[Westbullet]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently doing a study into the history and nature of text adventures, ideally i am looking for a comparative research table of some existing games.

Can anyone recommend a number of well known text adventures (text only) that i can use in my study, starting with adventure/colossal cave, zork etc...(they must also be available free online)

preferably they must be developed by companies or well known individuals within this genre

Thank you

[Karmillo]

I know theres a free red dwarf text adventure out there, its not official or anyhting but its worth a look...I think they just named it after the book "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers"

[RLacey]

Hi Westbullet.

I suggest you head on over to Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive if you're looking for free downloads. The difficulty with doing this kind of history without being prepared to track down old commercial games is that it limits your study of companies such as Infocom (though Zork and The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy are both available free nowadays).

As for deciding what games you should look at, I'm no expert, but can I recommend that you try the Interactive Fiction newsgroups (rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction).

Finally, if you're prepared to part with some cash, take a look at Nick Montfort's book Twisty Little Passages, which does the same kind of thing that you're thinking of doing and would make an excellent starting point. Beware the obsession with presentation of IF as an artform in this book, though, along with the really pretentious use of the word "interactor" rather than "player" (because IF are works, not games, they say ).

[Westbullet]

cheers,

yes i have 'Twisty Little Passages' and its a great book, i'll check out those newsgroups, thanks for the advice.