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Saturday
March 20, 2010 Since 1922 |
Text adventures: Gamer old-school
By Aaron Barbee
Contributor Published July 19, 2009 Since I don't have any unanswered questions right now about computers, I guess I'm forced to reminisce about my early computing days. If any of my readers have any questions, please write in and ask them. The whole purpose of this column is to answer any questions y'all have. Anything at all you'd like to know, just ask and I'll make something up if I have to.
So I was scouting around on the Internet like I usually do in my two minutes of free time. I came across some articles about text adventure games and it really got me thinking, and then got me feeling really old.
Back in the day, games had a plot and, in my opinion, were certainly more entertaining and challenging. The games of yesteryear challenged your imagination, mainly because they lacked video and graphics and were almost like interactive books. They were text games in which you had to read and type what you wanted.
My very first game ever was a computer nerd's classic game called Zork. If you want to quickly know if someone's been computing for a good while, ask them if they know what it is. Zork was one of the most intricately designed and most animated text games. Yeah, text games have no animation, but Zork really sparked the imagination and the descriptions really jumped out at you. It can take years to solve the puzzles of Zork, and most have never completed them.
I think the original text adventure game was a neat little game called Adventure which was made somewhere around 1975. Adventure is a cave exploring text adventure game based on the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky. Appropriately enough the creator of Adventure was not only a programmer, but also an avid cave explorer.
In the mid 80s programmers added rudimentary graphics to the text games and, in my opinion, ruined the whole purpose of text games. Sure, text games were text only because graphics were not possible at the time, but that limitation is really what made the game so entertaining. Half of the adventure was in your mind.
Since then I've found those original text games and replayed them. I've forgotten most of the solutions, and it seems they've gotten harder somehow. I had my son play Zork, but he quickly lost interest to the X-Box, Gamecube, Playstation and other eye candy games available today.
I guess it's just the nature of the times. It seems that text games are doomed to only exist in the past and graphics and action is the dominating force in today's games. It's a shame, but such is life in the electronic world.
Check out my Web site www.TexasComputerGuru.com for supplemental information and previous articles as well.
Aaron Barbee owns Texas Computer Guru, a local computer services company for on-site business and residential needs. He can be contacted at 281-628-5099. E-mail questions for Aaron to sunnews(at)baytownsun.com.
Wanda Orton’s regularly schedule column will return shortly.
Contributor Published July 19, 2009 Since I don't have any unanswered questions right now about computers, I guess I'm forced to reminisce about my early computing days. If any of my readers have any questions, please write in and ask them. The whole purpose of this column is to answer any questions y'all have. Anything at all you'd like to know, just ask and I'll make something up if I have to.
So I was scouting around on the Internet like I usually do in my two minutes of free time. I came across some articles about text adventure games and it really got me thinking, and then got me feeling really old.
Back in the day, games had a plot and, in my opinion, were certainly more entertaining and challenging. The games of yesteryear challenged your imagination, mainly because they lacked video and graphics and were almost like interactive books. They were text games in which you had to read and type what you wanted.
My very first game ever was a computer nerd's classic game called Zork. If you want to quickly know if someone's been computing for a good while, ask them if they know what it is. Zork was one of the most intricately designed and most animated text games. Yeah, text games have no animation, but Zork really sparked the imagination and the descriptions really jumped out at you. It can take years to solve the puzzles of Zork, and most have never completed them.
I think the original text adventure game was a neat little game called Adventure which was made somewhere around 1975. Adventure is a cave exploring text adventure game based on the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky. Appropriately enough the creator of Adventure was not only a programmer, but also an avid cave explorer.
In the mid 80s programmers added rudimentary graphics to the text games and, in my opinion, ruined the whole purpose of text games. Sure, text games were text only because graphics were not possible at the time, but that limitation is really what made the game so entertaining. Half of the adventure was in your mind.
Since then I've found those original text games and replayed them. I've forgotten most of the solutions, and it seems they've gotten harder somehow. I had my son play Zork, but he quickly lost interest to the X-Box, Gamecube, Playstation and other eye candy games available today.
I guess it's just the nature of the times. It seems that text games are doomed to only exist in the past and graphics and action is the dominating force in today's games. It's a shame, but such is life in the electronic world.
Check out my Web site www.TexasComputerGuru.com for supplemental information and previous articles as well.
Aaron Barbee owns Texas Computer Guru, a local computer services company for on-site business and residential needs. He can be contacted at 281-628-5099. E-mail questions for Aaron to sunnews(at)baytownsun.com.
Wanda Orton’s regularly schedule column will return shortly.