Favorite Text Games

[Microfrog]

Text adventure games (or interactive fiction) have been one of my favorite video game genres since I was in early elementary school, and they still are.

I was just wondering what your favorite text games might be. It doesn't matter how old they are.

Mine are the first and second Zork, A Mind Forever Voyaging, and at least a couple of others that I can't remember the names of right now.

[Lyricasylum]

Mine are several of the Scott Adams games, including Strange Odyssey, Ghost Town, Pyramid of Doom and Savage Island.

[Microfrog]

I'm not sure I've tried any of his games. He apparently released his first game in thirteen years in 2013 called "The Inheritance." I might have to check it out.

[rotter]

Loads really, too many to quote here. But, any Level 9 games such as Lords of Time.

[P/o Prune]

My favourite is "The Hobbit" which I played on my very first computer, a 48K Spectrum another one that comes to mind i s "Mountains of Ket" also from the good old Spectrum days.

[Lazzah]

"Sphinx Adventure" on the 32k acorn Electron was the very first text adventure I played. It was very frustrating to play as there was no save game facility, however, it is still one one my favourites as I spent SO long trying to solve it.

[David Whyld]

My favourite is "The Hobbit" which I played on my very first computer, a 48K Spectrum another one that comes to mind i s "Mountains of Ket" also from the good old Spectrum days.

You can't beat "The Hobbit". Even now, all these years later, I sometimes find myself playing it for nostalgia's sake. Horribly unfair combat system, random deaths and even a maze, but still an amazing game. It was one of only a few games that I finished then kept on playing just to see what else there was to do, and there was lots. Like having Thorin carry Elrond around so he could dispense meals whenever I needed them, or having Bard carry me around and shooting people I didn't like.

[Kennedy]

It'd be awesome if some of these old games could be remade in Adrift. An Adrift remake of Dungeon (The predecessor to the Zork series) would be especially welcome.

[P/o Prune]

It'd be awesome if some of these old games could be remade in Adrift. An Adrift remake of Dungeon (The predecessor to the Zork series) would be especially welcome.

Well, I'm not stopping you

[David Whyld]

I've never really seen the point in remaking old games. They're available right now if people want to play them.

[R2T1]

Its the challenge to remake something in a different 'language' from the original. As you don't have the source to work from, You need to construct it from the output and a good hex editor to find the strings you didn't see. Variables and counters were particularly a hit & miss affair. Some thing are harder while others are made easier by the platform you use. I have tried to make a few of these over the years using BASIC, VB, QuickBASIC & the more modern Inform 6 & 7, Quest & Adrift. Mind you it is a lot harder than you think as mostly not only is it a remake, it is also a translation and rewrite to get some of the logic to work correctly. (But that may be just me.) Mind you none of these got anywhere near to completion but I learnt a lot from the challenge of trying to do it.
However, I first saw the Scott Adams games on tape cassette for my Exidy Sorcerer (a limiting factor as to what I could play) until the advent of CP/M when the Infocom titles became available, especially enjoyed Zork I, II & III. Also played some of the Space Quest, Police Quest & Kings Quest. (not altogether pure text but there was an element of it)

[Lyricasylum]

I enjoyed Space Quest IV and I played several of the King's Quest games. If you want some good games that aren't text, try Phantasmagoria and Phantasmagoria II.

[Lazzah]

I've never really seen the point in remaking old games. They're available right now if people want to play them.

You often have to play these old games on an emulator that might not work properly, if my past experience is anything to go by. I would love to play "Sphinx Adventure" again, but although you can indeed play the original on an Acorn Electron emulator (which seems to work OK), the original did not, believe it or not, have a facility for saving your game position. Every time I got killed or went wrong, I had to start the game from the start EVERY bloody time! Still I persisted and eventually I solved it. I don't think I have the patience any more to go through that again, it took me months! I remember that I then bought my second text adventure game, "Twin Kingdom Valley", in which you COULD save your game position - what a revelation that was for me at the time!

I have been rewriting the games I wrote myself on the Sinclair Spectrum back in the 1990's. "Fortress of Fear" - of which I only ever wrote "Part 1" on the Speccie, has already been released in an ADRIFT version - avialable for download at http://www.adrift.co/game/1366 - and three of the other eight - "The Axe of Kolt", "The Spectre of Castle Coris" and "Die Feuerfaust - The Fist of Fire" - are undergoing playtesting at the moment. Hopefully AoK will be ready in the next month or so.

I have been considering doing a re-write of "Sphinx Adventure" on ADRIFT - but in this version you WOULD be able to save your game position!

[Kennedy]

If you liked the "King's Quest" games you may want to try out the VGA remakes made with AGS. Though the remakes don't have the parser of the originals.

[ElliotM]

My favorite game was Suveh Nux by David Fisher: http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=xkai23ry99qdxce3