West of House.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
>open mailbox
Opening the small mailbox reveals a leaflet.
>look
West of House.
You are standing in an open field west of a small house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
The mailbox contains:
A leaflet.
That is the opening to Zork. Infocom. I remember that company well. I remember their games; text-adventures, where you imagination was the key to a world you couldn’t see. Wow, it’s been so long, I had forgotten. But a WSJ Free Feature today reminded me of those halcyon days.
Titled “Keeping a Genre Alive”, the article discusses the few programmers who are still addicted to text adventures. Once a year, they participate in the annual Interactive Fiction Competition. The contest, just completed, is in its 11th year, and results can be found at that link. These people still write, post, and chat about these games, just text and a cursor on a screen.
Reading the article, I was reminded of just how different those games were. You didn’t see the alien rushing toward you (OK, OK, what alien, right?), but you had to imagine it. That was what was great, the sheer exercise of it all. If you gave up, tired, it wasn’t because your mouse hand was aching or your eyes were burning … it was because you were tired of thinking. The mental exercise of it all. And, if you wanted to you could stand up and grab a soda without having to “pause” the game or log out of your favorite MMORPG.
And that’s what I miss. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the occasional FPS or MMORPG. And no, it’s not like I really want to go back. Or maybe I do, and not just for text adventures.
What I miss are the days when a lot of entertainment was in your mind. Now, the game is all in front of you, on your ATI or nVidia card. And it’s not just on your computer. Want some entertainment? When I was a kid there wasn’t TV on 24 hours a day on 100+ channels. If you couldn’t find something on the networks, you were outta luck. And after the Tonight Show was over … well, cue the test pattern.
Nothing on TV? Instead … pull out a book and read it. If you were a kid, go outside, run around. Now, entertainment is very mechanical, and presented to you without the need for you to think. It’s all easy, all up front and right there for us.
And yes, that’s what I miss. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still trapped in our multimedia maze and loving it … but sometimes I look at my TV, turn it off and think … there it is. That’s what I miss.
Note: want some free Infocom text adventuring? You can play Zork, etc. at http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/ … all Java-based and free.
