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Infocom's Dave Lebling Interviewed
flip-flop writes: "The Adventure Collective has an interview with Dave Lebling, of olde Infocom fame. The quite lengthy Q&A covers topics such as the early days of Infocom, what Dave is doing these days, and even the origin of the name "Zork." A must-read for anyone old enough to remember those legendary text adventures ... *sigh* Those were the days: 'Get up. Turn on light ...'"
There is a bulldozer outside.
I tend to think of Diablo as a roguelike you can actually win.
Is it just me or do all of the text based roguelike authors seem to have some dread fear that someone somewhere might win the game?
I especially remember rogue (I still play it once in a while) where it seems like anytime your character starts doing good (you find the two handed sword, a ring of rust resistance (or whatever it's called), and some nice armor the RNG will decide to do you in and stop putting food on the levels, leaving your adventurer to eventually starve to death or faint while fighting a dragon.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
I had an idea a while ago regarding the old Infocom games.
What if you got a good narrator to record all the text from a game, and hooked up a speech-to-text engine for input. Then you could put it on a laptop, sit back in your favorite chair, put on some headphones, close your eyes and just imagine... completely and totally immersed in the story in your mind.
It wouldn't be too hard to do; the main impediment would be to get some decent voice talent to do the recordings. Otherwise, it should be doable entire with existing open source code.
(okay, there is one other problem - copyright. but maybe if this was done in an open source freely available way, they wouldn't mind...)
http://www.adventurecollective.com/articles/inter
from the interview:
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
At the risk of being redundant, here's where to play online INFOCOM games...h tm Java
http://infocom.elsewhere.org/ Telnet mode
http://www.saturn.powerup.com.au/ddesoto/infocom.
---
First I disagree with an earlier comment.
Today's 'graphical extensions' of Zork might be a game like "Myst", or some of the other visual adventure games with puzzles-to-solve in the process. There are some parallels even in games like "Resident Evil" and other largely linear, puzzle-based games.
But in honesty, the beauty and genius of Infocom's games won't be replicated in a graphical gaming environment. As soon as the computer screen was doing the rendering that previously was up to the NVidia card in your head, your head didn't have to trouble itself.
Infocom games demanded that players use both their imaginations (to visualize the written word) and their problem-solving skills (to solve the myriad of problems encountered in the course of gaming).
I think that, while enormous imagination goes into *creating* today's best games, I think most require a lot less imagination on the part of the player. Games are becoming more cinematic. This isn't an entirely bad thing, but it is sad that the current generation of gamers are going to miss out on the truly rewarding experience of text-based adventure gaming.
And I still remember which so vivid clarity the profound emotion that Infocom games were able to cultivate during gameplay... I remember my abject terror when being captured by Krill's minions in "Enchanter" - madly scrambling to find a way out of the cell, only to be sacrificed on the altar by Krill himself, a glowing blade plunged into my heart. - I remember how hard I laughed when Floyd, the genius robot with the maturity of a 6-year old from "Planetfall" first starting took out a crayon and wrote his name on the elevator wall, and how I wept (WEPT you heartless cynical punkasses, copious tears!) when he sacrificed his life to help me solve the game.
Text-based systems required more of the participants, but gave back so much more to those who invested the time...Which reminds me...
When is Slashdot going to get-with-the-times, dump all this text-based news commentary crap, and GIVE US NEWS WE CAN JUST SIT BACK AND WATCH!
Interviewer: ask question
Dave: I don't understand what you are trying to say. Perhaps if you rephrase your statement?
Interviewer: talk Dave
Dave: You can't do that here!
Interviewer: query Dave
Dave: I don't understand the command "query".
Interviewer:bah!
Dave: I don't understand the command "bah".
Interviewer: kill Dave
Dave: A strong wind has blown out Interviewer's candle. Interviewer has been attacked by a grue for 106 points Interviewer has died!
i tried to go follow the link but my dented lantern had sputtered out and i was afraid i might walk into the slavering fangs of a wandering grue. Strangely enough, my sword started glowing...
e x p e c t d e l a y . c o m
I agree with you, chill - although it's not all that bad, is it? Companies like Looking Glass have been holding aloft the standard of strong, immersive stories. Hang on, they just went broke didn't they...
;) we have more "mass-market" games.
OK, maybe it is that bad then.
Any of you remember what Roberta Williams once said, how in the olden days, when computers were more expensive, only the more well-off (and usually more educated) could afford them, which is why adventures, especially the cerebral Infocom kind, were more popular? Nowadays when just about everyone can buy a cheapo PC or worse still, a console
I don't know if I fully agree with that, but it's certainly an interesting conjecture.
>Open browser.
The browser is now open.
>Point browser at slashdot.
I can't see any slashdot here!
>Type slashdot.org in browser.
You quickly type the information into the browser and press enter, the browser slowly... very slowly loads the web page.
>Examine browser.
The browser is currently displaying the slashdot.org home page. There is an interview here.
>Skip interview.
You don't read the interview.
>Get first post.
The first post is already taken.
You are in a well-lit room containing a mace, boots, and a plant.
>Take mace
I don't know the word "mace"
>Take boots
I don't know the word "boots"
>Take plant
I don't know the word "plant"
>quit
...
Even modern adventure/puzzle games, which can be quite good (Last Express, Discworld, etc.), don't really match the level of achievement I felt when playing A Mind Forever Voyaging, for example.
I mean, one of the single most vivid memories of my youth was sitting in from of my old Commie and finally figuring out the last bit of the Babel Fish puzzle.
A measly little air frag with a railgun will never, ever equal it.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
It's interesting to see what Lebling had to say about the so-called demise of the adventure genre. I suppose he's right in some respects, but the situation is a bit more complex than that. I think what's really dying is the idea of genres themselves. I mean, categories like your tried-and-true sports and puzzles are here to stay...they're pretty defninite in form and function. But all the other genres seem to be mixing into one big pot. You've got RTS games with a hint of sim (or even FPS in some cases). You've got RPGs mixing up with action and strategy aspects. I think I've even seen a role-playing racing sim out there somewhere.
IMO the adventure genre is still alive, only it has taken on many different forms. And even if there seems to be a decline of "adventure" in today's games, I'm sure it'll come back in fashion tomorrow because the video game industry cycles. Games like Zork are simply to frickin' sweet to just fade away out of existence like that.
--
"I strongly urge both the faint of heart and the faint of butt to leave the room at this time."
- Strong Bad