Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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R-Tape
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by R-Tape »

AndyC wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2017 12:40 am Generally it took a long time to get through them and a significant amount of effort with mapping and saving progress. I don't think I'd have the patience for it these days.
I would consider setting time aside to focus on one adventure, and if it was engaging enough the mapping etc could be part of the fun. But only if I knew there are none of the usual traps (mentioned above: guess the verb, repeat same thing 3 times for action, nonsensical puzzle solutions) that result in wandering in circles.

I played When Alex didn't do it last night (TAP yet to be added) and it's very good, but if I didn't cheat early on I my brain would never have thought of this solution:
Spoiler
USE AFTERSHAVE (you pour aftershave on slippers, slippers become smelly)
USE SLIPPERS(SMELLY) The dog holding your keys in its mouth is now interested in the slippers and drops the keys.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by Ralf »

I often heard the criticism of bad parsers, but to me the problem was always the opposite - adventure games attempted to have more of a parser than they ever should have. If you look to the games that spawned away from the genre, like the Dizzy series and point and click games, they were always attempts to simplify the vocabulary and instead focus the challenge of finding the right approach to a problem.
I would agree. Point and click game is actually a text game with very limited number of basic actions (look, get, move, use,talk) represented either by words or by icons. On the other hand a classical text game may require you to pour, dig, connect, eat, repair, rotate, smell, sing, decode and so on. And if the author was really mean, he could expect you to type things like navigate, lubricate, infuriate, purify and whatever verb exists in the language ;)

I have seen in a few games (or instructions to them) a list of vocabulary used by the game. And actually I like this idea, it really limits your erratic wandering in the mist ;)
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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I liked the Sam Mallard option menu, that encouraged me to make a lot of progress, but it still couldn't resist making a trap of having to examine the same picture 3 TIMES!
Ralf wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2017 1:49 pm erratic wandering in the mist ;)
If you ever make your own text adventure there's the opening scene sorted.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by kolbeck »

No, not even when trying to cheat :lol:
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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Depends on the definition.. I first played Adventure One (Abersoft) in 1983. I then played many other 'colossal cave' variants (on many machines) over the years, slowly making progress. Sometimes I then went back and tried the same things on the Speccy version - sometimes it worked, others not. Eventually I completed it around 1998. Sat in bed with a small windows portable PC (HP I think), and then went back and did it on the Speccy version.

As for any others... ermmm nope!
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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PaulJ wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2017 5:04 pm Depends on the definition.. I first played Adventure One (Abersoft) in 1983. I then played many other 'colossal cave' variants (on many machines) over the years, slowly making progress. Sometimes I then went back and tried the same things on the Speccy version - sometimes it worked, others not. Eventually I completed it around 1998. Sat in bed with a small windows portable PC (HP I think), and then went back and did it on the Speccy version.

As for any others... ermmm nope!
A mere 15 years then.

That reminds me - I completed your text adventure this year "The Firm" from Rediscovered Realms, made a map, ran out of paper and had to squish the drawing up and everything. It was fairly short but there were none of the usual text adventure failings.

I tried "Bounty" and got lost and cheated.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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Pobulous wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2017 8:10 am Kobyashi Naru -
That's the only one that I can remember finishing back in the day without using hints from magazines etc.

I finished Lords of Time but had to look up one single hint when I got stuck near the end. I was a bit annoyed with myself about that.

There are newer offerings that I've finished, like Sam Mallard and On Reflection. Both those titles adopted a modern approach to their design like LucasArts did back in the day with their point & clicks, reducing the number of unfair deaths and dead end which require a reload of an old save.

Were there any adventures back in the 80s that didn't allow you to die/mess things up, like Monkey Island etc.?
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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tried one about a computer convention, couldnt get very far even though i really tried!

Rigels Revenge, there seems to be a machine gun in one direction and then if you go into suburbia someone follows you and kills you,
if you go in another direction you get hung by your legs and then killed,
now only one of those situations is probably the one that is winnable, but it is daunting when you dont know which one
cant think of anything to try but any hints would probly spoil it
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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Wall_Axe wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2017 11:44 pm tried one about a computer convention, couldnt get very far even though i really tried!
Which text adventure was that?
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by R-Tape »

Okay Populous and Morkin say Kobyashi Naru, does that mean it's fair and something a tired middle aged man can expect to complete over an Xmas break? (For sake of example)
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by Morkin »

I reckon so - it's icon driven so you don't have to go snaffling for synonyms (good name for a prog band).

I remember dying in the game but it wasn't common, and if you use snapshots you should be OK.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

As I said before, I've never complete a text adventure, assuming 'text adventure' is about typing for actions. But if we include adventures with icons I could say I've complete only one, Dinamic's Cobra's Arc. Nice controls and graphics but very easy to complete, though.

Image
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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You didn't complete a Dinamic game Juan, you dreamt it :-p

(ta for the tip)
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by Morkin »

Yeah, I'm amazed that anyone has managed to get a screen grab of a Dinamic game without seeing the words "juego terminado" on it somewhere... ;)
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Have I told here that I once finished Abu Simbel Profanation?

... yeah, using infinite lives. Even with that, my mental health suffered a lot! :D
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by Ralf »

Speaking of menu driven games I recall there is also Spanish game called Aventura Espacial which seems to have some nice menu system:

Image

Due to my non existing Spanish language skill I am not able to play it but it seems quite friendly. It's a shame that more Spectrum games didn't use similar interface.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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R-Tape wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 7:56 am
Wall_Axe wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2017 11:44 pm tried one about a computer convention, couldnt get very far even though i really tried!
Which text adventure was that?
This one:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6788
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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Wall_Axe wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 8:16 pm This one:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6788
Cheers, funnily enough Gareth Pitchford's book is on my xmas reading list.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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Ralf wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 3:42 pm Speaking of menu driven games I recall there is also Spanish game called Aventura Espacial which seems to have some nice menu system:

Image

Due to my non existing Spanish language skill I am not able to play it but it seems quite friendly. It's a shame that more Spectrum games didn't use similar interface.
In fact it was a complete failure as those menu options are words but it also included some kind of acronyms nobody could remember. Recently it got a classic parser style remake and original author said something in a retro fair in Spain like “thank you for fixing my game”.

Anyway it was a good idea (make it easier for player) but awfuly Implemented.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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ohh i'll probably read that sometime, even though i missed these adventures cos i was playing megadrive

the menu driven games look really awesome in the screenshots
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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The only text adventure I completed on the spectrum was The Hobbit. But I grinded that for the better part of 3 years. At that time I didn't know the strategy guide existed - If i had access to that back in the day it would have made things a whole bunch easer. But honestly today you can just use the game walk through online and avoid a lot of frustration. Plus the walkthrough is a lot more comprehensive than the strategy guide was.

That said I think a lot of the value of the text adventures was one could last you months/years and the satisfaction that you get from finally completing the game is just on a different level vs using a walkthrough.

For the PC I completed Seastalker (Infocom), Deadline (Infocom) and The Witness (Infocom). These took me 5 weeks for Seastalker (its one of the easiest of all the infocom games, to about 18 months for Deadline and 10-11 months for The Witness. Infidel (infocom) is one that I would like to complete when I get time.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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So do you think just going into the hobbit without a walkthru is too frustrating and obscure?
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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Wall_Axe wrote: Fri Dec 29, 2017 3:57 am So do you think just going into the hobbit without a walkthru is too frustrating and obscure?
Try it first without a walk through, when you hit the wall, then consult the hint book/strategy guide.

http://www.mocagh.org/tolkien/hobbit-hintbook.pdf

You get the help and hints, but if you want the straight answer they have encoded it in the guide so not to spoil it with casual reading. It is a nice book, and I wish I had this when I was playing as a kid it would have saved a lot of time.

If you still can't get over a problem then take a look at the walk through/the coded answers in the strategy guide.

Make a map, (or there are now some excellent maps of the hobbit on line but I think its better to make your own...) keep a note book for the game so you can record your strategy, ideas. That was a big part of the fun of doing those sort of games back in the day was mapping and working out how the thing worked.

Hobbit is a great game, it has its share of bugs and weirdness but it adds to the charm.

Looking back its a fairly small game world, but what they managed to put into it is stunning for the time. The programming skills that went into that were on another level for the time.

But part of the fun of playing text adventures is playing them how they were intended to be experienced - well, it is like a context thing. At the time the graphics were stunning, the way that the various NPCs would seemingly behave in a non-scripted way. So even if you had a system - you sometimes had situations where Gandalf or Thorin would do something totally mental/infuriating that borks the game.

Considering how much the game cost at launch people expected to spend a significant amount of time to get bang for the buck. With a walk through you can complete the whole game in one sitting. Part of the fun is figuring out how to overcome the puzzles on your jim jones.

What I am trying to say is if you want to play it as it was intended then don't use the walk through until your contemplating calling the Samaritans listening to U2 in a bathtub. There again, if you are limited for time to invest in a text adventure from the early 80s no harm from using the walk through.

Infocom games were much harsher and cryptic by comparison, there was no way I could have finished all but the easiest of them without the hint book.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

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Not many adventures made it as far as Pretoria back in the day. I remember playing a text adventure -- I thought it was Jack the Ripper or Dracula, it had Gothic type of font, where it (or maybe a specific part of it) -- started at a railway station, and you had to cross the bridge to the other platform to catch the correct train into London, otherwise the game ends, on a train going the wrong direction, with an encounter with a train conductor. -- Can someone tell me which adventure that was?

Sinclair User Megatape 13 introduced me to Escape, turns out to be by Tartan software (who had a 2-part type in listing for Adventure Builder System, as I recall, T.D.Frost). That's the first adventure I got stuck into and managed to solve on my own. Took me 2 or 3 days. It's silly word-play: shaking the calendar and the dates fall off, you pick them up and eat them. (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6259)

Ah, and that Zenobi one-room text adventure "Behind Closed Doors" that appeared on Megatape 15. Only those two adventures I've completed by myself.

Recently, I spent a few hours toiling with the Atari ST version of Level 9's Lords of Time, and now I've successfully got a Gotek working, maybe I want to get stuck into Magnetic Scrolls' The Pawn.
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Re: Have you ever completed a text adventure?

Post by Wall_Axe »

thanks nomad, i'll try that approach
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