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Jun 5 / Ozymandias

IF Only…

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Came across this great spoof of the old Interactive Fiction games (aka Text Adventures). In this case the writer sends up Zork (and the IF genre in general) beautifully. Check it out if you have any memories of that golden era and want to relive your glory days. I did. Wink

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  • Anonymous

    lol, I must really remember to Remove the Boreds whenever I have a hammer

  • http://www.testtrack4.com Stuart P. Bentley

    They forgot to COUNT LEAVES!

  • http://live.xbox.com/member/GhettoLevis GhettoLevis

    That makes for an interesting "comic"… quite fun, too, even if you haven’t played any Text Adventures.

    Yes, hit me, I’ve never played Zork… :P

  • XWar

    (the following might not be understood by those who have not played text adventures…)

    > X COUCH

    You take out a pen out of places unfathomable, and place a big fat ‘X’ on the couch. Congratulations on your act of vandalism! Perhaps the next adventurer will attempt to dig through the couch to much hilarity.

    > Z

    That is the last letter of the alphabet, what about it?

    > UP

    You climb the ladder. You are now UPSTAIRS.

    > DOWN

    I don’t understand the word ‘down’*

    > D

    That is the fourth letter of the alphabet, what about it?

    > MOTHER F-

    * allegedly a true story.

  • Anonymous

    RE: "Yes, hit me, I’ve never played Zork… :P "

    <sigh> I’d love to see these released as downloadable arcade titles… with achievements, even! I just wonder if people today have the patience to play through a text-based world.

    Here’s an idea: reincorporate Cyan and have them do a visual version of Zork (but with Myst quality graphics).  

    Sure be interesting (though I recognize part of the appeal of text-based adventures is that everyone carries their own image of the world in their minds).

  • Xwar

    >I’d love to see these released as downloadable arcade titles…

    Zork was actually released (along with most Infocom game) on the NES. Needless to say playing with the pad was utter insanity…

    >reincorporate Cyan and have them do a visual version of Zork (but with Myst quality graphics).  

    Already done. It’s called Return to Zork. :-p

  • Anonymous

    >reincorporate Cyan and have them do a visual version of Zork (but with Myst quality graphics).  

    Already done. It’s called Return to Zork. :-p

    Hardly. ;) I played (and own RTZ), but it’s not what I’m imagining… really, I’m thinking of a whole new redo. But sadly, unlikely to happen.

  • http://live.xbox.com/member/GhettoLevis GhettoLevis

    Well, think of that: A "text" adventure with full speech / speech recognition and some – yes – mystlike Graphics or little animated videos. Text-Input optional. That’s what I’d imagine as a "modern" text adventure.

    Combined with the 360s TID and Headset I could really imagine something like that on Xbox Live Arcade… :)