Text adventures!

[Heretic]

been playing the zx spectrum version of dracula, dont find most new stuff that appealing but what your favourites?

your standing at the side of a road....theres a house to the east

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
> S
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
> E
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
> E
Dead end.
> W
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
> W
You can't go that way.
> WTF?
I don't understand.

...

A fierce dragon bars the way!
> Kill dragon
With what, your bare hands?!
> Yes
Congratulations! You have just vanquished a dragon with your bare hands! (Pretty unbelievable, isn't it?)

(Also, the Dark Room in the above game contains a platinum pyramid, 8 inches on a side. I'm pretty sure that's where The Power lives when not being battled.)

 

[gooche77]

Farmer's Daughter was by far my favorite. The subject matter really spoke to my 12 yr old self.

 

[Turbine]

My fave text adventures were the Scott Adams ones on the Vic-20: Voodoo Castle and The Count.

My all-time favourite was Shades on Prestel/Micronet if MUDs are allowed.

 

[Timelord]

Sounds like the old text games we played when personal computers were new.

The earliest one I remember is one called "Hack".

These four letters refer to one of the cardinal directions:
N = North or up
S = South or down
E = East or right
W = West or left

The text description in the reply would tell you if you could move in that direction:
If you could not it would tell you why. Wall, rock that kind of stuff..
If you could it would tell you what happened (if anything) when you did move.

Other keystrokes would be used for other types of actions, such as opening doors, swinging your sword, etc.

In "hack" the command line stayed the same place while the "maze or dungeon" would reveal itself as you encountered it in each move. Lots of imagination needed because it was all test, before "graphic cards".

There were also variants of this game based on Star Trek I co-wrote back before personal computers that ran on the PDP series of DEC mini computers. One of my co-engineers made some "playboy centerfold" pictures that were printed out on the LA-120 fan fold printers. The images were comprised entirely of ASCII characters.

Ah the good old days.

Timelord ...

 

[karl]

The first text adventure I managed to finish was Mind shadow on the 64 but it had pictures. Been hooked on adventure games ever since that. I still play a lot of adventure games today and I went rampant and broke last year on kickstarter with all the old adventure game legends popping out all year to beg for my money

My all time favorite adventure game is probably Gabriel Knight.

 

[ScotchYeti]

Try to go for the Babel Fish in the "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy". Gooood luck.

 

[Jan Duin]

Oh man this brings back some frustrating gaming memories. I can't think of the game's name but it was some kind of mythological story involving the ancient Greek Gods (so basically everything was possible..)
Would love to play this again and finish it.

 

[Turbine]

In case anyone didn't know, you can download and play the old adventures with Frotz on the IOS app store. It's free I think, at least it was when I got it.

 

[Heretic]

i didnt really expect many be into the genre, muds and raphical text adventures are welcome too!

jan im trying to find yiur greek gods game ive a thing for myths

 

[Carl Spiby]

Pinball text adventure...

> Flip

 

[Heretic]

your standing infrint of a pinball machine. its backglass has a buxom woman with big boobies. there is one free credit, but no plunger what do you do?

 

[Carl Spiby]

> Tilt

 

[DrainoBraino]

I love adventure games! I played tons of them, all types, especially in college when I was addicted to online rpgs MUDs, before the Everquest and WOW craze and all that new fangled stuff. Back in the day when you had to use your IMAGINATION. Some good ones mentioned already.

If we're talking pure text adventures only here's my faves:
-Hitchiker's Guide
-Zork series
-Planetfall
-Lurking Horror
-Colossal Cave Adventure(the OG of text games)

My favorite graphical adventure is Grim Fandango.

Play the classic infocom games online!:
http://pot.home.xs4all.nl/infocom/

Here's updated versions of Hitchhiker's Guide with artwork:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml

I play a game now based on the classic rogue or nethack dungeon crawl style of game. It's called Stone Soup Dungeon Crawl. check it out if you want a game that will challenge you for years:
http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/downloads

your standing infrint of a pinball machine. its backglass has a buxom woman with big boobies. there is one free credit, but no plunger what do you do?

Look at boobies.

 

[Chris Dunman]

Mine has to be Zork.... Still remember TZANTH but forgotten what it means.....

 

[Tabe]

I only played a couple - Zork II and Deadline. I found them to be frustrating. The killer was when I was playing Deadline and entered "South" and then "North" and ended up somewhere different than I'd started. That's when I stopped playing.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Zork... and I'd always end up in Hades.

 

[Baron Rubik]

Text adventures - nope.
ZX Spectrum - Yes - cut my gaming teeth on a 128k +2.

Best Android emulator by far (and I've tried them all) is...
Xpectroid by Seleuco
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seleuco.xpectrum&hl=en
Clunky menu controls but great compatibility & accuracy of emulation.

Favourite games were...

Beat em up - 'Target Renegade' http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0004087

Shoot em up - 'New cylon attack' http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0010607

Car racing '3D Stock Car Championship' http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0004904
(Awesome drifting - heads down racing)

Played a few text adventures, but the one I remember best came as a free tape on a magazine. Can't remember it's name, but the whole thing was set in a toilet cubicle.

 

[Neil L]

Played a few text adventures, but the one I remember best came as a free tape on a magazine. Can't remember it's name, but the whole thing was set in a toilet cubicle.

It was probably Behind closed doors. http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0005998

I used to spend hours playing Pinball Wizard. http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0003718

The graphics here are even better than Black Knight's.

 

[Baron Rubik]

It was probably Behind closed doors. http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0005998

That's the one - cheers Neil.