This post intentionally left blank.
1 Like
My secret shame: despite loving all the Infocom games I owned back in their heyday I never finished one of them. I even bought the complete collection for PC when that was first released (15, 20 years ago…?) and still never finished any.
I think if I could pick one to dedicate my remaining days to finishing it would be Suspended since that was the one that most captured my imagination and it had such a cool concept. And great packaging. And a physical map with vinyl sticky game pieces.
3 Likes
It’s not really a spoiler…because no one ever did it and everyone had to use the 'hint guide".
GET THE DAMN SANDWICH AND CARRY IT WITH YOU FOREVER.
Boingboing should do a bit about the infocom ‘hint guides’. Lovely things that used a special ‘magic marker’ to rub over blank pages to reveal hints.
3 Likes
A FRAY!
3 Likes
I’m finding this impossible to navigate:
s
Gallery
s
Studio
This is what appears to have been an artist’s studio. The walls and floors are splattered with paints of 69 different colors. Strangely enough, nothing of value is hanging here. At the north and northwest of the room are open doors (also covered with paint). An extremely dark and narrow chimney leads up from a fireplace; although you might be able to get up it, it seems unlikely you could get back down.
n
North-South Crawlway
Shouldn’t I be back in the gallery?
1 Like
Not necessarily. Think of paths between rooms less as doors, and more as short hallways that may turn slightly. Normally a path north can be returned along by going south, but not always. This is important to know if you ever hope to navigate the maze of twistly little passages without resorting to googling up a map.
(Though this layout is definitely one spot where the mainframe version was different than the commercial release. There was only one door out of the studio in that.)
2 Likes
Quite possible the only time I have literally jumped up-and-down for joy is upon opening Zork I on 5.25" disks for the Commodore 64 (which was on a TV tray in our living room and connected to our television).
also, a bot o’ mine: https://twitter.com/GetLampBot
2 Likes
Signed up just to reply to this.
In the early 80’s when I was maybe 8, my family had an Apple IIe and a friend of mine had an IBM somethingorother. We both had Zork and would wake up early on Saturdays and play while talking on the phone: “Ok, go now inflate the raft…” and if one of us got attacked or killed, the other person would have to wait until the person who died could find their stuff and get back. This was like OG online multi-player. We wound up finishing the game together, over the phone. One of the most satisfying experiences of my young life.
13 Likes
I remember playing Sphinx Adventure on the Electron.
Never got far, but I remember the pirate who’d steal something from you when you encountered him unless you dropped everything you were carrying before trying to get rid of him.
Looks easy now!
3 Likes
Also, my 7yo daughter is a recent Minecraft fanatic. She saw the Zork gamebox image at the top of the article and immediately wanted to know what that was. So I explained it and she wanted to check it out. We got to the trap door and opened it and then… bedtime! She’s just about going nuts right now, wondering what’s down there.
14 Likes
There’s a block in Pittsburgh that reminds me of text adventure topology: Make three right hand turns, drive a block, and you’re in a sort of canyon 50’ below where you started. (You also pass right be Mr. Rogers’s neighborhood, or at least the TV studio where it was filmed.)
9 Likes
I see someone already posted a link to the Interactive Fiction Database, but just to let y’all know, they have the Parchment engine on several stories. That means you can play the games in-browser, and it has decent CSS to boot.
4 Likes
I had a similar experience with the original Eye of the Beholder:I had played EotB with a passion, and a friend of mine (cute girl to boot) started playing it, too, and called me to ask for directions through the maze. I have an overdeveloped sense of direction and space, so I could lead here through the game blindly by re-visualizing the layout (I wasn’t at the PC at the time).
To this day I haven’t had a similarly satisfying occasion to put my brain to work, not at school, not at work, only maybe while navigating foreign cities on vacation.
4 Likes
What’s a grue?
3 Likes
?
2 Likes
Nothing happens here.
2 Likes
Floyd asks if you want to play hucka-bucka-beanstalk.
Oh, wait, different game…
1 Like
InvisiClues lol
1 Like
