You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building.
June 20, 2024 4:35 AM Subscribe
From Infocom to 80 Days: An oral history of text games and interactive fiction MUDs, Usenet, and open source all play a part in 50 years of IF history.
Just a little something for the nostalgic among us, as well as an invitation to explore all the amazing stuff available in interactive fiction today from Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, Inkle Studios, and Twine.
Cool recent Previously
Just a little something for the nostalgic among us, as well as an invitation to explore all the amazing stuff available in interactive fiction today from Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, Inkle Studios, and Twine.
Cool recent Previously
Everyday I'm in a maze of twisty passages, all the same.
posted by Marky at 7:20 AM on June 20 [3 favorites]
posted by Marky at 7:20 AM on June 20 [3 favorites]
I wonder how well aphantasic people play text-based games compared to others?
posted by pracowity at 7:51 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 7:51 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]
Dan Schmidt*, one of the IF writers around the year 2000, wrote about his aphantasia.
* MeFi's own! Play his game For a Change! It won the XYZZY award for writing for a reason.
posted by sgranade at 7:59 AM on June 20 [3 favorites]
* MeFi's own! Play his game For a Change! It won the XYZZY award for writing for a reason.
posted by sgranade at 7:59 AM on June 20 [3 favorites]
[clicks "Enable Dark Mode"]
>YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE EATEN BY A GRUE
posted by indexy at 8:25 AM on June 20 [4 favorites]
>YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE EATEN BY A GRUE
posted by indexy at 8:25 AM on June 20 [4 favorites]
I am mostly aphantasic and used to play a lot of IF. I don't think it made me any better or worse at them, if that's what you're asking?
posted by Casuistry at 8:35 AM on June 20
posted by Casuistry at 8:35 AM on June 20
I'm hypophantasic rather than aphantasic, I think, but when I read, there are seldom pictures in my mind, so perhaps that's close enough to be interesting?
I'm notably terrible at finding my way in the real world. Conversations with friends have led me to understand that this is partly because I can't picture the route or replay it in my head, or picture the landmarks I walked past and work out how they'll look from a different angle (if I'm trying to find my way back again). I also fail to register curves - I'll notice that I've turned right off the main road, but I won't notice that the road I'm now on has curved round to the left so far that it's now paralleling the road I started on. The map in my head, such as it is, is all wrong.
Anyway. As a teenager, I played a lot of text adventures, and because you have to map those on paper as you go - and because all that matters for the map is what direction you exit and what direction you subsequently enter from, and (with the exception of mazes of twisty little passages all alike) those things are usually easy to identify - I was *much* better at navigating in Zork than I ever was in the real world. Let alone in first-person-perspective games like Doom, where I don't even have the movement of my body to help me keep track of where I am and how I got here.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:54 AM on June 20 [4 favorites]
I'm notably terrible at finding my way in the real world. Conversations with friends have led me to understand that this is partly because I can't picture the route or replay it in my head, or picture the landmarks I walked past and work out how they'll look from a different angle (if I'm trying to find my way back again). I also fail to register curves - I'll notice that I've turned right off the main road, but I won't notice that the road I'm now on has curved round to the left so far that it's now paralleling the road I started on. The map in my head, such as it is, is all wrong.
Anyway. As a teenager, I played a lot of text adventures, and because you have to map those on paper as you go - and because all that matters for the map is what direction you exit and what direction you subsequently enter from, and (with the exception of mazes of twisty little passages all alike) those things are usually easy to identify - I was *much* better at navigating in Zork than I ever was in the real world. Let alone in first-person-perspective games like Doom, where I don't even have the movement of my body to help me keep track of where I am and how I got here.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:54 AM on June 20 [4 favorites]
Apparently my IF chops have entirely withered. I remember them fondly from my childhood, and every few years I get nostalgic and try to get into the current scene, but the last time I tried one of the recommended/award winning ones I couldn't even get out of the opening room.
posted by tavella at 9:48 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
posted by tavella at 9:48 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
I had almost all of the Infocom games and Suspended was the most brilliant storyline that kept me coming back to it , even after I finally solved it. The idea of having to use robots as your five senses traveling around the maze was so immersive. It felt like I was entering the pages of PK Dick or Gibson.
posted by hairless ape at 9:48 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]
posted by hairless ape at 9:48 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]
hairless ape — Did you know that you can speedrun Suspended to win a few moves before the earthquakes start on cycle 75?
If you enjoy esoteric programming languages, Nelson’s Inform7 for writing interactive fiction is really wild. I frequently find myself frustrated and wanting a more “normal” language when I try to use it, so it’s always a delight to read someone else’s Inform code to see how they solve problems in it.
posted by autopilot at 11:13 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
If you enjoy esoteric programming languages, Nelson’s Inform7 for writing interactive fiction is really wild. I frequently find myself frustrated and wanting a more “normal” language when I try to use it, so it’s always a delight to read someone else’s Inform code to see how they solve problems in it.
posted by autopilot at 11:13 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
*hairless ape — Did you know that you can speedrun Suspended to win a few moves before the earthquakes start on cycle 75?*
I didn't know that. Speedrunning text based games never occurred to me at that age, but I might have to try that if I can get my hands on a copy.
posted by hairless ape at 12:19 PM on June 20
I didn't know that. Speedrunning text based games never occurred to me at that age, but I might have to try that if I can get my hands on a copy.
posted by hairless ape at 12:19 PM on June 20
I was *much* better at navigating in Zork than I ever was in the real world.
I'm the opposite. Totally aphantasic. To play Zork, I had to memorize a mental map -- or even draw a paper map -- because I certainly couldn't see Zork in my supposed mind's eye. It was like memorizing the route through a dark house.
posted by pracowity at 2:09 PM on June 20
I'm the opposite. Totally aphantasic. To play Zork, I had to memorize a mental map -- or even draw a paper map -- because I certainly couldn't see Zork in my supposed mind's eye. It was like memorizing the route through a dark house.
posted by pracowity at 2:09 PM on June 20
(Seems as good a place as any to post this) The complete set of Maze descriptions from Colossal Cave Adventure (1977 version) are as follows:
You are in a little maze of twisting passages, all different.
You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all different.
You are in a little twisty maze of passages, all different.
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
You are in a maze of little twisty passages, all different.
You are in a maze of twisting little passages, all different.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different.
You are in a twisting little maze of passages, all different.
You are in a twisting maze of little passages, all different.
You are in a twisty little maze of passages, all different.
You are in a twisty maze of little passages, all different.
posted by rlk at 3:22 PM on June 20 [6 favorites]
You are in a little maze of twisting passages, all different.
You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all different.
You are in a little twisty maze of passages, all different.
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
You are in a maze of little twisty passages, all different.
You are in a maze of twisting little passages, all different.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different.
You are in a twisting little maze of passages, all different.
You are in a twisting maze of little passages, all different.
You are in a twisty little maze of passages, all different.
You are in a twisty maze of little passages, all different.
posted by rlk at 3:22 PM on June 20 [6 favorites]
autopilot - Inform 6 still exists as a more 'normal' language, and, in fact, inform 7 compiles to a (weird and ideosyncraticly boilerplated) version of it as a first step, I believe. I never quite made the leap to 7, but Inform 6 (discovered at work, which offered networked shell accounts in those pre-ISP days) showed my arts-grad younger self that compiling code and debugging could actually be fun, and lead to at least the first half of my current career.
posted by Sparx at 3:34 PM on June 20
posted by Sparx at 3:34 PM on June 20
I got to play Colossal Cave Adventure in high school in the late 1970s. A friend's dad was a professor of mathematics and his older brother was a physics major at the small college a couple of blocks away. So my friend was able to access the computer lab there. The game software actually was far, far away at Big University which we connected to remotely. The cost per microsecond of CPU time on Big University's computer was astronomical but turn-based games like Colossal Cave Adventure and Star Trek didn't use much CPU.
We echo-ed our terminal session to a line printer so we had reams of gameplay printout. A third friend and I then wrote versions of Star Trek and a cave adventure in TRS-80 BASIC.
Among the best times of my life.
posted by neuron at 9:29 PM on June 20 [2 favorites]
We echo-ed our terminal session to a line printer so we had reams of gameplay printout. A third friend and I then wrote versions of Star Trek and a cave adventure in TRS-80 BASIC.
Among the best times of my life.
posted by neuron at 9:29 PM on June 20 [2 favorites]
(The Big University computer was I think the CDC-7600 and in fact was probably a cluster of them, as the room they were in was probably 2000 square feet.)
posted by neuron at 9:34 PM on June 20
posted by neuron at 9:34 PM on June 20
I played Adventure (550 point version?) on my dad's work Sord computer running cp/m. I loved it and spent so many hours on it. I can almost smell the office thinking about it.
posted by deadwax at 4:48 AM on June 21
posted by deadwax at 4:48 AM on June 21
Just do not forget to buy a sandwich and feed the dog.
posted by Martijn at 11:38 AM on June 22 [2 favorites]
posted by Martijn at 11:38 AM on June 22 [2 favorites]
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posted by sammyo at 5:12 AM on June 20 [8 favorites]