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Loyalists Preserve Past Through Text-Only Games

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the graphics-are-just-bloat dept.

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "'You are at the edge of a clearing with an impressive view of the mountains. A trail splits off toward some standing stones to the southwest, while the main road emerges from the forest to the east and continues westward down the hill, via a series of switchbacks.' So begins 'A New Life' (downloadable from here), part of a group of game hobbyists going back to text-only basics. They try to keep the genre alive by posting their titles online for free and meeting in chat rooms dedicated to the craft, the Wall Street Journal Online reports. 'Console games are demanding,' says Mike Snyder, a 33-year-old computer programmer in Wichita, Kan. 'With text games, you can sit there at the prompt, go make a sandwich, then come back and play more.'"

14 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. d'oh by rbochan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have been eaten by a grue :(

    --
    ...Rob
    The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
    1. Re:d'oh by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Funny
      I have been eaten by a grue :(

      > WHAT IS A GRUE?

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    2. Re:d'oh by BushCheney08 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey dude. You really should change your homepage. All that comes up is the "Apache has been successfully installed!" page. Fucking noobs...

      --
      Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
  2. What fun by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Funny

    You wake up.

    > get up

    You can't get up, it's dark.

    > turn on light

    You turn on the lamp.

    > get up

    You can't get up. You've got a headache from that hangover.

    > look in pockets

    While you look in pockets, your house is demolished by a bulldozer.

    Try Again?[y/n]

    #$@@#$! That's the third time in a row! !@#%!#@ text games!

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:What fun by OakDragon · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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. An example: there was one game (it was graphical - you moved your little guy around, but the principal was the same) where you needed to boil some water for something. The water was available, but no bucket to fetch and boil it in. Well, there was this slug, and at another place there was a shaker of salt. Dump the salt on the slug, and voila - a bucket! Makes sense, huh?

      Well at least I knew the game wanted me to put the salt on the slug. There are worse examples.

      --
      Dark Reflection
    2. Re:What fun by Pollardito · · Score: 5, Funny

      that's more of a cultural problem, as apparently bucket-excreting slugs aren't common in north america. if they were, that solution would have been obvious

  3. Text mode Quake, anyone? by Ragetech · · Score: 5, Funny

    QUAKE II
    Copyright (c) 1991-2001. All rights reserved.

    West of steaming pit of hell
    You are standing in an open room west of a steaming pit of hell leading down.
    There is a gun here.

    >

    (recycled: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/31/ 043214&tid=112)

    --

    RageTech

  4. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, "TEXTMODE QUAKE"? by rbochan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    clicky clicky

    --
    ...Rob
    The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
  5. Can't Belive nobodys mentioned... by ninji · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The biggest part of these games, and the highest value of attraction:

    No games graphics will ever beat text only's games:

    WHY - Becuase its not limited by your PC, by its programming, and by Your Graphics Card, only your MIND.

    You get a general mental version of the world your in, and you can assume its more detailed then wandering the plains in EQ2, unless your imaginaionally inept.

  6. Not new by Hakubi_Washu · · Score: 5, Informative
    People creating Text-Adventures have been around a long time, they were never gone, so to speak.


    And, for the more graphically inclined, check out these:
  7. Re:hmmm... by mustafap · · Score: 5, Funny

    'With text games, you can sit there at the prompt, go make a sandwich, then come back

    Must have been written in Java then.

    --
    Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
  8. Welcome to the World of Slashdot by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 5, Funny
    You are in a Slashdot article with 3 mod points left. There's an obvious Troll on your left that deserves to be modded down to negative infinity. Ahead of you is a post you really want to respond to. The Reply button beacons to the right, offering you a chance to get your original thoughts higher up on the page. The Back button will return you to the mundane world.

    >_

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  9. Re:Love text adventures by Golias · · Score: 5, Funny

    Was the main exercise that tought me English pretty early.

    You must be a lot of fun around the office.

    "Hey, which way is it to the bathroom in this building?"

    "Get up; go left; y; y; door; light; use stall."

    "Uh... thanks."

    --

    Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  10. Interesting in text adventures? by ChaosDiscord · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If you're interesting in text adventures, or have fond memories of them but haven't played in a while, check out some of the new stuff. Most modern games have better parsers than the old games, better even than Infocoms. And many eschew the old "learn by dying" style so popular in the eighties. As the article suggests, the Interactive Fiction Competition is a great place to start. As a general rule the top few positions are great games. The Interactive Fiction Archive is full of great stuff, but not well organized for browsing. I prefer Baf's Guide which indexes the Archive. Finally, if you're into Lovecraftian horror, I strongly recommend Anchorhead. Anchorhead is the only horror text adventure I've ever found to be creepy. It's got solid, well integrated puzzles and a compelling story.

    Text adventures are great. To dismiss them as obsolete because we have graphics now is as foolish as dismissing novels because we have movies. I'm a big fan of graphic adventures (and just about any other type of game), but I still appreciate text adventures. There is a level of interactivity in modern text adventures that graphic games haven't yet achieved. The extremely low development costs mean that lots of interesting and quirky stuff gets made.

    The WSJ article oversimplifies a few important things. The IF competition is supposed to be limited to games that take two hours. The idea is to get more people writing games under the idea that a two hour game is much easier to make than a twenty hour game. But people still regularly release longer games. Anchorhead, mentioned above, too me about 30 hours.

    It's also not fair to say that "just" 174 people voted. Judging is time consuming; you're expected to play to the conclusion (or for two hours, whichever comes first) at least 5 games. And while there is lots of good stuff, there is a lot of junk. So being a proper judge takes a healthy chunk of time and a willingness to suffer some bad games. It's far easier to just wait until the competition ends, then download the top rated ones. While text adventures are a niche market, I expect we're talking thousands of people who play the competition games. It's just that only a small subset vote.

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