In reply to the subject: I tried playing A Mind Forever Voyaging (Infocom) some 15 years ago, but kind of gave up after a while. Recently restarted it, and I hope I can stick with it this time around.
Absolutely. Back in the late 90’s, I was heavily into playing MUDs (Multi User Dungeons) for a while, which follow similar mechanics. Think of it as a text-based MMORPG predecessor. Now, there were many applications that would allow you to connect to a MUD server, but the most popular ones offered auto-mapping as one of their convenience features. Lifesaver! For text adventures, just use grid paper.
I believe some IF parsers also offer similar features, although I’m tempted to hook a simple Frotz up to some telnet port and see if I can get automap to work in a MUD client.
There’s still an active community around Interactive Fiction, and one of the games I really enjoyed was the short story “9:05” by Adam Cadre. You can download it here or play it online at his website.
Out of curiosity, how are you playing it? In a very similar way, I’m trying Suspended again, I remember starting it when I was in high school, but I don’t think I ever finished. I’m using the iPad Infocom app, although I think I still have a Infocom collection CD I bought with the files for the PC, so I could run it in an interpreter under Windows, like I do many new IF games.
Yes, in fact @LowLevel recently pointed out a good one, which I tried and worked for me as well, in this post:
Frotz in a terminal. I’m currently building some tooling in Python to help me a bit, but didn’t get far yet. So far, only the decoder wheel is implemented as a standalone script. Been looking at some Z-Code libraries for Python in the hopes of creating a simple console application that can run the game and accomodate such tools and a note taking app, search through the transcript, etc… So I’m probably gonna get distracted with the tooling rather than playing the actual game…
You can try Zork 1 online here (textadventures.co.uk). They can also be downloaded from IFDB or infocom-if.org. However, you will need to install your own interpeter ro run with the .DAT or .z5 files, or run the original executables in a 32-bit command-window, or with DOSBox.
Thank you for these links! I think I will go for DOSBox.
It’s a pity though that there doesn’t seem to be any chance for getting a version of Zork for an old home computer. On the other hand, DOS has become sufficiently nostalgic already.
Yes. And the sword begins to glow blueish whenever a troll is near. I have fought the troll in the cellar. Funnily, I can only make him unconscious while he is able to kill me.
It actually feels like an RPG rather than like a typical adventure game, but maybe gamers didn’t differentiate as strictly between RPGs and adventure games back in the early 80s as they have done since the 90s.
By the way, the Loud Room reminded me a bit of Zak, because you cannot think there and therefore you get silly answers to your commands there.
Have you checked out the map? It won´t spoil you puzzle but is actually really helpful. Of course you can always draw one yourself while playing along as on those old Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy Books (which are also not unlike Zork).
I did a map myself containing all rooms I have visited up to now, but it’s a bit confusing. Do you mean the map which was included in the box? I think that it’s not very detailed.
Yes that map helped me a lot when playing the game. The high quality of the design makes it look official, but looking at the copyright it seems like it was actually designed by players. But it´s very good.
I also like that if you shrink your browser window down, it switches to a text-only window, without all the extras.
I’m not sure what they changed from the 20th anniversary edition - I remember playing that, well, about 10 years ago .
Oh, I just found their FAQ - which is pretty funny. In their they explain it’s text-only on mobile devices by default, but that can be changed by using the ‘verbose’ command. (‘terse’ to go back). Cool, I’ll have to try that.
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I like how it turns into a conversation. They’ve done a good job of doing the whole thing in Adams’ style.
