I used to love text adventures and those "choose your own adventure" books; I must've had 50 of those books, Lone Wolf, Steve Jackson's Sorcery series, lots of books...after I bought my first computer (Atari ST), the first game I bought was the Hitchhiker's Guide Infocom game; I played that for 40 hours or more. This was pre-Internet, folks, no walkthrough posted on the web.
About the books and games, for the books my "save game" feature were my fingers. I would keep one finger on the current page, then flip to the new page, then keep a finger there, then go on to the next page--because often in the better books, it would be several pages before you would learn whether you choice 3 pages early would get you killed. I had the same problems with the computer games: I'd save and save and save, hoping I could go back to the right save point if my choices got me killed of I forgot to take the fuzz from the seat cushion or leave a screwdriver in my bedroom....these were isolated events that happened to most of us who played these games. You might have had some friends on a bulletin board (I didn't have a modem) who knew how to help, but for the most part, I would try to tell my friends about how long it took to get the Babelfish in my ear, but they couldn't understand. Now you can share every useless moment of your life online. The days of the lone quest are gone.
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I used to love text adventures and those "choose your own adventure" books; I must've had 50 of those books, Lone Wolf, Steve Jackson's Sorcery series, lots of books...after I bought my first computer (Atari ST), the first game I bought was the Hitchhiker's Guide Infocom game; I played that for 40 hours or more. This was pre-Internet, folks, no walkthrough posted on the web. About the books and games, for the books my "save game" feature were my fingers. I would keep one finger on the current page, then flip to the new page, then keep a finger there, then go on to the next page--because often in the better books, it would be several pages before you would learn whether you choice 3 pages early would get you killed. I had the same problems with the computer games: I'd save and save and save, hoping I could go back to the right save point if my choices got me killed of I forgot to take the fuzz from the seat cushion or leave a screwdriver in my bedroom....these were isolated events that happened to most of us who played these games. You might have had some friends on a bulletin board (I didn't have a modem) who knew how to help, but for the most part, I would try to tell my friends about how long it took to get the Babelfish in my ear, but they couldn't understand. Now you can share every useless moment of your life online. The days of the lone quest are gone.