Text Adventures: Then and Now

[Flack]

What are the main (if any) differences between old text adventures and new text adventures?

Can someone recommend me a few good new text adventures to try? I need to know where to get them and any needed programs.

[Roody_Yogurt]

Generally, new text adventures don't have hunger or sleep daemons (go X number of moves before you die of hunger or whatever) or mazes. Newer text adventures place a bigger emphasis on story despite still having puzzles, so there's not as many simplistic dungeon crawls or treasure hunts.

These games seem like a pretty good place to start (most reviewed games at the IF Database):

http://ifdb.tads.org/search?sortby=rcu& ... =&browse=1

A guide for running these games can be found here:

http://www.brasslantern.org/players/how ... nload.html

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

This is an AMAZING question that us text game nerds can't wait to answer. Can I give you an answer within 24 hours? I would like to give you an answer tomorrow after I have come back down to earth.

What got me hooked back into text games was I-0 by Adam Cadre. Takes about two hours to play and is hilarious, without any crappy "I can't see the hear here" parser nonsense.

I would recommend the following:

I-0
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=a3ym4ipix7sjsfrf

Fail-safe by Jon Ingold
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=c6x835i6o9zqfc59

Savoir-Faire by Emily Short
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=p0cizeb3kiwzlm2p

SF is the longest game of the bunch.

I also wrote a game once about a guy who is obsessed with old video games. You might dig it, Flack! You can get it here:

http://www.joltcountry.com/games/fallacyofdawn.html

[Lysander]

I would add to the list of must-play games (while agreeing with RobB's list entirely): Spider and Web, Anchorhead (as long as you can get through the second day which has a chance of losing people) as well as Shrapnel and Shade just to get a look at how beautifully yet horribly you can twist the game engine before it gives up and coughs you out to the DOS prompt.

[Tdarcos]

That is, newer text adventures can handle more complicated commands... The oldest text adventures could only handle two-word commands. GO NORTH or GET SWORD or OPEN DOOR they could handle; PUT BEANS IN SACK or GIVE THE MONEY TO THE CLERK they couldn't. [ ]

Later parsers got more sophisticated, able to recognize multi-word commands with direct and indirect objects, and that could distinguish between objects with adjectives and more complicated circumlocutions, among other things... [ ]

There's still room for improvement, honestly; as far as I know, no existing parser in common use can easily recognize a command that refers to more than two objects... Possibly the parsers of text adventures will continue improving...

To a certain extent the improvement in compiler technology has probably contributed to this. Specifically the lexical analysis and syntax checking of compilers. Plus the development of newer scripting languages which can be included in applications, such as Lua, PHP and Python, has improved the analysis of tokens - which is what each unbroken group of symbols in a typed line is - potentially making the parsing of sentences easier. Some of the work in audio word analysis - I'm not sure of the phrase here - in which a computer analyses what you said in response to a computer inquiry on a telephone call has probably helped. "Please speak or enter your 16-digit credit card number."

Technological developments tend to create a "virtuous circle," the mirror image of the "vicious circle" in which each new development improves other developments and they basically "egg each other on" and cause further improvements.

[pinback]

New text adventures all want to explore emotions and express pseudo-intellectual philosophical standpoints, where as old text adventures were fun, and... adventures.

[Lysander]

Wait, wait. Is this a shot at me? Because I recall you loving the shit out of my game when you played it last.

[pinback]

No, it is not a shot at you.

[NihilVulture]

I agree Jonesie, it is the difference between the parsers, two word seach the verb vs. infinite search the sentence. I love the complexity of the new... But in my experience, it was fun playing with PAWS games rather then Quill games... Anyways, I see the two word parser as the original and THE TEXT ADVENTURE, while the uninitiated would have a harder time with the complex sentences of the nowadays text adventure, which I will call it what INFOCOM calls their products, INTERACTIVE FICTION. The reason that is, is because we created a pseudo-artificial intelligence within the compiler and parser theorem.

In conclusion, two word parser driven awesomeness = text adventure, complex sentences and deeper interaction sweetness = interactive fiction/novel.

[NIhilVulture]

Sorry Jonesie, I meant Sca XD

And sorry Sca, but I do believe you are full on!