Text games of the 80s/90s era

[JamesHackerMP]

Anyone play these? I used to love them. You had to use your imagination. Was like reading a book you could almost take control of.

[Guest]

I remember playing Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  I found it very frustrating as I was a one finger typist at the time.

[scribblet]

I remember that one.. 

[JamesHackerMP]

I am going through it again, it's on the BBC radio 4 website.

I also found Zork Zero online, that was fun if I remember correctly.

[JamesHackerMP]

Here are the links:

https://classicreload.com/zork-zero-the-revenge-of-megaboz.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-game-30th-anniversary-edition

[Argus]

On 12/26/2018 at 2:40 AM, JamesHackerMP said:

Anyone play these? I used to love them. You had to use your imagination. Was like reading a book you could almost take control of.

Moosehead mud (multi user dungeon). It was a kind of D&D game. There were scores of online versions hosted by various places all using the same basic text and map. It was the forerunner of Worlds of Warcraft. It was all text, but somehow it was extremely energizing. I could spend hours on it.

[JamesHackerMP]

neat!

Zork Zero has some visual elements, but still vastly a text game. (Part of the visual stuff was to prevent software pirates, so they put some stuff in the game you could only get if you read the enclosed materials.)

Edited January 2, 2019 by JamesHackerMP

[Argus]

16 hours ago, JamesHackerMP said:

neat!

Zork Zero has some visual elements, but still vastly a text game. (Part of the visual stuff was to prevent software pirates, so they put some stuff in the game you could only get if you read the enclosed materials.)

Enclosed materials? That must have been a pro game. Moosehead sled, and the others which used the same text, were largely maintained by enthusiasts of the games. They charged nothing and were maintained by volunteers.

[JamesHackerMP]

On 1/2/2019 at 12:44 PM, Argus said:

Enclosed materials? That must have been a pro game. Moosehead sled, and the others which used the same text, were largely maintained by enthusiasts of the games. They charged nothing and were maintained by volunteers.

Neat.

Yeah, there was a calendar of "The Twelve Flatheads" (i.e., the royal family of the Empire, kind of like the 12 Caesars or something) and some sort of weird map. There was no way to play the game without referring to those things. That way, software pirates were SOL. Some of it was pretty funny.

I bought the apple version of Hitchhiker's Guide. It actually contained a piece of fluff as a joke. (Part of the things you had to figure out involved fluff) and other things. But they weren't necessary to play the game in case you had pirated the software.

 

 

Edited January 3, 2019 by JamesHackerMP