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Ask HN: Great text based games to play?

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Re: Ask HN: Great text based games to play?

#61

Post by nickt »

anigbrowl wrote: post #43

Now largely forgotten, UK company Magnetic Scrolls produced some of the best examples in the genre - but it might take some work to get them running, as they had (non-interactive) graphics and a simple menu/windowing system which were state of the art at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_Scrolls The Pawn and Corruption received especially high praise. Hard mode: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and…

Magnetic Scrolls! Thanks for the blast from the past.

Here’s a great snippet from an interview with Anita Sinclair, one of the founders:

How do you design your adventures? We have three development systems. We've got the VAX, which runs UNIX, and all the machine-dependent stuff gets developed on that. So when we've finished writing a game, we then upload it to the VAX, which does all the cross-compiling for us for the different machines. We then have Mac II's and Xenix machines, which run AU/X and XENT, and we have sub-development systems on that. All our tools are written in C.

https://msmemorial.if-legends.org/articles.htm/stnews4v4.php

Re: Ask HN: Great text based games to play?

#62

Post by nickt »

nickt wrote: post #61
anigbrowl wrote: post #43

Now largely forgotten, UK company Magnetic Scrolls produced some of the best examples in the genre - but it might take some work to get them running, as they had (non-interactive) graphics and a simple menu/windowing system which were state of the art at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_Scrolls The Pawn and Corruption received especially high praise. Hard mode: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and…

Magnetic Scrolls! Thanks for the blast from the past. Here’s a great snippet from an interview with Anita Sinclair, one of the founders: How do you design your adventures? We have three development systems. We've got the VAX, which runs UNIX, and all the machine-dependent stuff gets developed on that. So when we've finished writing a game, we then upload it to the VAX, which does all the cross-compiling for us for th…

I just noticed that you can play all the Magnetic Scrolls games online from that sites home page:

https://msmemorial.if-legends.org/memorial.php

Click on the chalice and there goes the weekend…

Re: Ask HN: Great text based games to play?

#64

Post by gpanders »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #4

Look for MUDs and MOOs[1] I've liked and played in the past a lot of these text based role playing games, especially when I was on a shittier dial up connection or remote satellite connections. I liked Aardwolf and Realms of Despair the most. I've played the IRE games like Achaea and Aetolia way too much. While those two definitely have a great lore and many active players, I have always loathed IREs pay to win "cred…

The IRE games are very well done. I too have spent many, many hours in Achaea, and more recently (a year or two ago) in Starmourn.

You can get by without paying for credits, though it does involve more in-game grinding. For me, what made me lose my interest in these games is the role playing requirement. I understand that for some people that is part of the fun, but I could never really get into it.

Re: Ask HN: Great text based games to play?

#67

Post by arglebargle123 »

tmcneal wrote: post #46

If you're a fan of Tolkien, check out MUME (Multi-user Middle Earth), a MUD that's been online since 1990: https://mume.org/ Its unofficial community site is http://elvenrunes.com/ which has hosted forums and player-submitted "logs" (text logs of PvP fights) for over 20 years.

WoTMUD was pretty awesome too, I haven't looked to see if it's still online for years.

Re: Ask HN: Great text based games to play?

#69

Post by anthk »

- Anchorhead. "anchor.z8". Not libre software, but cool. And, one day, it might be. You need a Z-Machine interpreter, such as Frotz.

- Dungeon. That's Zork I-III, condensed. More pure to the original adventures than the Infocom's further changes. 70% of chances of being libre software in a very close future, few months of years.

- Spiritwrak. A Zorkian adventure, but libre software. Good to play.

- Spider and Web. "Tangle.z5". Like the movie "Memento", based on flashbacks on an interrogation. You must recall what you've done and how.

- Vicious Cycles. "Cycles.z5". Close to the movie "Source Code", but the game came earlier.

- All Things Devours. "Devours.z5". A time travelling puzzle. You can compile it from source: https://jxself.org/git/devours

- Slashem. Not text adventures, but a roguelike. Buuut... Slashem comes from Nethack and that from Hack until you arrive to Rogue as the origin, and that game it's basically Adventure+RPG concepts+a top down view. Also, objects matter a lot on a text adventure because of their interaction. The same happens in Slashem, combat and proper usage of objects are equally needed to win.

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