INTERACTIVE FICTION

by Leigh Lundin

Last week, you enjoyed Hal White‘s little mystery story. This week, I offer a peek at interactive stories.

My Scary Credit

In the transition period between text adventure games like Colossal Cave and graphics games like Myst, I prototyped scripts for a couple of games, one based on Alice in Wonderland. They were creative and a lot of fun.

The other day, I stumbled across a governmental site that uses the adventure game paradigm for education. Normally, a government site not reeking of murder and mayhem wouldn’t be of interest to Criminal Brief, but this one provides great atmosphere and gives visitors an idea of adventure games.

Play Control Credit!

Go Retro

In the mid-1970s, a computer developer name Will Crowther went through a divorce. He and his wife were active cave explorers with two daughters. A little depressed and at odds with himself, Crowther wrote an Adventure program to entertain his little girls (and surely himself). The setting was a cave, remarkably similar to the Bedquilt section of Mammoth Cave, and the girls could ‘explore’ it using one and two word commands.

The result is what’s called interactive fiction. Crowther released it on ARPAnet, the forerunner of today’s internet. The following year, he was contacted by Don Woods, who asked permission to expand Colossal Cave into a full-fledged game, the world’s first computerized adventure game. There’d been computer games before, but nothing like Colossal Cave. It’s estimated when it was released, programmers lost two weeks of productivity while CPU usage shot up.

At its heart, Colossal Cave is a complex puzzle, the progenitor of interactive mysteries. You pick up clues and find your way through the cave, figuring it out, solving clues, and overcoming obstacles. There’s no animation, no sound, no 3-D pictures– in fact, no graphics at all. It’s pure text, like a novel. It’s the difference between a book and a movie. The adventure takes place in your imagination.

Play Colossal Cave!

Before starting the game, have at your side caffeine, pencil, and paper. You’ll need them.

In playing the game, you’ll type commands and most of the time you can abbreviate. For example, you can say "go north", "north", or simply "n".

You’ll also come across a couple of magic words that can transport you.

You can find help either at Rick Adam’s page or Wikipedia. If you’d rather download a version to play off-line, you can find dozens of places to find a copy.

Play Colossal Cave!