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A very old game!

Total Posts: 6

Joined 2012-06-21

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Here’s a question that should challenge the historical minded.
Way, way back in the very early eighties, I was playing a computer game with a school friend. His parents owned a computer shop, although it wasn’t called one then.
It was pretty basic but a lot of fun. It was the classic formula where you found things, then used them; hopefully for a desirable outcome but often for a fatal one, whereupon we’d quit for the night and try again the next day.
I wasn’t involved for very long but I understand he got a lot further into the game and it was still going. It involved gnomes and caves and ogres from memory. I think you started above ground and one of the first challenges was to simply get in.
Does anyone know what this game was? It must have been one of the predecessors of many games today.

     

Total Posts: 42

Joined 2004-07-06

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Zork, perhaps?

     
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Total Posts: 990

Joined 2009-05-08

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Let’s see… an eighties adventure game with a fantasy setting…

Is it Police Quest?

     

Total Posts: 6

Joined 2012-06-21

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Hamham Chan - 21 June 2012 07:19 AM

Zork, perhaps?

Hey, I reckon you got it first hit. I googled Zork and Wikipedia tells me that it was briefly called Dungeon.
Dungeon rings all kinds of bells. If the name was changed, that explains why I’ve never seen it again.
I wish I could ask the person I was playing with but he was hit by a car two years back and an awful lot of head damage was done. One of the reasons for my query is that I’d like to track him down a modern equivalent to tinker with. Sort of therapy I suppose. Any recommendations? Basic “Dwarf throws axe” game?

 

     
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Total Posts: 4011

Joined 2011-04-01

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Hmm a modern Zork equivalent…but how modern? I don’t know how much fonts have evolved in 30 years.

     
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Total Posts: 506

Joined 2003-09-10

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Was the game you played a text adventure? (And are you specifically looking for a text adventure, or for something with graphics?)

Ron Gilbert’s upcoming game The Cave is shaping up to be sort of like a modern Zork. (Which isn’t so surprising considering he first got the idea to make this game 30 years ago, after playing Colossal Cave - the precursor to Zork.) And as an added bonus it has multiplayer so you could play it together, each controlling a different character. But it won’t be out until early next year.

There are also newer, graphic Zork games that came out 5-10 years ago. Not exactly new, but newer than the old text games. You can find them all at GOG.

     
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Total Posts: 5813

Joined 2012-03-24

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nutwood, I remember my brother playing a game years ago which I vaguely remember had caves & possibly gnomes & ogres. It was a text adventure with graphics & I’m pretty sure it was called Gandalf (obviously based on LoTR!)

     

Total Posts: 247

Joined 2012-05-21

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You may be interested in this. As I understand it, pretty much the first adventure game was Colossal Cave Adventure, a text adventure that was the precursor for the entire adventure genre. I recently supported a Kickstarter for a board game based on it, but the guy who is making the board game has also ported a couple of iterations of the original game to make them web-browser playable.

Here they are:

http://quuxplusone.github.com/Advent/index.html

http://quuxplusone.github.com/Advent/index-550.html

     

Total Posts: 343

Joined 2012-03-13

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If you were playing on an HP85 it might even be Gnome.

     

Total Posts: 6

Joined 2012-06-21

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Almost certain it was a text adventure. Ideally I’m looking for something similar. It was a well put together game in that it caught the attention and was doable without being too hard. It also seemed to just keep going. Wheels within wheels.

     

Total Posts: 6

Joined 2012-06-21

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Hmmm, starting this thread has opened more doors than I anticipated.
Starting from the Zork lead, I very rapidly ended up up reading about CCA, as per Mr Ed’s suggestion above. Apparently Will Crowther originally developed the game to enjoy with his young daughters. Foolishly I mentioned this in the family circle!
The rest can be imagined. I’m now on a quest, not only to find a text based adventure to help my school pal re-connect with reality, but to satisfy my daughters very real need to encounter axe throwing dwarves in company with daddy.
Not complaining, mind you….

     

Total Posts: 247

Joined 2012-05-21

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The links I provided should allow you to play the games in question. Look for the “Play in Browser” link on the left.

EDIT: Odd, the links to play don’t seem to be working for me. I’ll look into that.

     

Total Posts: 6

Joined 2012-06-21

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Thanks Mr Ed. The links to play didn’t work for me yesterday but they did today. That’s very very close to the game I remember.
Is it possible to play the game off-line? Be ideal if we could get it on to an old lap top and just keep going.

     

Total Posts: 247

Joined 2012-05-21

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I don’t know. You could ask the guy who did the ports. Here’s the link to the Kickstarter page for his boardgame version.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/765522088/colossal-cave-the-board-game?ref=live

You can contact him through there.

     

Total Posts: 6

Joined 2012-06-21

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Many thanks Mr Ed. This has been a very successful thread for me, thanks to yourself and others.
I’ve now now spent quite a while playing Adventure and it’s definitely the same (or extremely close) game as we were playing thirty years ago. Only thing that’s different is that I seem to remember getting killed more often. Perhaps I’ve got more careful over the years!
I tried to return to this thread earlier to say thanks but my virus protection wouldn’t let me. Has there been some problem?

     

Total Posts: 247

Joined 2012-05-21

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Glad I could help!

     

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