Interactive Fiction/Text Adventures for newcomers

[v1rus]

I started getting into this. Playing Adventureland right now, with some dungeon synth in the background. Its quite comfy.

Fuck me if I know why I started with Adventureland, I prolly thought its a version of Colossal Cave Adventure or something. Will give that one a try as soon as I finish this.

 

[fuzz]

Got scarred early on with Hobbit from 1983, which is in real-time. Holy shit what a brutal introduction to the genre that was. I'm finishing reading the first area's description, apparently Gandalf already decided to pass me the map. Picture me trying to figure out how the interface even works, seeing what I actually can do by typing out full sentences, suddenly Gandalf and Thorin leave. What the fuck. I figure out how to follow them and try to talk to Gandalf but by the time I finish entering the command, he leaves again. So I go to the next location and promptly get eaten by a Troll. Game over.
Haven't tried any other text-adventures for at least two decades after that.

Few years back I've come across "The Curse of Rabenstein". After browsing the manual I figured out it was time to try those text-adventure games again. Turns out not all of them are real-time and it's really fun. It's cool to use pen an paper for taking notes and drawing the game's layout. Since then I've discovered ifdb.org and am trying titles listed in various competitions there. Sadly haven't come across any that actually have illustrations, any recommendations on text-adventures with those?

Also, Raben has gorgeous illustrations!

Spoiler

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Got scarred early on with Hobbit from 1983, which is in real-time. Holy shit what a brutal introduction to the genre that was. I'm finishing reading the first area's description, apparently Gandalf already decided to pass me the map. Picture me trying to figure out how the interface even works, seeing what I actually can do by typing out full sentences, suddenly Gandalf and Thorin leave. What the fuck. I figure out how to follow them and try to talk to Gandalf but by the time I finish entering the command, he leaves again. So I go to the next location and promptly get eaten by a Troll. Game over.
Haven't tried any other text-adventures for at least two decades after that.

Oh, god, I feel you there. It wasn't the first game in the genre I played, but it was the first commercial game I played. Didn't really scar me on anything except real-time text adventures. Thankfully those are rare, but I'm impressed by anyone's ability to beat that game. Even the more common games where NPCs are capable of wandering around can be a bit tricky.
As to the text adventures with illustrations bit, while I don't have any suggestions specifically, I can direct you to a proper search term on IFDB.
That said, I do have some rough understanding of a few titles,
Magnetic Scrolls are commonly cited as one of the best classic-era companies and their titles have graphics. I would warn you that these titles are very hard.
Scott Adams is a personal favorite of mine, however the graphical versions of his games are inferior to the text-only ones.

 

[Jigby]

BBC has a 30th anniversary version of Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide on their website. It runs with some illustrations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-game-30th-anniversary-edition
Sadly it's a web app and you can't really download it. I played it in a separate pinned tab with just the url to the web app and fullscreen zoomed in. https://i.imgur.com/z99X3Pg.png

and for the zx spectrum/commodore style you've got https://sunteam.itch.io/golden-seas and https://github.com/stefanbylund/zxnext_level9 of varying quality


Also there's the classic adventurer webzine http://classicadventurer.co.uk/

 

[Rincewind]

Scott Adams is a personal favorite of mine, however the graphical versions of his games are inferior to the text-only ones.

Seconding Scott Adams, I've recently completed Adventureland and really enjoyed it. Out of interest, why do you find the graphical versions inferior? Are the puzzles different? I played the much later C64 version that has illustrations, but I can't compare it to anything as that's the only version I ever played.

Magnetic Scrolls are commonly cited as one of the best classic-era companies and their titles have graphics. I would warn you that these titles are very hard.

They're definitely considered one of the hardest ones. Their games assume the player is well familiar with previous famous adventure games as they're kind of subverting well established tropes. They started producing these games when the text adventure genre started getting a bit stale in the UK, so it makes perfect sense — they are really designed with seasoned adventurers in mind.

BBC has a 30th anniversary version of Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide on their website. It runs with some illustrations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-game-30th-anniversary-edition

That's nice, but the Hitchhiker's Guide is considered to be one of the most difficult adventures ever, probably a horrible choice for a newcomer.

Also there's the classic adventurer webzine http://classicadventurer.co.uk/

I love that magazine, I made a thread about it a while ago. Highly recommended, you'll find many forgotten treasures there!


As for more recommendations, I played this one for a little bit and it seemed pretty cool. I recommend the fan-remastered C64 version:

https://www.indieretronews.com/2021/04/kayleth-brilliant-text-adventure-game.html

I haven't played this one, but heard only good things and it's supposed to be friendly to newcomers, it's not overly hard. Those screenshots seem ultra-cool, pick your favourite platform!

https://8bitgames.itch.io/hibernated1

 

[7h30n]

MRY thanks for recommending Photopia and where to go next. I've never played any of the text-adventures or IF before. I did dabble a bit with Colossal Cave's Adventure (via bsdgames package on Linux), but I didn't get far, and I lost my map & notes

Anyways, I've just finished Photopia, and oh boy, that was incredibly and unexpectedly very evocative. I'll have to go through it again! I would've liked it to be a bit more exploratory, and not so obviously linear... Either way, I've immediately recommended it to my friends (who also never played anything like that), it was that exhilarating!

 

[f2a]

A very good, very short adventure that highlights IF potential is Winter Storm Draco. Writing stile is absolutely non flowery, interactions and puzzles make sense, immersion extremely good.

In general I shy away from old IFs: as with RPGs, user experience has become better in the last decade and you would never tell a newcomer “play wizardy” because most old games, despite historical merits, simply were rougher around the edges. I never liked Photopia, I consider it pretentious and not much interactive. In general for old ones you need to draw a map somehow.

Another great one is Weird City Interloper, almost all conversation based where you advance by digging up new topics. If you like lovecraftian horror: Theatre.

 

[Aemar]

It's a part of gaming that has absolutely skipped me by but i hear there are a ton of games and competitions being made all the time, some really clever and amazing games having come out of it...

Same. Is there somewhere a more comprehensive list of text adventures?

 

[f2a]

Is there somewhere a more comprehensive list of text adventures?

Your best bet is IFDB. Not everything is there but the database is high quality, as are the reviews.

 

[Tweed]

Wishbringer is pretty ideal for a newcomer, if you can get it running.

 

[v1rus]

Wishbringer is pretty ideal for a newcomer, if you can get it running.

AFAIK, ScummVM can run all of them without any problems.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Wishbringer is pretty ideal for a newcomer, if you can get it running.

AFAIK, ScummVM can run all of them without any problems.

Just use Frotz, or one of the million other flavours of Z-machine interpreter. Infocom games are ridiculously easy to get running.

 

[v1rus]

Wishbringer is pretty ideal for a newcomer, if you can get it running.

AFAIK, ScummVM can run all of them without any problems.

Just use Frotz, or one of the million other flavours of Z-machine interpreter. Infocom games are ridiculously easy to play.

I guess Frotz also works with non-Infocom IF games?

I like having to use the least amount of programs possible, and I love ScummVM for its general compatibility and ease of use with various point and click games. Would consider switching to something differetn for IF games if it can launch all of them and has some nice perks.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Wishbringer is pretty ideal for a newcomer, if you can get it running.

AFAIK, ScummVM can run all of them without any problems.

Just use Frotz, or one of the million other flavours of Z-machine interpreter. Infocom games are ridiculously easy to play.

I guess Frotz also works with non-Infocom IF games?

I like having to use the least amount of programs possible, and I love ScummVM for its general compatibility and ease of use with various point and click games. Would consider switching to something differetn for IF games if it can launch all of them and has some nice perks.

Only for Z-machine files, so not for most games. If you've already got ScummVM and it's working perfectly I'm sure it's fine, it's just a bit overkill for Infocom games if that's all you're getting it for.

 

[f2a]

Your one stop shop for running Interactive Fiction is Gargoyle: Gargoyle is open source, gratis, multiplatform, can play all the major IF format (Alan, Z-machine, Tads, Gluxe, many more!), works on contemporary and legacy productions alike.

 

[luj1]

Age of Fable, if its still online, is amazing

 

[Morgoth]

This sounds interesting:

 

[f2a]

This sounds interesting:

A friend of mine played it and loved it, I still have to tackle it.

It apparently is very good but also Infocom-age, which means you *need* to draw your own map or you will get lost easily.

 

[asper]

Anchorhead is a classic, I believe mostly because of the excellent writing. A very rare example of Lovecraft done right.
I have not finished it, but always have a great time with it whenever I get back to it. There is one maze, but it's apparently optional.
Nice touch are NPC's who have schedules and walk around.
Would recommend for IF noobs even, it is very easy to get into.

A while back it even got a Steam release, which adds some pictures: https://store.steampowered.com/app/726870/Anchorhead/

In a different vein, one I had tons of fun with, and is also not too difficult, is Lost Pig, about an Orc searching for his lost pig. Written from the Orc's perspective, humorous