed up and you're going to lose, you lose right away.

* Illogical puzzles. Game designers have realized that most people don't want to spend time trying to SMELL OCTOPUS to have a bucket magically fall out of the air. These are pretty much gone. There are some things, though, that it helps to be familiar with the genre to play. For example, people new to RPGs probably don't immediately come up with the idea of talking to everyone in a town to solve a problem (after all, it's not what one would do in real life). People new to FPSes probably don't immediately think that smashing open every crate in the game (especially in random alleyways and houses) is a good way to get medical kits and ammunition. People new to text-based adventures may not think of trying to LOOK UNDER BED or realize that TADS-based games generally consider EXAMINE CLOSET and SEARCH CLOSET to be two different commands (EXAMINE being equivalent to LOOK AT and SEARCH meaning to try to find anything unusual). Most TADS games come with basic starter help like this that comes up if you type HELP.

If you're looking for a good (IMHO) game, I'd suggest downloading a TADS runtime (frob seems to be the latest-and-greatest implementation for Linux, though regrettably it doesn't use emacs keystrokes) and try Babel. That was the first text adventure game that I ever beat without help or hints.

I'd also like to point out the (even smaller than the standard IF community) AIF community, which produces adult games.

• http://www.tads.org/
• http://brasslantern.org/
• http://www.xyzzynews.com/
• http://www.ifcomp.org/
• http://www.ifarchive.org/

• http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
• http://www.adventuredevelopers.com/

Or you could just be an extremist and abandon graphics entirely. If you want a game with a plot, that's where to look.

Linux is no drop-in replacement for Windows. You cannot get the style of gaming that you get on Windows on Linux. Period.

On the other hand, if you're a Linux user looking for entertainment, there really is no shortage. On your base Gnome system, you've "sol", which is a scalable vector graphics Solitaire with about eight bazillion Solitaire games more than Microsoft's SOL.EXE. If you can live without graphics, many years of improvements and coding have made ToME one hell of a roguelike (with, admittedly, one hell of a learning curve). Diablo was derived from these things, but lost all the sophistication of the game.

If you love strategy, check out Battle for Wesnoth, which is a polished strategy game in the hex-wargame genre, or FreeCiv.

If you've never played interactive fiction, it's another text-based genre that's a lot of fun, and deserves a shot. Get yourself a copy of TADS and a copy of Babel, or if you want an adult game, try Ideal Highschool.

If you want a vertical shooter, check out Chromium B.S.U..

The multiplayer FPS that most people seem to be playing on Linux is a tank game called BZFlag.

If you're looking for more, try hitting up HappyPenguin and sorting by rating, which will pretty consistently give you decent stuff.

You can make some pretty consistent general statements about open-source games. They are usually uglier/less flashy than their closed-source equivalents, because there are few artists working on open-source projects (maybe art just happens to be such a competitive field that nobody can spare the time and fund a hobby with their day job -- dunno). They tend to have a much greater degree of replayability than commercial releases, since the developer wants to play it too -- you could easily play most open-source games for ten years and still continue to enjoy them. Many (though certainly not all) open-source games have a strategic element to them, or something that requires the application of the brain a bit, and less pure twitch. Very few open source games have cutscenes or cinematics (though they do exist). Some open source games have been around for many years, and have a very high degree of complexity and sophistication -- closed source games don't have a development cycle of this length, and the ability to keep adapting to trends in playing. With a few exceptions (I really like Battle for Wesnoth's music, for instance), sound and audio is limited and low-quality compared to commercial games. Globulation 2, for instance, is an RTS with essentially *no* audio.

Linux is no drop-in replacement for Windows. You cannot get the style of gaming that you get on Windows on Linux. Period.

On the other hand, if you're a Linux user looking for entertainment, there really is no shortage. On your base Gnome system, you've "sol", which is a scalable vector graphics Solitaire with about eight bazillion Solitaire games more than Microsoft's SOL.EXE. If you can live without graphics, many years of improvements and coding have made ToME one hell of a roguelike (with, admittedly, one hell of a learning curve). Diablo was derived from these things, but lost all the sophistication of the game.

If you love strategy, check out Battle for Wesnoth, which is a polished strategy game in the hex-wargame genre, or FreeCiv.

If you've never played interactive fiction, it's another text-based genre that's a lot of fun, and deserves a shot. Get yourself a copy of TADS and a copy of Babel, or if you want an adult game, try Ideal Highschool.

If you want a vertical shooter, check out Chromium B.S.U..

The multiplayer FPS that most people seem to be playing on Linux is a tank game called BZFlag.

If you're looking for more, try hitting up HappyPenguin and sorting by rating, which will pretty consistently give you decent stuff.

You can make some pretty consistent general statements about open-source games. They are usually uglier/less flashy than their closed-source equivalents, because there are few artists working on open-source projects (maybe art just happens to be such a competitive field that nobody can spare the time and fund a hobby with their day job -- dunno). They tend to have a much greater degree of replayability than commercial releases, since the developer wants to play it too -- you could easily play most open-source games for ten years and still continue to enjoy them. Many (though certainly not all) open-source games have a strategic element to them, or something that requires the application of the brain a bit, and less pure twitch. Very few open source games have cutscenes or cinematics (though they do exist). Some open source games have been around for many years, and have a very high degree of complexity and sophistication -- closed source games don't have a development cycle of this length, and the ability to keep adapting to trends in playing. With a few exceptions (I really like Battle for Wesnoth's music, for instance), sound and audio is limited and low-quality compared to commercial games. Globulation 2, for instance, is an RTS with essentially *no* audio.

Yah, enough of proving my dorky love of text based worlds.

There is no shortage of free MUDs out there, as well as extremely-well written and free games in the mature text-based interactive fiction genre.

Try downloading TADS, and taking a shot at one of the vast library of games for it. Works on just about every platform ever, and has enough hours of gameplay represented in free games to keep you entertained for the rest of your life.

I'm rather partial to Babel, if you're looking for a nice game to start with. Not the easiest game out there, but I love the mood.

Yah, enough of proving my dorky love of text based worlds.

There is no shortage of free MUDs out there, as well as extremely-well written and free games in the mature text-based interactive fiction genre.

Try downloading TADS, and taking a shot at one of the vast library of games for it. Works on just about every platform ever, and has enough hours of gameplay represented in free games to keep you entertained for the rest of your life.

I'm rather partial to Babel, if you're looking for a nice game to start with. Not the easiest game out there, but I love the mood.

They died? Oh no! You mean no more updates to some of my favourite websites?

or "From A to Z Shell".

Technically that's not right either because ash is the Adventure Shell!

There are hundreds of beautifully crafted text adventures these days, and Dasher is a text input system that addresses your exact condition. Basically, letters fly by and you "steer" the pointer to each letter's region. The genius here is that Dasher learns the things that you tend to input a lot, and makes those regions take up a large convenient part of the entry area, while pushing unusual sequences to the margins.

AFAIK both NetHack and CConq (the console version of XConq) are fairly hard to play through screen readers because of the way terrain is represented.

Your milage may vary, though.

Interactive Fiction has no such problem, however.

For diversions, how about Interactive Fiction? It has a textual interface that lends itself well to speakerbox usage, shell accounts, and there's a vast library of free titles available.

For diversions, how about Interactive Fiction? It has a textual interface that lends itself well to speakerbox usage, shell accounts, and there's a vast library of free titles available.

Yes, there's Malyon, a z-machine interpreter written in Emacs Lisp.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, Hugo, ALAN, and ADRIFT (for Windows or Mac).

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, Hugo, ALAN, and ADRIFT (for Windows or Mac).

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, Hugo, ALAN, and ADRIFT (for Windows or Mac).

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, Hugo, ALAN, and ADRIFT (for Windows or Mac).

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, Hugo, ALAN, and ADRIFT (for Windows or Mac).

I would just like to note that the IF community is still going strong, still maintaining its IF-specific programming platforms (see TADS 3, Glulx, Inform, Hugo), and have even published books (Inform Designer's Manual, Inform Beginner's Guide, Twisty Little Passages) and has a theoretical analysis book in the works for future publishing. If you're looking for a game, stop by http://www.wurb.com/if/ or check out the archive at http://www.ifarchive.org/ where all of the free games and interpreters are there to be downloaded for free. Visit rec.arts.int.fiction or rec.games.int.fiction if you want to discuss building or playing games and if you're really in need of an IF fix, stop by the ifMUD at ifmud.port4000.com:4000.

Read all the infocom newsletters at http://infodoc.plover.net/nzt/!

or http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXinfoco mXNZT+TSL.html

They even include the fan comics they published...

-If

Text adventures (or Interactive Fiction) are here. http://ifarchive.org/, http://ifcomp.org/ and rec.arts.int-fiction & rec.games.int-fiction. Some people have gone the annoying, so-called "puzzleless" route, but there are still good games out there that aren't puzzleless.

If you read the source to that page you can see the URL for the Z5 file, which you can then download, and play with the interpreter of your choice. See The Interactive Fiction Archive for one of those. If you enjoyed the HHGTTG you may also be interested in the CD "The Masterpieces of Infocom" -- I got mine from lacegem I think. There's loads of good stuff in ifarchive as well.

For example, most of the higher-ranking games don't let you mess things up (e.g. by "shattering the crystal key" or whatever) and they let you UNDO actions if you find that you don't like how things are going.

Here you go! (A good starting point for all things IF is here.)

Here you go! (A good starting point for all things IF is here.)

I'd always thought it'd be fun to write a Linux help command (or new shell) based on a code base from one of the Interactive Fiction tools. A lot of the user input and language processing problems are already solved. This would certainly meet the authors idea that computer should interact with dialogue. Eg

User: I want to find a file.
PC: How fould you like to find the file? By Name? Size?
(Maps to grep or find somewhere in here)

Anyway, this can go into the list of good ideas that I'll never get around to, but hope someone else will do.

Here they are....

While you're there, try Babel (for the TADS engine) and Bliss also for TADS.

Babel, a sci-fi horror game, was the first IF game I beat without needing any hints (though it's still significantly more difficult than many IF games out there), and Bliss...probably the best example I've ever seen of using the IF format. Describing it would probably spoil it, so I can only recommend playing it. When you've finished it, you'll understand.

Note that both of these games are dark and potentially disturbing. If you like fluffy or fantastic or slice-of-life or something else, look elsewhere...

While you're there, try Babel (for the TADS engine) and Bliss also for TADS.

Babel, a sci-fi horror game, was the first IF game I beat without needing any hints (though it's still significantly more difficult than many IF games out there), and Bliss...probably the best example I've ever seen of using the IF format. Describing it would probably spoil it, so I can only recommend playing it. When you've finished it, you'll understand.

Note that both of these games are dark and potentially disturbing. If you like fluffy or fantastic or slice-of-life or something else, look elsewhere...

It's possibly Battlestar. Although most of the action takes place on a tropical planet, you have to make your way out of a doomed spaceship (the Battlestar) first. The source for this and a whole bunch more 'interactive fiction' can be found at The Interactive Fiction Archive, specifically here.

Krishna

It's possibly Battlestar. Although most of the action takes place on a tropical planet, you have to make your way out of a doomed spaceship (the Battlestar) first. The source for this and a whole bunch more 'interactive fiction' can be found at The Interactive Fiction Archive, specifically here.

Krishna

Re-implementing the Z-machine is nothing to be ashamed of. Someone's done it in Perl, and someone else did it as an Emacs major mode... and heck, I'm working on a pure Javascript Z-machine for Mozilla </plug>. There's so much good new Z-machine material coming out each year now that building new Z-machines for modern environments isn't just some sort of digital archaeology to relive the Infocom glory days, though of course there's that side to it as well. It's a living tradition, not a reconstructed dead culture.

http://www.ifarchive.org/ seems like the right place for all you nostalgic types... or the curious ;-)

• inform

For completeness, Douglas Adams wrote to my knowledge three complete computer games:
1) an Infocom interactive version of "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (regarded, I believe, as one of the most challenging, but rewarding, works of interactive fiction);
2) another Infocom game, entitled "Bureaucracy", also highly regarded in the Interactive Fiction community;
I believe both of these are available from the interactive fiction archive along with software to play them on just about anything.

and 3) Starship Titanic, which was a kind of exploration of what you could do with CD-ROMs: a mixture of interactive fiction, lush 3D graphics, and a lot of sound files of all the things talking to you...

If you're a lazy windows user like me that's never played one of these before and don't know exactly what to download but you'd like to just play the winning entry, download and install WinFrotz and then grab the winning entry. Run the program, open the slouch.z5 file and you're on your way.

But noone is making "real" adventures anymore (either of the text type, or in the Sierra/Lucas style),

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.

If you want to download all of the games, you have several choices of files to download.

* For Windows, there are two files which contain everything you need. IFComp2003.exe contains all of the games. WinInterpreters.exe has all of the interpreters, which are the programs you'll need to run the games. They are Windows installers, so you will only need to double-click them once you've downloaded them, and they'll do their thing.

* For the Mac, Comp03.sit contains all of the games which can be run natively under MacOS, and MacInterpreters.sit has all of the interpreters.

* For everyone else, Comp03.zip contains all of the games.

To ease bandwidth requirements, please use the BitTorrent links if at all possible. If you use BitTorrent, when you're done downloading, please leave your download window open for a while, so others can download the files from you.

Most of the interpreters you will need are available from the IF Archive. You will need interpreters for TADS 2 and 3, Z-code, ALAN, AGT, and (if you're running Windows) ADRIFT.