Text Based Games (tell me a few)

[LAGO]

I remember in the classroom at school they had an AppleIIe. I played some really fun text games on it but I can't remember the name to any of them. One thing I do remember was one game had 3 options (A)ttack ... and 2 others I can't quite remember.

I know my school had the Apple but I don't want to limit it to just that, so let me know what some of your favorites where.

[kainemaxwell]

I remember in the classroom at school they had an AppleIIe. I played some really fun text games on it but I can't remember the name to any of them. One thing I do remember was one game had 3 options (A)ttack ... and 2 others I can't quite remember.

I know my school had the Apple but I don't want to limit it to just that, so let me know what some of your favorites where.
Was it Lord of the Red Dragon?

[Blanka789]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text game was great (not to mention hilarious).

[LAGO]

I remember in the classroom at school they had an AppleIIe. I played some really fun text games on it but I can't remember the name to any of them. One thing I do remember was one game had 3 options (A)ttack ... and 2 others I can't quite remember.

I know my school had the Apple but I don't want to limit it to just that, so let me know what some of your favorites where.
Was it Lord of the Red Dragon?

I have no idea what it was. I'd be able to remember it if I played it though. Wasn't there a website that had virtually all of the apple games on it?

[Jibbajaba]

Zork!!!! That's not the game you are thinking of, but its a goodie.

Chris

[Flack]

The first text adventures were by a guy named Scott Adams. Back when we had our TRS-80 we bought the Scott Adams gold collection which came with 12 adventures on 12 cassette tapes. Those included Adventureland, Pirate Adventure, and Mystery Fun House.

Infocom was the next big text adventure makers I remember. Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide, Suspended, Planetfall, Leather Goddess of Phobos, Infidel ... so many more.

There were lots and lots of other ones that were by companies I can't remember. One was Rambo. I remember the game started with you parachuting out of a plane and landing in a forest. After about three moves, I would get killed every time. Eventually I figured out that it helped to hide your parachute!!! Another I remember was one where you were a judge and you had to judge cases and stuff.

Leather Goddess and moreso Farmer's Daughter both contained "adult" content. Man I wanted to score with that Farmer's Daughter SO BAD! LOL

[kainemaxwell]

One the more fun text adventures was The Hermit, which was a title in an issue of Compute!

[Blanka789]

The first text adventures were by a guy named Scott Adams. Back when we had our TRS-80 we bought the Scott Adams gold collection which came with 12 adventures on 12 cassette tapes. Those included Adventureland, Pirate Adventure, and Mystery Fun House.

Infocom was the next big text adventure makers I remember. Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide, Suspended, Planetfall, Leather Goddess of Phobos, Infidel ... so many more.

There were lots and lots of other ones that were by companies I can't remember. One was Rambo. I remember the game started with you parachuting out of a plane and landing in a forest. After about three moves, I would get killed every time. Eventually I figured out that it helped to hide your parachute!!! Another I remember was one where you were a judge and you had to judge cases and stuff.

Leather Goddess and moreso Farmer's Daughter both contained "adult" content. Man I wanted to score with that Farmer's Daughter SO BAD! LOL

I'm not sure if they're still around, but freearcade.com used to have flash versions of the Scott Adams text games.

[Griking]

I remember in the classroom at school they had an AppleIIe. I played some really fun text games on it but I can't remember the name to any of them. One thing I do remember was one game had 3 options (A)ttack ... and 2 others I can't quite remember.

I know my school had the Apple but I don't want to limit it to just that, so let me know what some of your favorites where.
Was it Lord of the Red Dragon?

Wasn't Lord of the Red Dragon an old BBS game?

As far as text adventures go, does anyone else remember the Eamon line of text adventures that were released during the Apple II days? There were about 100 of them and they were mostly written by different people all using the same engine. They were really fun text adventures that would take about an hour or so to play each. They were also free I believe.

[ghostangelofcky]

Infocom's Moonmist for the IIe was the one I played alot as kid, kind of a shadowgate feel to it.

[Dave Farquhar]

There was a series of PD text adventures for the Apple IIs called Eamon or something like that. I don't know much about them anymore except the name.

The Zork series was really good. Bureaucracy was hilarious, and I really liked that game a lot but I never did beat it. I never figured out how to get the money out of the bank. And of course Leather Goddesses of Phobos was a must-have if you were a teenager in those years. I had a few other PD text adventures for the 64, but the Infocom stuff was what I really remember. When the Lost Treasures of Infocom compilation came out, I bought it twice. First I bought the Amiga version, then after I got a PC, I bought the PC version.

[aegis]

Bedlam for the TRS-80 CoCo. You wake up and your in a small padded room. Possible directions are S, N or E....

I played this one so many times, I think I finished it once.

It was a cassette based game, I remember waking up one saturday morning and my little nephew was setting in the floor covered in cas. tape, pulled and streched. I was very upset.. But I bought it again a couple of years ago. Still enjoy it.

CoCo also had several text/Still Picture games, of which my favorite has to be "The Sands of Egypt" which was also available on the Apple II. If anyone has a CoCo version they could part with, please let me know.

[Pantechnicon]

http://www.abandonia.com/utility/WinFrotz.zip

...a Windows based interpreter of text-based games, including all the old Infocom greats. Works very well. Beats the heck out of waiting for the old 1541 disk drive to spin and spin in between turns -_- .

A few of these titles are available for d/l here (http://www.abandonia.com/genre.php?genre=text&page=0). Enjoy.

[Gapporin]

Thanks for mentioning WinFrotz, Pan. If you're into "homebrew" text adventures at all, grab Pick Up The Phone Booth And Aisle. A bit in-jokey, but dang, is it funny.

[mezrabad]

I've recently found myself fascinated with Portal. It originally came out on the C64 but I think there was also a DOS version, too. Underdogs would know.

Can't really count it as a text adventure, even though there was a lot of reading. It's more of a database browsing adventure. You have to find out what happened to humanity by browsing through datafiles that only become available to you after you've browsed the right ones. Again, not a lot of interaction here, but I thought it was a unique way to tell a story.

Alter Ego was another good "text only" adventure, though that had more of a "choose your own adventure" feel to it than, say, the Infocom stuff which let you type in whatever you wanted.

[FullCircle]

Wasn't Lord of the Red Dragon an old BBS game?

Yep. Made by Seth Able, the merryman of the inn. I played it locally until people started hacking it by sending code in personal messages. Would this qualify as a text-based game?

[FantasiaWHT]

I remember one where you were in a vampire's mansion and you had to kill him in X amount of turns before he woke up and stalked you down and killed you. I never could beat it. Ring a bell for anyone?

[Dave Farquhar]

I remember one where you were in a vampire's mansion and you had to kill him in X amount of turns before he woke up and stalked you down and killed you. I never could beat it. Ring a bell for anyone?

Was it Vampyre Hunter, a type-in from Compute!'s Gazette? That was a text/graphics adventure, if I remember right, with simple graphics. I played it a lot but never won either.

[FantasiaWHT]

Nope, no graphics at all, and it wasn't a type-in. I think it came a little later, because I remember playing it on my 386... and I think it was packed in with another handful of games... one about killer bees, some very basic medieval kingdom simulator, othello, tic tac toe... maybe a few more.

[NE146]

http://www.abandonia.com/utility/WinFrotz.zip

...a Windows based interpreter of text-based games, including all the old Infocom greats. Works very well. Beats the heck out of waiting for the old 1541 disk drive to spin and spin in between turns -_- .

A few of these titles are available for d/l here (http://www.abandonia.com/genre.php?genre=text&page=0). Enjoy.

Or heck.. just play them all on the web here: http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/

[Jorpho]

The first text adventures were by a guy named Scott Adams.

The first? They were probably some of the most famous early ones, but they were not the first. That honor goes to Colossal Cave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave) by most accounts.

(I also seem to recall that the license holder for Mr. Adams's games is still selling them online.)

There are lots of high-quality freeware amateur "interactive fiction" pieces out there. I've heard lovely things about Photopia.

I highly recommend Rematch, a particularly ingeneous use of the medium, in which you have an opportunity only to type a single command before you or your friends die in a tragic car accident. Such a satisfying game.

[Sosage]

A huge favorite of mine was Infocom's "The Lurking Horror". I remember picking the Apple II version up at a computer convention in the mid 80's at the Cow Palace (for a whopping 2 bucks...that was like...holy shit what a find!). Cool little horror text adventure game set in an isolated college building (supposedly laid out exactly like a building at MIT...so I remember hearing) during a storm. Features 1 hand typing hackers, satanic professors, a term paper and cold Chinese food.

[CaryMG]

Pantechnicon & NE --

Thanks so much for the 2 links !

The "Frotz" thingie works perfectly !!

I think -- in the end & moreso than the flatshade 3D polygon asthetic
of which I'm so a fan of -- InfoCom games are the best games ever made.

Here are 5 you definately should play ....
1] "Trinity"
2] "A Mind Forever Voyaging"
3] "Sherlock Holmes & The Riddle Of The Crown Jewels"
4] "WishBringer"
5] [Seconding Sosage's Recommendation] "The Lurking Horror"

If you can, get the original floppies & play 'em on the machine they're meant for.
It makes the experience that much more visceral.
Like I do with my Apple "Macintosh SE/30" computer.

You can buy 'em firsthand here > "Ye Olde InfoCom Shoppe" (http://www.if-legends.org/~yois/)

And email Scott Adams -- he'll actually respond !


Later!
:) :) :)

[Buyatari]

I remember one where you were in a vampire's mansion and you had to kill him in X amount of turns before he woke up and stalked you down and killed you. I never could beat it. Ring a bell for anyone?

Thats from Scott Adams and the game is called "THE COUNT"

"You wake up in a large brass bed in a castle somewhere in Transylvania. Who are you, what are you doing here, and WHY did the postman deliver a bottle of blood? You'll love this ADVENTURE, in fact, you might say it's Love at First Byte... "

[mezrabad]

The first text adventures were by a guy named Scott Adams.

The first? They were probably some of the most famous early ones, but they were not the first. That honor goes to Colossal Cave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave) by most accounts.


I do believe Scott Adams was the first company to make commercial game software for personal computers, as I think his earliest titles came out in early 1978 for Apple ][ and TRS-80. (Maybe PET?). So, no, not the first text adventures, but the first for a personal computer. Unless there is an Adventure for the Altair, which is quite possible.

[Buyatari]

I do believe Scott Adams was the first company to make commercial game software for personal computers

I am not sure if this is true or not. I really think there was another game out before his (ie Zork or CC ) but Scott Adams believes this and states it on his website.