0:00:00the incomparable part test number 75
0:00:07january 2002
0:00:14welcome back to the incomparable podcast
0:00:16my name is Greg NOS your host Jason
0:00:18smell is away on assignment today we're
0:00:21going to be discussing text adventure
0:00:23these are computer games that were the
0:00:25most popular in the early to mid
0:00:26eighties you run the game and it would
0:00:29give you a description of the room that
0:00:31you were standing in a textual
0:00:32description just words on the screen and
0:00:35would describe exits and objects in the
0:00:37room and then you would use English
0:00:39sentences often very very simple English
0:00:42sentences like get lamp and inventory
0:00:46and go north to interact with the
0:00:49environment the goal of the games was
0:00:51usually to collect objects and solve
0:00:53puzzles with them you would be presented
0:00:56with situations that required you to
0:00:57think through how what you had in your
0:01:00inventory and what in the room could be
0:01:02used together there was often scoring
0:01:04systems that would give you particular
0:01:05points for how you accomplished each of
0:01:07these solutions but more off the goal
0:01:09was just to finish the game to get to
0:01:11the end to find out how the story
0:01:13concluded with me today are Monty
0:01:15actually hello hello Monty and Steve
0:01:19lots
0:01:19Hello Sailor nothing happens here text
0:01:24adventures have a long and distinguished
0:01:25history they started in 1975 when will
0:01:29crowler at built the game adventure
0:01:32it was modeled on the actual colossal
0:01:34cave but with fantasy elements a man
0:01:37named on Woods took it and expanded it
0:01:39and released it onto the ARPANET where
0:01:41it spread like wildfire as it was
0:01:44adapted and and rebuilt for new systems
0:01:48those to the schools that had spread to
0:01:50include MIT or a bunch of them
0:01:53undergraduates discovered it and built
0:01:55Zork his work was created in 1977 and on
0:02:00a mini computer and it actually launched
0:02:02the text adventure golden age in 1978 a
0:02:08man named scott adams produce the game a
0:02:11simple game called adventureland that
0:02:12was also modeled on the original
0:02:14adventure and then in 1979 infocomm was
0:02:17formed by the same people who had made
0:02:18Zork and they released it for basically
0:02:22every computer system that existed at
0:02:24the time
0:02:25surprisingly the Golden Age of text
0:02:27adventures only
0:02:27lasted about five or six years before
0:02:29infocomm went down in flames on the
0:02:33wings of cornerstone first business
0:02:35product scott adams folded a year
0:02:37earlier activation bought the infocomm
0:02:40brand and then didn't do anything with
0:02:42it other than abused it and text
0:02:45adventures kind of went by the wayside
0:02:47they gained graphics for a little while
0:02:49and then they kind of mutated into the
0:02:51point-and-click adventures from
0:02:53LucasArts and sierra on-line and today
0:02:56they only exist as games produced in
0:02:59amateur competitions but they are
0:03:02well-loved and have a glorious history
0:03:05that has very very few people actually
0:03:09remember given the participation in this
0:03:12podcast what I'd like to do first
0:03:16actually guys is is talk to you about
0:03:18your first experience with text
0:03:21adventures I mean how did you discover
0:03:23them what games did you play first
0:03:25what struck you about it that that
0:03:26brought you to this low point 25 years
0:03:30later money why don't you start my first
0:03:34text adventure was the original colossal
0:03:36cave adventure i played it on a CPM
0:03:39machine we headed home to that is some
0:03:42street cred right there
0:03:43my mother had a very high tech job she
0:03:46wrote later than that she wrote
0:03:48third-party manuals and how to program
0:03:51in cobol so we had one of those eight
0:03:55inch floppy dive CPM machines
0:03:58it was an altos which I can't find any
0:04:00information about on the internet at all
0:04:02i love their minutes so my first game
0:04:07was actually the first text adventure
0:04:09mostly what I like about it i think was
0:04:12that I didn't need anybody to play it
0:04:14with me because I couldn't get a good
0:04:16dnd group going and and and thus we
0:04:22discover the first common element of
0:04:24text adventure fandom a lonely lonely
0:04:26childhood and my best friend and I
0:04:29played it for months and months the
0:04:32trick about classical cave is that you
0:04:34can get all but one point and have no
0:04:38idea where that last point is
0:04:40and eventually we learned by reading the
0:04:44help files over and over again they have
0:04:47to take this magazine i think it's
0:04:49spelunker monthly and carry it into this
0:04:52specific other room and drop it to prove
0:04:54you explored their Wow and figuring that
0:04:58out was one of the high points of my
0:05:00youth that that also brings us to the
0:05:03common experience of really unfair
0:05:07puzzles
0:05:08oh yeah this was complete nonsense but
0:05:10it was in the help file
0:05:12well in the help file just said you get
0:05:15points for killing things solving
0:05:17puzzles and exploring and carrying
0:05:19spelunkers monthly into room g well I
0:05:23think there was a parenthetical about
0:05:24you may have to prove that you've been
0:05:26places with send was this randomly
0:05:30generated maze so they could say you are
0:05:33at wit's end
0:05:35yeah and it didn't seem to have any
0:05:37other purpose in the game other than
0:05:39maybe you're supposed to drop something
0:05:42there and the magazine was in the
0:05:43waiting room that's all better man than
0:05:46I am I had a lot of time on my hands I
0:05:50could have been perfectly satisfied not
0:05:51to have that last point personally
0:05:53called colossal cave trivia microsoft
0:05:57a.m estas five-point shift with a
0:06:00version of it was like five versions of
0:06:02that over there were dozens
0:06:04yeah it with the source code actually
0:06:06the original was written on a PDP and
0:06:08Fortran and I got the source code in
0:06:11she's 86 I think and it had been run
0:06:14through an automatic conversion to see
0:06:16and so I i thought well this is
0:06:19interesting i'm gonna take a look and I
0:06:21looked at the source and it was see
0:06:23automatically translated from Fortran
0:06:25and then I close up the fine and on with
0:06:26my life with nick is that the
0:06:29programming equivalent of something
0:06:30that's been run through group
0:06:32yes to chinese and back Steve what about
0:06:35you what was your first game
0:06:37well I actually didn't start with text
0:06:39adventures when my parents bought the
0:06:41Apple to instead of the trs-80 color
0:06:45computer that i really wanted back in
0:06:481979 they also picked up a couple of
0:06:51assorted games
0:06:53and among them with something called
0:06:55mystery house also known as high res
0:06:58adventure number one which was the first
0:07:02of the online systems adventures made by
0:07:05canon Roberta Williams which were became
0:07:08sierra on-line it becames here online
0:07:11eventually same team or at least Roberta
0:07:13Williams produced King's Quest and you
0:07:17know they may proceed on into adventure
0:07:19history of the various games that I that
0:07:23that we got when we purchased efforts
0:07:25computer mystery house was the one that
0:07:27really kind of sucked everybody in the
0:07:29family in hand and took up all our time
0:07:31and again it wasn't it wasn't text it
0:07:35was a two-word parser there was a there
0:07:38was some very rudimentary graphics at
0:07:41the top rendered in lovingly in black
0:07:46and white and green and purple which is
0:07:49what the Apple produced in high res mode
0:07:52I never quite figured out why that was
0:07:55exactly but at least I had the white and
0:07:58the purple and not just green that my
0:08:01friend Mike across the street had and
0:08:04then we had four lines of text at the
0:08:05bottom was a two-word parser the the
0:08:09images look like they've been drawn by a
0:08:11two-year-old on a very rudimentary
0:08:13digital pad of some kind
0:08:16you're being generous yeah I really AM
0:08:18they work they were pretty terrible and
0:08:19they didn't really get much better over
0:08:21the course of the next five high res
0:08:23adventures they did improve a little and
0:08:26then introduced color at one point but
0:08:28my mom in particular really took to the
0:08:3122 mystery Allison to adventure games in
0:08:35general and so she systematically
0:08:40brought in all the various high res
0:08:42adventures and lots of other graphic
0:08:45adventures many of which are lost in the
0:08:48mists of time and rightfully so and then
0:08:51eventually from there I heard about Zork
0:08:55in we had this massive volume of game
0:08:59reviews which really I mean it was the
0:09:01only place you found game reviews back
0:09:03in the day it was either in some
0:09:04magazine like soft talk
0:09:06or I you know some sort of hobbyist
0:09:08magazine or in this gigantic book of
0:09:12reviews that you buy we didn't have no
0:09:15highfalutin internet to go looking up
0:09:17reviews on so hi Rayna crosses or can it
0:09:20sounded fascinating and one day my
0:09:22friend Mike had a copy and I borrowed it
0:09:24and spent spent months with that game
0:09:30kept finding excuses not to return it
0:09:33until I solve the thing and it went on
0:09:36from there the rest is history
0:09:38you know if you use a hole punch to add
0:09:41a write-protect notch to the other side
0:09:43of the floppy you can store on both
0:09:44sides
0:09:45yeah that was pretty cool storage was
0:09:48not it was not really an issue in my
0:09:50early gaming in fact that mystery house
0:09:55came in a ziploc bag with one blue sheet
0:09:59of paper as the instructions and they
0:10:02mentioned something like there's a
0:10:04sentence fragment towards the end of
0:10:05that that sheet of paper that said you
0:10:08can save game as well and we know what
0:10:11the hell that was all we do is that we
0:10:13typed savegame that said something about
0:10:15overriding previous games and that
0:10:17freaking us all out and so we didn't we
0:10:19never did it
0:10:20we thought we were going to write over
0:10:21the entirety of the game and and and and
0:10:24that would be it for Mystery House the
0:10:26CPM version of colossal cave i played
0:10:28had a savegame system where you type
0:10:31save game and it would quit the game
0:10:33completely and then you were supposed to
0:10:35save the core image of the computer i'm
0:10:41still not sure what that meant
0:10:44well we we played through mystery house
0:10:47without ever saving the game which was a
0:10:49massive pain because you had to visit
0:10:51every room before you could find the
0:10:54trapdoor in the Attic you actually have
0:10:56to head with bed and every single room
0:10:58in the game and there are several rooms
0:11:00that were kind of off on you know
0:11:02branching paths where there was just
0:11:04nothing there at the end of that path so
0:11:06after having played two or three times
0:11:08we knew all you don't bother to go down
0:11:10this hall on the second floor because
0:11:11there's nothing there but a poorly drawn
0:11:13bed and a window that looks more like a
0:11:16refrigerator
0:11:17and so it took us it must have been
0:11:22weeks before somebody just accidentally
0:11:25you know in desperation wandered all of
0:11:28the room and then chose to look through
0:11:31this telescope out in the forest and saw
0:11:33suddenly there was a trapdoor in the
0:11:35room so just the let's family finishes
0:11:37dinner and gathers around the Apple to
0:11:40and says I know let's play colossal cave
0:11:42or excuse me hi res adventure number one
0:11:45ok and they loaded up and they start
0:11:47from the beginning every time it was not
0:11:50a massive game so it wasn't a big deal
0:11:53and as I said most of the family was
0:11:56pretty driven to finish the thing we're
0:11:57fairly competitive so everybody was
0:11:59trying to finish it first so it really
0:12:02was just considered kind of a minor
0:12:03nuisance at the time I mean we didn't
0:12:05know any better
0:12:06how we hadn't seen computer games before
0:12:07was a wild frontier back that you could
0:12:10do anything strange and wonderful
0:12:12technology that makes you start from the
0:12:14beginning every time as yes well you
0:12:17know i don't i don't remember what my
0:12:19first game I have a vague memory of
0:12:21going over to a friend's house in like
0:12:23junior high and he had an apple to not
0:12:25an apple to plus an apple too and i'm
0:12:28playing some scott adams adventures
0:12:31adventureland was the first but I I
0:12:34couldn't tell you anything about it
0:12:36the first game I really remember is orc
0:12:37and the what we do is take a pirated
0:12:41copy and punch a hole in the disk so you
0:12:45can flip it over and store the games on
0:12:46the other side and so you had one nice
0:12:49little five and a quarter inch package
0:12:51of the game on one side and all your
0:12:54saves on the other I I completely fell
0:12:56in love the first time I strides or it
0:12:58was just amazing and I'm actually
0:13:01surprised that that it's not what you
0:13:06guys started with I mean it was such a
0:13:07phenomenon as far as they went in 1980
0:13:12it was exciting to get sore because I
0:13:14started before short came out so i had
0:13:18to suffer through colossal k which was
0:13:20fairly interestingly written but mostly
0:13:22just a bunch of descriptions of caves
0:13:24and random treasures and then the scott
0:13:28adams adventures which are just whore
0:13:30really written so with when Zork hit and
0:13:34it was something that had a sense of
0:13:36humor about itself it was tremendously
0:13:39exciting
0:13:40plus you could take more letters that it
0:13:41would recognize words i remember
0:13:43adventureland only recognize the first
0:13:45three letters York 126 yeah that's my
0:13:50the the first game i bought the first
0:13:52infocomm game i bought and my favorite
0:13:54to this day is deadline it was their
0:13:56third game and it was the first one that
0:13:58included Feelies you know the you would
0:14:00buy the game and it came in a sealed
0:14:02inspection envelope and you have to
0:14:03slide a knife under it to break the seal
0:14:06and inside were little pills that have
0:14:08been found near the murder scene and all
0:14:09the photographic evidence and in the
0:14:14game there's a gazebo and I being 13 14
0:14:18years old I had never heard of a gazebo
0:14:22this was a strange in new world for me
0:14:24and so I knew however that the game only
0:14:27our step 26 characters and so I thought
0:14:30it was a bug and it was a gaze box that
0:14:34had just left the X off and if I could
0:14:39just briefly ask you what did you think
0:14:41a gaze box was it was something in a
0:14:45garden that you could walk into an
0:14:46apparently look out of it was a boxy
0:14:50structure like shake you could gaze it
0:14:51was out of it
0:14:52there you go that makes perfect sense
0:14:54for today's box i learned lots of words
0:14:58from from my early infocomm like many
0:15:00here or plover from classical cave
0:15:04there's a that's not actually a word
0:15:06though is it's a bird
0:15:07what is Steve still learning words today
0:15:10I think it's an emerald the size of a
0:15:12plover zeg which sounds all well and
0:15:15good but I don't know how big the
0:15:16plovers egg is a pole over zeg wow I
0:15:21remember looking up men here just to
0:15:22figure out what it was when they
0:15:24standing stones in the description so if
0:15:27you knew what those were you did no I
0:15:30didn't slide look it up to have a lot of
0:15:32experience with gays bows and standing
0:15:34stones standing still adjust the to tend
0:15:36to go together
0:15:37my my gaze boxes full of men here's
0:15:41and the I just I I mean for me playing
0:15:47adventure games and sounds like for
0:15:48Monty at least 20 and fractionated for
0:15:50Steve as well was a really social
0:15:52experience I mean we would sit around
0:15:54and play like the atari VCS with
0:15:57everybody in the neighborhood sitting
0:15:58around but they were only one or two
0:16:00really hardcore adventure gamers in my
0:16:02neighborhood and we would sit around and
0:16:03try and solve puzzles together taking
0:16:05turns driving i remember planetfall one
0:16:08of the later rape where I think infocomm
0:16:11hit its peak really in that area
0:16:13planetfall i played and my house on the
0:16:18phone with a friend who lived two blocks
0:16:20away he was playing it at his house and
0:16:23we were just talking to each other the
0:16:25whole time for three solid days saying i
0:16:28found a circuit board i figured out how
0:16:31to get that robot to shut up
0:16:32oh my god have you done this and you
0:16:34killed Floyd yes that was very very sad
0:16:37faster that that's actually the that
0:16:41that moment in in planetfall is a lot of
0:16:45people site that is like the first time
0:16:47a computer game made them cry i'm not
0:16:50going to run up to it but I remember it
0:16:52being an emotional moment that sounds
0:16:56like spelunker is weakly would have made
0:16:58me cry a little bit i was definitely
0:17:00emotionally affected by it
0:17:02by that point in the game I had spent a
0:17:04lot of time with the innocent childlike
0:17:06robot Floyd and when he sacrificed
0:17:08himself to save me and then for no
0:17:13reason saying a song that took up the
0:17:15entire screen the ballad of the
0:17:19star-crossed lovers yes which for no
0:17:22reason
0:17:22recap the plot of the previous info card
0:17:26games star cross was a great moment I
0:17:30think that was one of the one of the
0:17:31earliest if not the first moment that I
0:17:34remember the whole debate about whether
0:17:35computer games can be art came up and it
0:17:38still rages to this day
0:17:39Roger Ebert is wrong is so add money
0:17:43what what's your favorite game just
0:17:45going back in history the games i
0:17:48thought were the best were either
0:17:49Trinity or lurking horror trinity is
0:17:54this
0:17:54weird almost plotless combination of
0:17:58Alice in Wonderland and the development
0:18:01of nuclear technology where you end up
0:18:04having to go to different places in time
0:18:07where nuclear bombs happened and make
0:18:11sure that they do there's also an
0:18:13overlay of Mary Poppins and Peter Pan
0:18:16going on to it's very odd but very
0:18:20evocative and the other one is lurking
0:18:22horror which is the one that's very
0:18:24loved crafty and set at what's in homage
0:18:27to love em Brian Moriarty wrote Trinity
0:18:30right and he went on to do a lot of
0:18:32lucasfilm stuff like the dig in bloom
0:18:34city
0:18:35I don't think he was involved in the dig
0:18:37but he definitely did loam I i remember
0:18:40when it came out a lot of people are
0:18:42talking about it like it was a turning
0:18:43point that in mind forever voyaging were
0:18:45like like planetfall was you know in an
0:18:48emotional moment in interactive fiction
0:18:50mfv and trinity were literary moments
0:18:55where it wasn't just a a game anymore it
0:18:58was it was a story I wasn't crazy about
0:19:02a mind forever voyaging as a game there
0:19:05was way too much of just walking through
0:19:08the plot there really is only one puzzle
0:19:11to speak of it yeah there's one puzzle
0:19:13it
0:19:13yeah like you had a whole lot of things
0:19:15you are required to do but mostly your
0:19:17job well it was a novel rather than a
0:19:21game resisted a novel you interacted
0:19:23with us
0:19:24what text adventures became is
0:19:25interactive fiction they started
0:19:27experimenting with with things other
0:19:30than just adventure games while they
0:19:33were experimenting fairly early like
0:19:36suspended is a crazy idea for a game
0:19:39where you have to control six different
0:19:41robots each of which interact with the
0:19:44world in a different way so the only way
0:19:46to operate things you have to fix irises
0:19:49site because iris is the only one who
0:19:50can see things and then once iris works
0:19:52you can look around and use the feeling
0:19:55robot to feel what's broken
0:19:57that was written by michael Berlin who
0:19:59is a set established science fiction
0:20:01author yeah that was their first attempt
0:20:04at really getting ambitious
0:20:07it was also i think the first game to
0:20:10feature an impossible mode right yeah
0:20:12that which was genuinely impossible
0:20:14yeah you started and the world would end
0:20:16in six turns or so
0:20:18hooray just like real life
0:20:22what I liked about that game was when we
0:20:24were trying to solve it
0:20:25my friend Mike and I figured out that
0:20:28you could use any robots description is
0:20:30everything in the game each robot would
0:20:32describe differently so iris would say
0:20:34the blue thing whereas out o would say
0:20:37the thing that goes being without it was
0:20:40the listening robot but eventually
0:20:43figured out that if you used wiz at who
0:20:46was the cursor librarian robot you could
0:20:48just call everything the LH one or the
0:20:51PX 2 and that would save your typing a
0:20:54lot but great thing infocomm ever did
0:20:57with shorten inventory to I helices l
0:21:00and again was G which we have huge just
0:21:03before this podcast i was playing a very
0:21:05early version of Zork to that did not
0:21:08have g4 again and i asked i'm steve what
0:21:12was your what's your favorite game
0:21:14well it's a toss up for me I don't think
0:21:16I'm quite as as experience with the
0:21:19infocomm cannons youtube because I never
0:21:21quite got around to doing Trinity I
0:21:22think I move your ultimate by that point
0:21:24good play it now no I was I had just
0:21:27branched off onto a different path of
0:21:28loser hood at that point I was I was
0:21:30more into the ultimate wasteland other
0:21:33RPGs by that point but of the ones that
0:21:37i have played it's a toss up for me
0:21:39between chanter which I just really like
0:21:43the dynamic of collecting spells I think
0:21:46they the OCD part of me which is like
0:21:47ninety percent of me really enjoyed that
0:21:49the whole experience of walking around
0:21:52collecting spells and it was nice to be
0:21:55in a fantasy environment where there was
0:21:58less randomness than Zork and the
0:22:02difficulty level wasn't just
0:22:04over-the-top and unfair i think that was
0:22:07probably the first infocomm game that I
0:22:10played through without having to look at
0:22:13any hint anywhere it resort kind of
0:22:15suffers from the early adventure game
0:22:17problem of we're just making puzzles up
0:22:20as we go
0:22:20rain another puzzle we need another
0:22:22puzzle we need another puzzle and a lot
0:22:24of it feels like they just came up with
0:22:26puzzles and slam together and in a
0:22:28totally haphazard way I mean there's not
0:22:30really a lot of coherence in the fantasy
0:22:31world there right
0:22:32really the baseball diamond puzzle has
0:22:34no context in a fantasy settings i have
0:22:37played Zork probably 50 times by this
0:22:41point and i can play the whole thing
0:22:42without drawing a map
0:22:45I still don't understand the baseball
0:22:46puzzle at all
0:22:48well there's there's a bat and it says
0:22:51babe flathead right I you're supposed to
0:22:54swing the bat goes to find the bat swing
0:22:57it and then run in a diamond
0:23:00yes I don't know what direction diamond
0:23:02is supposed to go
0:23:03I think you're only available directions
0:23:05are northeast northwest southeast and
0:23:07southwest right and you can't go north
0:23:09south and everything says dymond I mean
0:23:12it's like a diamond shape Iran angular
0:23:14room with a diamond-shaped window even
0:23:16even assuming you have the baseball
0:23:18context that's required to understand
0:23:20the puzzle explain why it's in a fantasy
0:23:23setting again like it that I cannot do
0:23:26well you see the flatheads were famously
0:23:28eccentric and extremely rich so they
0:23:31would do crazy things like hollow out of
0:23:33volcano just store there one crowd and
0:23:36build a flood control damn yes so
0:23:38clearly babe flathead wanted to have an
0:23:42underground baseball diamond
0:23:43it was the Big Blue Ox flathead right
0:23:45yes while Duncan Thrax was was
0:23:48pioneering double fanucci babe flathead
0:23:52was working out the rules for a
0:23:53rudimentary version of baseball that's
0:23:56that's one of the reasons i like
0:23:57deadline so much it was outside of the
0:24:00cannon that was dragged from you know
0:24:02MIT when they were just throwing the
0:24:05game together it was start to finish
0:24:08written as a coherent experience
0:24:11yeah that's that's that's exactly why I
0:24:13liked enchanter because it flowed all
0:24:17the rooms made sense they you can
0:24:19understand why they were where they were
0:24:21as a result and ended up kind of I think
0:24:24a little bit more of a linear experience
0:24:26but really enjoyed it for that for for
0:24:30all those reasons
0:24:31and then second which may or may not be
0:24:35first I think I kind of go back and
0:24:37forth what it
0:24:40yes exactly would be leather goddesses
0:24:44of Phobos oh you pervy little bastard
0:24:47which had all of the humor of of
0:24:50hitchhikers + tax 7-bit ascii sex+ far
0:24:56less difficulty and more reasonable
0:24:58puzzles and except for that stupid maze
0:25:01where you had to hop every set seven
0:25:03steps and every three steps or whatever
0:25:06it was and I don't for some reason I
0:25:08don't recall that maybe black that out
0:25:10of my memory we we wrote that out yeah
0:25:12you had to eventually you know just just
0:25:14writing out the commands just so we
0:25:15would make sure to hop and do everything
0:25:19that was necessary every proper term
0:25:21number okay yeah it's coming back to me
0:25:24yeah that kind of sucked so what do you
0:25:27like about it other than the the naughty
0:25:29bits it was funny
0:25:31I mean it's all the all the info con
0:25:33games were funny on some level but I
0:25:35always enjoyed moretz keys work and you
0:25:39know I i suspect that he's largely
0:25:41responsible for why Hitchhiker's Guide
0:25:44was so entertaining as well
0:25:45well on the douglas adams podcast there
0:25:48we talked about how legendarily bad
0:25:52adams was with deadlines ran they
0:25:56eventually just kind of chuck the game
0:25:59tumors etsy and and he finished it right
0:26:02which is also why bureaucracy is
0:26:04credited to the staff of infocomm and in
0:26:07tiny little 8.5 douglas adams i'm
0:26:11actually did the infocomm implosion you
0:26:15know they were found it is as they were
0:26:18going to write new software they were
0:26:19just going to pour torque and continue
0:26:21to do adventure games but it turned out
0:26:23to be so profitable that they just kept
0:26:24going gangbusters and then when they
0:26:26actually did come out with a business
0:26:27product which was their database
0:26:28cornerstone in 1985 it fell flat on its
0:26:31face one of the advantages they had when
0:26:35with their adventure games was they
0:26:37wrote a bytecode interpreter which is
0:26:39nerd talk for something that could take
0:26:41a very very compressed script and squash
0:26:44it all
0:26:45onto a single in the case of my Atari
0:26:47490 k floppy drive and still included a
0:26:51reasonable amount of texts
0:26:53um and then they could just pour the
0:26:55bytecode interpreter to each of the new
0:26:57architectures whether it's Apple to or
0:26:58commodore 64 Monty's families CPM
0:27:02machine by that point we had gotten
0:27:04better computers at home
0:27:06ok and and so they could release all
0:27:09these games or all these different
0:27:11platforms at the same time because the
0:27:12same script run and ran on each of the
0:27:14bike open code interpreters for each of
0:27:17the machines but they tried the same
0:27:18thing with Cornerstone where the the
0:27:22product was written by code interpreted
0:27:24which meant it was very very very slow
0:27:26and around 95 you know it just the
0:27:32function of computer games is very
0:27:33different than the function of business
0:27:35software and slowness doesn't help and
0:27:37they never ported it to anything other
0:27:39than the pc well there was no point
0:27:41everybody was using pc for the
0:27:42enterprise at that point so you just use
0:27:45the word enterprise it not in a Star
0:27:47Trek context yes i know i'm sorry their
0:27:50whole their whole reason for in doing an
0:27:52interpretive database was pretty much
0:27:54out the window at that point the driver
0:27:55stock so and they're stuck with the
0:27:57overhead and they're charging five
0:27:59hundred dollars for something that
0:28:00didn't include a natural language parser
0:28:02which is what they were known for and
0:28:04the company just kind of crumbled at
0:28:07that point and it's their greatest work
0:28:09was behind them at that point i don't
0:28:12know i think that they were still
0:28:13putting out
0:28:15trinity I think Trinity was a pretty
0:28:16late one and lurking horror was in there
0:28:18last year
0:28:19Trinity was 86 but they were all they
0:28:22were doing James Clavell shogun you know
0:28:25they were they were grasping at straws
0:28:26dated plundered hearts which nothing
0:28:28against plundered hearts but it they
0:28:31were looking for new markets the
0:28:33cornerstones released in 85 and that
0:28:38meant that Trinity leather goddesses
0:28:39bureaucracy station fall which was
0:28:42admittedly not as good as planetfall
0:28:43lurking horror you know the two somewhat
0:28:48lesser zor countries that those were all
0:28:51post post cornerstone so they were still
0:28:53putting together some decent games
0:28:54towards the animated shogun and
0:28:57a you know their their feeble attempt at
0:29:00RPGs which was I think what quarter
0:29:02staff but they also they did they'd like
0:29:06border zone which was a fine game but it
0:29:09was it wasn't a coherent story it was
0:29:11just a bunch of little vignettes that
0:29:13one they were trying to add graphics but
0:29:16they weren't doing it well and it was a
0:29:17ski graphics talent tell me that that
0:29:21Nordenberg couldn't make heads or tails
0:29:23of it is not a weird game
0:29:27no I will not tell you that I still kind
0:29:30of enjoy playing that although there are
0:29:32a couple specific parts of that still
0:29:34make me very angry
0:29:35the spoonerism section still runs
0:29:37through my head
0:29:38some of those art spoonerisms keep tell
0:29:43us how angry it makes you if they didn't
0:29:48do it did
0:29:49did anybody in the world play Sherlock I
0:29:52played Sherlock know what Monty and then
0:29:55nobody else
0:29:56Sherlock is very unsatisfying what about
0:29:58Arthur never played Arthur you can't
0:30:02even get started in Sherlock unless you
0:30:04know that dr. Watson keeps his
0:30:06stethoscope in his hat it is had a
0:30:12euphemism it could be I don't know
0:30:14everything is written in this weird
0:30:16British is to use the term bowler that
0:30:18could be anything really i just did you
0:30:22know it seems like they were grasping
0:30:24for new markets like see starker was a
0:30:26young person's game and that was earlier
0:30:29admittedly but just they didn't maybe I
0:30:33was growing up in and discovering at
0:30:35least my interest in girls if not actual
0:30:37girls and they didn't grab me the way
0:30:40like deadline or starcross you're
0:30:42suspended did well I feel like in that
0:30:45later era while they were also doing
0:30:47rich interesting games like Trinity and
0:30:49learning or they're also trying to do
0:30:51games that had multiple story options in
0:30:54them the movement plundered hearts
0:30:56cutthroats and I think Sherlock all had
0:30:58three different possible plots you could
0:31:01follow which
0:31:04looks they were always chasing
0:31:05replayability yeah I which they never
0:31:09had in their early games you know once
0:31:10you were done with his work you're
0:31:11pretty much done in fact i played it
0:31:14just out of sheer a nostalgia couple of
0:31:17days ago and it took me two days and I
0:31:19still remember exactly where everything
0:31:20was it's been two decades since i last
0:31:22touch the thing but then again i played
0:31:25it again didn't I so replayability is
0:31:27that's why I have all the infocomm games
0:31:29on my iPad so i can play that whatever I
0:31:31want and feel really really smart this
0:31:34just out of curiosity what do you think
0:31:36could be used in that space of your
0:31:37brain that's taken up with infocomm
0:31:39walkthroughs I don't know it probably
0:31:42abba lyrics or something if it wasn't in
0:31:44focus on something I'm going to find
0:31:45myself west of white house and I'll know
0:31:47if it's going to go in North up get egg
0:31:49down south east open window West West
0:31:52open case and so on but the damn thief
0:31:55the randomness that was my most hated
0:31:58thing about the early infocomm is the
0:32:00random elements always drove me nuts
0:32:03that you couldn't consistently kill the
0:32:05troll or that the thief would pop up and
0:32:08swipe something and make your game on
0:32:09when we are you can save the game right
0:32:11before you do that
0:32:12what does explain this savegame thing to
0:32:14was the first of all you're better at
0:32:16killing things when you have more points
0:32:18so you should get us i only just learned
0:32:19that a couple of days ago pick and
0:32:22second you can get everything back from
0:32:24the thief after you kill him and he's
0:32:26used the nasty knife against the thief
0:32:28because that's better but the sword is
0:32:30better against the troll yeah
0:32:33do not use the rusty knife against
0:32:35anything because it is cursed and will
0:32:36kill you right you can throw it can you
0:32:39can but it will the rusty knife will
0:32:41turn around in midair and stab you in
0:32:42the throat oh yeah there is that one of
0:32:45the proudest moments of my young life
0:32:46was figuring out that the dexterous
0:32:48thief is going to be able to open the
0:32:49egg where I fumble-fingered me cannot
0:32:52you see you have to open the egg because
0:32:54there's a beautiful clockwork canary in
0:32:56it and then you have to use the canary
0:32:58outside in the trees to get the ball
0:33:01place feuding somebody picked him down
0:33:04equipment and this is important
0:33:07information anyway infocomm blew up that
0:33:11it was acquired by activision they
0:33:13spotted along for another couple of
0:33:15years and then just started releasing
0:33:17greatest
0:33:18and I think that the reason info comms
0:33:21hold up especially the early ones is
0:33:22because they're not game so much as they
0:33:25are novels they are experiences and you
0:33:27have an experience and you can put on
0:33:29the shelf and you can bring it down to
0:33:30have the experience again that's why i
0:33:32don't think the multiple storylines
0:33:33worked you don't replay Zork they
0:33:37replayed like minor 2014 einer to throw
0:33:42in another mid-eighties videogame her
0:33:45parents their anthologies the multiple
0:33:47storyline ones isn't in their
0:33:50neighborhoods is an anthology of three
0:33:52fairly boring Pirates have read worse it
0:33:58is there the airplane novels of the
0:34:01interactive fiction world I think that
0:34:04was one of the best stated goals of
0:34:06infocomm early on in there there early
0:34:09days was that they wanted their their
0:34:12games to eventually be up on the shelves
0:34:14in a bookstore you next great literature
0:34:17so i think a lofty goal that perhaps
0:34:20overstated the the reach of the computer
0:34:22game industry in this those days well
0:34:24they they continue I mean they're
0:34:25they're games continued to sell long
0:34:28after they were released which was a
0:34:29rarity for the industry usually game
0:34:31comes out those up big not big like
0:34:34today but big for the time and then
0:34:36would fade as people played it and got
0:34:38used to it and moved on but if you come
0:34:40to zork you can plays work the same way
0:34:42today that you played it 20 years ago
0:34:45that I think two is part of the rapid
0:34:48destruction that Activision made on
0:34:51financial com after they acquired them
0:34:53was they take we're treated them like
0:34:55regular video games with the other would
0:34:58keep their their seven-year-old games on
0:35:00the shelves because people were still
0:35:01snapping them up i mean Zork popped up
0:35:03on the soft talk you know top sellers
0:35:06list for half a decade and then
0:35:09activation came along and they they
0:35:11treated infocomm games like they were
0:35:13standard computer games where you know
0:35:15that the next big thing would come along
0:35:16with graphics that looked like you know
0:35:19that the pictures look like people
0:35:20instead of misshapen the two-dimensional
0:35:24frogs of some kind and so they replace
0:35:27the old with the new on the shelf and
0:35:28and they try to do that with infocomm
0:35:30and I
0:35:31I think actually demanded after they
0:35:33acquired them that they produce eight
0:35:34games a year
0:35:35yeah instead of the four they were
0:35:36producing right which is which
0:35:39meanwhile the quality went down big
0:35:41surprise yeah shocking
0:35:43that's a Zork is the Dark Side of the
0:35:44Moon of interactive fiction of course of
0:35:47Activision hadn't done that I strongly
0:35:49suspect it would have happened shortly
0:35:52afterwards anyway just because the at
0:35:54compusa is of the world plus the the
0:35:57computer game industry is changing i
0:35:59mean people wanted graphics you know
0:36:01infocomm had a famous ad where they say
0:36:03we stick our graphics where the Sun
0:36:04don't shine and it was a picture of a
0:36:06brain and you can get away with that
0:36:09with the fanboys like say three people
0:36:11recording a podcast and yes 2012 but for
0:36:16the most part people wanted their
0:36:17computers to do pretty colored things
0:36:19that moved around
0:36:22well even as infocomm they become part
0:36:25of activism still they did move into
0:36:27graphics beyond orchid graphics and and
0:36:30they weren't very good
0:36:31well they were still trying to to to do
0:36:34interpreted games so they had a limited
0:36:37amount of simplistic graphics that they
0:36:39could reasonably render on multiple zip
0:36:43boxes machines which is what which is
0:36:46what they called their interpreter still
0:36:48in cases if still 0-0 was the
0:36:51implementation language it was the
0:36:52implementation program alright you win
0:36:54these you just got told which was which
0:36:58was later shortened to Z machine it's
0:37:01actually probably worth noting that
0:37:02stock scott adams who actually was first
0:37:05to market with the adventure game room
0:37:07and if you go to his website he proudly
0:37:09announces himself as the progenitor of
0:37:11the entire computer games industry
0:37:12pointing out it is it not the dilbert
0:37:15scott adams this is a different scott
0:37:17adams no no this is the scott adams of
0:37:19the scott adams adventure games he put
0:37:21himself in the ads right get a big fro I
0:37:24think he was in the ads along with some
0:37:27very seventies looking people dressed up
0:37:29in period costume anyway but what i was
0:37:32getting too was that he actually wrote
0:37:34an interpreter as well for his games
0:37:36previous to the resort arrival on the
0:37:41scene i'm clearly getting out nerd here
0:37:43so I'm going to throw down my trump card
0:37:45just that I've written adventure games i
0:37:46wrote my own parser and my own lexer and
0:37:50nothing ever happened with them but damn
0:37:54that was fun
0:37:55nerd and I think fifth grade or so I was
0:38:01in a elementary school that had a
0:38:02computer lab full of Apple tues and we
0:38:05were told we had to write a complete
0:38:07fancy computer program and i found this
0:38:10whole thing boring and a little
0:38:11insulting because I at eros ad at home
0:38:13so naturally i hated apples so I wrote a
0:38:16fake adventure game that looked like an
0:38:20adventure game as long as you did
0:38:21exactly the right move
0:38:23each time if at any point you typed
0:38:26anything other than the required input
0:38:29it would just say I'm sorry I don't
0:38:31understand that you realize that you've
0:38:33liked anticipated demos at the Consumer
0:38:36Electronics Show by a couple of decades
0:38:38yep so when it came time to display it
0:38:41to the teacher I said go ahead and try
0:38:43it and she typed something I guess I
0:38:46didn't anticipate that word here let me
0:38:47show you how it works and then it worked
0:38:49perfectly
0:38:50I started out writing what amounted to
0:38:51choose your own adventures where you
0:38:53were presented with a situation you
0:38:55could like you know one through four 22
0:38:57pick different options but then I
0:38:59eventually did a little research and and
0:39:01a lot of trial and error and started
0:39:03parsing reasonably complex English
0:39:05sentences and having reasonable puzzles
0:39:09I you know had an inventory system and a
0:39:11container system and this was all
0:39:13without benefit of any sort of you know
0:39:15how the people who knew what they were
0:39:17doing actually did it but I i wrote four
0:39:21or five games that my friends played and
0:39:23solved and complained about the landless
0:39:26Lee I did write a book on solving
0:39:28infocomm games
0:39:30damn i'm not going to win this nerd
0:39:32battle and my my friend and I were at
0:39:36the computer store shopping for the next
0:39:38infocomm game which I think was infidel
0:39:41at the time and the smarmy guy who don't
0:39:44know how don't put the ring on got a
0:39:47needle in it well what's the difference
0:39:49you're gonna die at the end of the game
0:39:50anyway very unsatisfied speaking of
0:39:52which
0:39:53yeah what's your what's your view on
0:39:54that that was allows the ending
0:39:57really
0:39:58yeah it didn't make it clear the game
0:40:01was over i thought i had screwed up
0:40:03yeah okay i'll give you that I I don't
0:40:06think if they explained you have one but
0:40:09your dad I would have understood what
0:40:10was going on right
0:40:11yes now I think I realized it was over
0:40:14are also i probably would have had a
0:40:16similar complaint but I i thought it was
0:40:17great ending but I completely understand
0:40:20where people work were ticked off about
0:40:21it anyway this army guy that was helping
0:40:23us hurt us bragging about how we had one
0:40:25planet followed three days and he said
0:40:28that he was looking for people who were
0:40:30good at infocomm games because he had
0:40:32just written a book called a shortcut
0:40:34through Adventure land which was how to
0:40:36solve a bunch of the Sierra online games
0:40:39so what ended up happening was my friend
0:40:42and i wrote the entire book got sixty
0:40:45percent of the royalties it was just how
0:40:47to solve the first ten infocomm games
0:40:49and the publisher went bankrupt the day
0:40:51the book itself so I never did anything
0:40:53but I was like 14 or 15 that was still
0:40:57pretty neat
0:40:58I backpack i wrote walkthroughs you know
0:41:00step-by-step walkthrough for my friends
0:41:02this is before you could actually do
0:41:03anything like put them online but there
0:41:06were you know there was a brief shining
0:41:09moment of my childhood where it was cool
0:41:11to be able to solve info comes until
0:41:13other people how to do it and then they
0:41:16put me in a trashcan and rolling down a
0:41:18hill
0:41:20I ok ok I i will see you your book
0:41:25authorship and I I beta-tested info
0:41:27comes I beta-tested leather goddesses of
0:41:29Phobos and lurking horror and money's
0:41:32gonna bust at his bureaucracy story and
0:41:34Hollywood hijinks and food litsky now
0:41:39what was flicks key cuz i've never been
0:41:41sure the Blitz key was a board game that
0:41:44half of it took place inside the
0:41:46computer the computer had the role of
0:41:49you know like they have modern versions
0:41:51of monopoly where the bank is controlled
0:41:53by a little the government astok device
0:41:56that comes with it and every player has
0:41:58a credit card rather than cash publicity
0:42:00was similar where it would roll the dice
0:42:02and it would set your goals public ski
0:42:04can generously be chalked up as an
0:42:07interesting experiment
0:42:08ok it was not infocomm me remember
0:42:11seeing lots of at
0:42:12for it but i never understood any of
0:42:13them there were dogs involved i have to
0:42:16say that Greg your beta testing of
0:42:18infocomm games is pretty cool
0:42:20it's gonna be hard to top that i'm super
0:42:23jealous it I I felt pretty damn special
0:42:26and I mean it was it was just like this
0:42:29is as good as it gets which
0:42:31unfortunately turned out to be true
0:42:33oh it turned from a happy ending to a
0:42:36setting so quickly
0:42:3750 well here's my bureaucracy story
0:42:42yes in 1987 1988 infocomm was doing the
0:42:48marathon of the minds as a way to get
0:42:50publicity for their new games what they
0:42:52do is they take their game that was just
0:42:54about to come out and go to a city in
0:42:56the United States and then all the high
0:42:58schools in that city would send three
0:43:00student teams to a location and then
0:43:04they play the game until one of the
0:43:06teams won the teams were composed of
0:43:09people pulled out of trash cans at the
0:43:11bottom of the hill largely yes for
0:43:15bureaucracy which was the second douglas
0:43:18adams game although had previously
0:43:20mentioned douglas adams may not have had
0:43:21that much to do with actually doing
0:43:25anything
0:43:25his name is on the box that's an extra
0:43:28for bureaucracy the city of San Diego
0:43:30and I got to be one of the kids on the
0:43:33team which was actually highly contested
0:43:36because i was going to a math science
0:43:37computer magnet school at the time so
0:43:42there was just a hill with thousands of
0:43:44trash can lie on the bed and there's one
0:43:46exhausted bully who has to keep putting
0:43:48the kids in the trash can
0:43:50well it's a weird school because it was
0:43:51in a bad bad part of town and there were
0:43:54Crips and bloods who are the local
0:43:56students and then a bunch of us pasty
0:43:58white math science computer kids being
0:44:00bused in well it's probably good that
0:44:02your pasty so you can be mistaken as a
0:44:04Crip or a blood any rate we were all
0:44:09shipped out to these Reuben h fleet
0:44:12space theatre and science center in
0:44:14balboa park and each school has its own
0:44:18little computer station in the science
0:44:20center and we played for 37 hours
0:44:24while being supplied with endless
0:44:27amounts of coke and pizza getting
0:44:30bleary-eyed and insane by the end of it
0:44:34when you say played for 37 hours was
0:44:36there any break
0:44:40no I mean you could take a break if you
0:44:41wanted but that meant the other teams
0:44:43would get ahead of you did you go to the
0:44:47bathroom
0:44:47we have to just stand up to do it
0:44:52yeah like there are three people on the
0:44:54team you don't need all three people at
0:44:56the computer the whole time
0:44:57no guys I got this great plan catheters
0:45:00but as it happens my team won so I can
0:45:05first of all state that I was the first
0:45:07person outside infocomm one of the three
0:45:10first three people outside infocomm to
0:45:11win bureaucracy and also actually got my
0:45:14name printed in The New York Times later
0:45:17the status line which was their official
0:45:19newsletter they got sued by the new york
0:45:21times you have to change that and I got
0:45:24a cool t-shirt which I still have some
0:45:27of course you do it and we won something
0:45:31like copies of all the games for the
0:45:34school my favorite moment though was
0:45:37they had copies of other games that were
0:45:39about to come out one of which was
0:45:40Hollywood hijinks and one of my
0:45:42teammates snuck over and started looking
0:45:44through the materials because he had a
0:45:46pirated copy of Hollywood hijinks and he
0:45:49needed to read the documentation to get
0:45:51past the infocomm copy protection which
0:45:55took the form of the secret hints inside
0:45:57the documentation itself the feelies yes
0:46:00physical items which I thought was
0:46:02pretty clever because they never
0:46:03bothered putting any actual copy
0:46:04protection on their games which made
0:46:06them almost unique at the time but it
0:46:08was it was copy protection that wasn't
0:46:10really really intrusive it was
0:46:12integrated into the game and that was
0:46:14terrific you know it was it was
0:46:17something that wasn't easily reproduced
0:46:19like wasn't digitally reproducible and
0:46:22you actually had to pay attention to
0:46:24everything that came in the packet
0:46:26yeah and then so when you had sorcerer
0:46:30for example you actually had this thing
0:46:33they called an info tater which had a
0:46:36two rotating dials that you had to line
0:46:38up to tell you what color a group was
0:46:42the problem i find though is that later
0:46:45on when they came out with the lost
0:46:46treasures of infocomm cd-rom packages
0:46:49they didn't include all of the
0:46:51documentation for some of the games
0:46:53became accidentally impossible
0:46:55well they built like they built the in
0:46:57visit clues were you know the
0:46:58aftermarket in books that they would
0:47:02came with invisible ink and a pen that
0:47:04you could drag across it to reveal the
0:47:05answer guaranteed answers in increasing
0:47:09specificity and then they integrated
0:47:11those into the games later on when you
0:47:13type hint and it would give you the end
0:47:14it just it it never seemed is cool
0:47:18what's that supposed to seem cool you're
0:47:19looking at hints you should hang your
0:47:24head in shame and that's how it's
0:47:26supposed it's not supposed to feel good
0:47:28one good thing about the lost treasures
0:47:31of info concept was they actually
0:47:33included all of the maps and all of the
0:47:35visit clues in book form which was great
0:47:38because the Invisibles were usually
0:47:40written with at least as much attention
0:47:41to humor as as the games themselves word
0:47:45so they were often as funny to read
0:47:46through it as playing the games were
0:47:49they always have questions that applied
0:47:52that didn't have anything to do with the
0:47:53game just so they could have a few
0:47:55nonsense answers and then answer saying
0:47:57this
0:47:59there isn't this room in this game stop
0:48:01just looking at answers and go back to
0:48:03playing if they did they didn't want to
0:48:04didn't want the questions which were
0:48:06printed in regular ink just to give away
0:48:07anything about the game so that include
0:48:10the fake questions you know I worked at
0:48:12a software store years and years and
0:48:15years ago and people would try and
0:48:17return the Invisibles after having used
0:48:19them
0:48:19she's no use to me now how a no no ma'am
0:48:24I'm sorry that that you you can't no
0:48:26sorry
0:48:28yes you can see the manager
0:48:31I'll be right back so you guys play text
0:48:34adventures anymore have you had any
0:48:36other than the original you can go back
0:48:38and play the old ones but they're still
0:48:39being produced and there's a a small but
0:48:42very vibrant community that that is
0:48:44still making games if you have you
0:48:46played any of these anytime recently I
0:48:49have
0:48:49and I'm surprised if you watch the
0:48:53documentary get lamp which is a
0:48:55documentary about text adventures the
0:48:57DVD comes with about fifty i think text
0:49:00adventures on the disk
0:49:02there's an ipad app fronts
0:49:06yeah frost comes with a couple hundred
0:49:08yeah i'm looking at it now I played two
0:49:11or three modern games i played vespers
0:49:15which is this game where you're a month
0:49:18trapped in a monastery at the top of the
0:49:20mountain while everybody dies of
0:49:22playground you so any kind of a downer
0:49:25okay well you're on top of a mountain
0:49:29that's really kind of the only way you
0:49:31can go and there's a game called
0:49:35fotopedia phot OPI a which is
0:49:40technically a text adventure in that
0:49:43you're entering commands and it's got a
0:49:46text adventure interface but really it's
0:49:49about a short story about somebody dying
0:49:50in a car crash and are you the that
0:49:54person you're everybody it's super
0:49:56postmodern and I get the feeling that
0:49:58people have gotten tired of texting
0:50:00ventures as games and are really trying
0:50:02to branch out do text adventures as
0:50:04literature or text adventures as our or
0:50:07drag actually the game I was going to
0:50:09mention his lost pig which one the IAF
0:50:11competition
0:50:12oh yeah two or three years ago it's just
0:50:15a bug
0:50:15I hadn't played games in eons mean in
0:50:20you know since the Paleozoic and it was
0:50:24great fun because it's so highly
0:50:26polished that it was a reintroduction to
0:50:30the genre but I haven't sat like I said
0:50:33my kids down a couple years ago and try
0:50:35to get them interested in his work and
0:50:37they got it but they just didn't follow
0:50:40up there right now they're currently
0:50:41obsessed with minecraft um but they
0:50:45wandered around House little bit they
0:50:47got inside and then they just drift away
0:50:49from it which was disappointing and I
0:50:51want to try again with lost pig just
0:50:53because it's so funny and it's so well
0:50:56done
0:50:57here's one of the room descriptions from
0:50:58lost pig fountain room all wall in this
0:51:02room glow
0:51:03it bright just like daytime except that
0:51:05instead of sun it wall that glow and set
0:51:08of grass and tree and square room with
0:51:10four wall and instead of outside it all
0:51:12underground but beside those things it
0:51:14just like it will keep going out to east
0:51:17west but normal doorway go north and
0:51:19southeast and southwest in middle of
0:51:21room there fountain but found to not
0:51:23have any water south wall have big
0:51:25curtain hanging on it big here to pick
0:51:28look over then pick look away
0:51:30you're basically paying a caveman trying
0:51:32to get his pig back
0:51:33the pig is great in that game too it's
0:51:35so well-written becomes even though it
0:51:39has obviously no no dialogue to speak of
0:51:42it's it's a descriptive text about the
0:51:45pigs is so well done that it's probably
0:51:48one of the most memorable characters and
0:51:49interactive fiction that i can remember
0:51:51but that's what struck me was that the
0:51:53pros of the game is written from your
0:51:56perspective which you know usually
0:51:58there's descriptions of things going on
0:52:00but I've never seen the descriptions
0:52:02written as a the character would
0:52:05perceive them
0:52:06yeah a lot of info cod games are written
0:52:09from a sarcastic third person pointed
0:52:12right you right you you are here witness
0:52:15had some Raymond Chandler qualities to
0:52:20the writing but not a lot and lurking
0:52:23horror was supposed to be HP Lovecraft
0:52:24but yeah they were written as they they
0:52:28were written by an author rather than
0:52:29writing as the perspective of the
0:52:32character and when the character has
0:52:35limited mental capacity in the
0:52:37vocabulary you end up with something
0:52:40like lost pig and I thought that was
0:52:41really fun and really different and
0:52:43something even 30 years into the sauna
0:52:45that I had never seen before
0:52:47yeah so I've i actually did play lost
0:52:49pig because when i downloaded frost it
0:52:51was recommended as has a fairly easy and
0:52:54good first place to start for
0:52:56interacting interactive fiction but I
0:52:59haven't really explored much on the
0:53:02modern stuff because you know you and I
0:53:06well both of you and I the plural you
0:53:09use know that that
0:53:15that nerds generally are not great
0:53:17writers and they tend to write pretty
0:53:21schlocky pretty a derivative stuff and
0:53:25so I I'm a little afraid to take a
0:53:27chance on some random guy that you know
0:53:30they posted to the IAF archive and i
0:53:33still have enough up the old infocomm
0:53:35games that i haven't played that I can
0:53:37still go back if I feel need and and and
0:53:41give one of those old games a shot now i
0:53:43have actually considered maybe playing a
0:53:45i guess a couple of there were a couple
0:53:48of games that were written a few years
0:53:49back by Yahtzee and crawshaw does the 0
0:53:53punctuation reviews on their hilarious
0:53:56so i imagine those are those are
0:53:58probably pretty good although it's hard
0:54:01to say that I assume he doesn't use the
0:54:03same kind of a rapid fire style and his
0:54:06adventure are no spaces in this
0:54:07description i can't read any of this
0:54:09that would get fairly tedious I i find i
0:54:12don't have the attention span anymore
0:54:14plus have you seen Skyrim man that
0:54:17thing's beautiful i love text adventures
0:54:19but it's really really hard to not just
0:54:22stare it a beautifully rendered portal 2
0:54:26or something
0:54:27yeah yeah that's I i find that what
0:54:30mommy said about skyrim kind of applies
0:54:32to me too is that I i have such limited
0:54:33time these days
0:54:3522 game that i can go back and play an
0:54:39old text adventure and spend the
0:54:42inordinate amount of time it takes to
0:54:43really figure all the puzzles out and
0:54:45all that stuff
0:54:46or i could spend 20 minutes walking
0:54:48around oblivion you know slaying goblins
0:54:50and having sadly a more rich experience
0:54:55really playing that and then I i could
0:54:57going back the old text games much as I
0:54:59love them
0:55:00most games these days don't require a
0:55:02pad of graph paper by your side at all
0:55:04times and how much how much of our
0:55:07affection for these games is just
0:55:09nostalgia for me i'd say about
0:55:1160-percent the really good ones
0:55:1561-62 point hey I mean yes they hit me
0:55:20at exactly the right age but the good
0:55:22ones are still really good
0:55:24mhm like if you see if somebody is
0:55:26willing to spend the time to play
0:55:28through planet
0:55:28fall Floyd's death is still a really
0:55:32good moment
0:55:34damn it and I'll fight the man who says
0:55:37otherwise i love these games i mean they
0:55:39affected my childhood they they are
0:55:43signposts for sadly what I've become
0:55:48but I don't know that I would play them
0:55:52these days I don't know that my kids
0:55:53have an interest in playing them and I
0:55:55just wonder if they were such a product
0:55:57of their time and of the technology that
0:55:59something like that is not going to
0:56:02happen again
0:56:03what if you've displayed them in a
0:56:06different context at one point somebody
0:56:08had set up an aimbot that would place
0:56:11York with you that was a friend of mine
0:56:14actually and ebay oh well I thought it
0:56:16was a brilliant idea
0:56:18did either of you guys ever play any of
0:56:19the legend games after infocomm went
0:56:23kaput a couple of the guys from infocomm
0:56:26Steve maretskiy and Bob Bates who did
0:56:30that
0:56:32sadly is only really known for having
0:56:34done Sherlock and Arthur but they got
0:56:37together and formed their own company
0:56:39they're crowning achievement they put
0:56:41together again called time quest which
0:56:43is effectively you're you're following
0:56:47along behind a guy who's it was not some
0:56:51evil duties run across the time machine
0:56:53and he's gone to various periods in
0:56:55history and screwed things up and
0:56:56basically you're part of some kind of a
0:56:59you know time police department that has
0:57:02to go back in time and fix these
0:57:04problems this guy is caused and it's
0:57:06really really well done it's probably
0:57:08one of the best adventure games that
0:57:10I've ever played
0:57:11it's well worth digging up and and
0:57:13giving a try
0:57:14never even heard of it they went to more
0:57:16of a point and click format at one point
0:57:18and they did that came based on what
0:57:21they did a couple of sample games
0:57:22laurent yeah
0:57:25and something based on Shannara sorry
0:57:33going
0:57:34yes and but maretskiy continue to make
0:57:36games and he put together something I
0:57:38think his last game for them was a super
0:57:40hero League of hoboken which was really
0:57:43funny and really well done to so it's
0:57:46worth trying to pick those up if you can
0:57:47find them is it Murray or merced ski
0:57:50maretskiy yeah I've been pronouncing it
0:57:54wrong for two-and-a-half decades nice
0:57:57days boxes keeping it on that note I'm
0:58:03going to end the podcast this podcast is
0:58:05over i would like to thank our
0:58:07participants today Steve let's thank you
0:58:10Greg
0:58:11it's been a spin experience and Monty
0:58:13Ashley thank you good hosting reg and
0:58:17score
0:58:20[Music]
0:58:38Roger Ebert is wrong w always look like
0:58:47he's smiling these days
0:58:48yeah he looks like he's really enthused
0:58:51about what happened to those pictures he
0:58:55looks like you saying hi like somebody
0:58:58just told him to say chin up Roger
0:59:00attended oh if only he could chin up
0:59:06we seem to be wondering where yes yes
0:59:10look what's wrong with nostalgia i
0:59:12enjoyed something is a youth and now I
0:59:14get to keep doing it
0:59:15half of the twilight zone episodes are
0:59:17about how that's good for you
0:59:20don't you mean 60-percent we're done
0:59:25here yeah