Re: FREE GAME: Return of the Phantom

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 10:58:05 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

I have fond memories of the simple text adventures on the Specky 48k
(with even more simple names such as Adventure A with the follow up
being Adventure B) in the early days as that was one of the staples
along with arcade games. It didn't take long for devs. to be more
ambitious and you got titles like Sherlock, Valhalla and even hybrids
such as The Forth Protocol.

The nostalgia is bringing a tear to me eye!

Even on PC, text adventures lasted surprisingly long. I always thought
text-adventures as mainly an 8-bit thing; a genre that had its heyday
in the very early 80s but was quickly supplanted by more graphical
fare. But even into the 90s, there were still commercially-released
text-adventure games (albeit enhanced with pictures). Games like
Legend's "Homeworld" and "Spellcasting" series, or smaller titles like
"Scapeghost", "Transylvania", "Demoniak" and numerous games from
Magnetic Scrolls (although the last were ports of older games).

The genre of course exists to this day, but it's incredibly niche and
most releases are freeware put out by dedicated modders. There's a
host of great games on IFDB.org for those still inclined towards
interactive fiction.

Amongst all examples of the genre, I probably enjoyed "Portal" the
most (no, not THAT one; the game released in 1987). Although purists
might argue it's not really a text-adventure, since there's no
parser... and really, no game. It's more akin to a 'walking
simulator', except you're browsing through a database trying to piece
together the story (there are no real puzzles; the trigger to open new
articles is reading older ones). But it was a story told almost
entirely through text, so I think it qualifies. ;-)