Text-based games!(?)

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨brewbellyblueberry@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨retrogaming@lemmy.world⁩

Even though we got a computer in the mid to late 90’s, a shitty DOS-box that no-one kind of really knew how to do anything with, I was infinitely interested in anything to do with it. I remember playing Guerrilla Wars and some dungeon crawlers on it and such, but I feel like I almost entirely missed out on text-based games. I vaguely remember playing two, but I guess I was just excited about computer graphics or something that I didn’t really care for them or the ones I tried just sucked.

I’m sure there’s people here that have more experience with them so I ask you to bring forth all your favorite text-based adventures, regardless of genre. What classics should I go for?

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Comments

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ZagamTheVile@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy was and still is a favorite. Not easy, even if you know the source material, but fun.

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- HipPriest@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This was going to be my recommendation! A lot of fun and definitely a lot of Adams trolling the player going on...
  
  The BBC put up a complete version free to play on its website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1z6wqcbQx8V5bpfltD5PQBg/how-to-play
  
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- ace_garp@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Beware: A Babel fish is a slippery mf.
  
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30021190@lemmy.cloud.aboutcher.co.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Checkout Zork, it runs Zcode games. There’s loads of games at IfArchive with some packs listed on intfiction.

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_bug0ut@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If you’ve never tried a MUD, there are still a few out there that are alive and kickin’. Funny enough, I’ve been scratching that itch over the last few days and seeing whats out there.

If I had to guess, I’d say Aardwolf is probably the most populated and and has the most users online at any given time. I have an old char on there that I occasionally log into and run some quests on: www.aardwolf.com

I just created a character in Alter Aeon and it’s alright so far, but I haven’t spent more than about an hour logged in: www.alteraeon.com

I don’t know how people generally feel about Iron Realms Entertainment. Some or all of their MUDs end up with you kind of having to spend some money if you get super engaged, but I’m pretty sure most of their games are perfectly fine without paying for casual players. They have a handful of MUDs that cover different themes (classic fantasy, vampire stuff, etc). I actually tried out Starmourn recently, but I think they’re no longer developing it actively - the servers remain up (for now, at least, I guess): www.ironrealms.com play.starmourn.com

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- CassowaryTom@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I lived on www.mudconnect.com for awhile back in the day, just trying out new ones. Looks like it still lists 683 of them.
  
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  - _bug0ut@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Same, back when I played a lot more. There was a period of time where I felt completely unfulfilled and unappreciated at work. I was a Linux admin at the time so I spent 90% of my time in a text environment. One day, I installed TinTin++ which has a non-GUI version and I’d just keep one ssh connection opened to a VPS I pay for and would just MUD throughout the day (mainly just running quests over and over). This was years before “quiet quitting” was cool lol
    
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- floppy@rabbitea.rs ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Talking of MUDs reminded me that some years back I discovered Shades (used to be on Micronet/Prestel in the 1980s) was still running. It took me quite a bit of searching to find a random comment, which said Shades is still running (a few years ago) on telnet://games.world.co.uk I just tried it and it’s still there!
  
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- oktux@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Another that’s been around forever and still has an active community: GemStone IV
  
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- alnilam@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Ohhh… This brings me back to my LPMud days in the '90s. Albion MUD, I think it was called.
  
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- oddspinnaker@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I played Alter Aeon a lot in high school a long time ago! It had a lot of depth 25 years ago and it’s only grown since then.
  
  I picked it back up a year ago and played for a bit. It’s still really fun! Highly recommended.
  
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- skulblaka@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Confirmed Starmourn has been recently moonlighted to a "legacy" game. It's still playable and you can still make new characters and interact with everything in the game but it's no longer under active development.
  
  Which is a shame, really, because Starmourn was cool as hell. It just apparently wasn't all that popular compared to some of the others, so it's being put on a back burner to preserve resources at Iron Realms, which is understandable.
  
  I am a fan of Iron Realms MUDs personally though if only because of their Nexus user interface. I find it a lot more approachable and well put together than others I've tried (namely, Aardwolf, in fact). Very clear and concise and nearly infinitely customizable with user scripts. I haven't been invested enough into MUDs long enough to speak for end game though, so someone else will have to speak on that. But introductions and it would seem up through at least mid game on most iron realms games (which could consist of hundreds of hours, frankly, to even reach midgame sometimes) are totally fine and fun.
  
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  - _bug0ut@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yeah, they all definitely seem quite polished. Sometimes I get the itch to play a MUD, find one or return to one I’ve played before, and get hooked for a few months. Other times, I’m done after a few days… they’ll always be an option for me though. IRE games are just fine for my purposes in that regard.
    
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EF5C_EF5C@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I loved several Infocom games back in the day (the Zorks, Enchanter & Sorcerer, Hitchhikers, etc). Before that I was a Scott Adams (not the Dilbert guy) fan. I especially remember Mission Impossible Adventure.

For a different genre entirely, maybe check out Rogue (see where all the Rogue-like/lite chatter comes from) or NetHack (The Dev Team Thinks of Everything).

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- pacoboyd@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Second for Zork series. Sunk so much time into those as a kid. I really have a big love for them.
  
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- brewbellyblueberry@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Oh I love and loved Nethack and traditional roguelike, kind of in the middle of a year-two spanning revisit. It’s amazing how far the genre has gone and while I love ASCII graphics, it’s great to see even that side evolve. I’m currently (after like an almost two decade break from) delving into Cataclysm and ToME and I love Cataclysm already with ASCII, it was a bit, much, at first, but I really feel like a kid again with it. Meaning to get back to Nethack, but Cataclysm just keeps holding me back. Haven’t played the OG Rogue yet, but will definitely get to it one day.
  
  Thanks for the other recommendations
  
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throw4w4y5@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
emacs has got a built in text based adventure “Dunnet” built in

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- ccf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I never knew this in my time using Emacs! thanks for sharing!
  
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FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Infocom was the king of text-based adventure games and you will not go wrong with any of them. Douglas Adams wrote two- an adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and a really hard game called Bureaucracy.

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InvertedParallax@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
FredMUD, almost exactly what they built everquest off of.

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REWB@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
@brewbellyblueberry

If you like a cyberpunk theme, give CyberCode Online a try

https://cybercode-online.fandom.com/wiki/Beginner%27s_Guide

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suprjami@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
McMurphy’s Mansion

www.myabandonware.com/…/mcmurphy-s-mansion-271

A puzzle solving text adventure where you go around your relative’s estate trying to uncover 12 gold bars. I have fond memories of playing this as a child with my Scottish grandmother.

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- lingh0e@lemmy.film ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Holy shit this is my first “Reddit Moment” on Lemmy, where I go to post something and someone else has already posted it.
  
  So many parts of that damn game are somehow burned into my psyche.
  
  “Arum Sub Est”.
  
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suprjami@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Alphaman

www.mobygames.com/game/21019/alphaman/

www.myabandonware.com/game/alphaman-315

A humorous post-apocalyptic roguelike starring Elvis and Donald Trump (the 90s version).

I worked with the creator Jeff to release the original source code, and it’s seen a little bit more recognition in roguelike circles recently

github.com/superjamie/alphaman-src

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Cabeza2000@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Warsim: The Realm of Aslona

I played this one last year and enjoyed my time with it.

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Scrof@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I feel like early Legend Entertainment games are a perfect gateway to interactive fiction since they do have some graphics and interface while still being primarily text-driven. My personal favourite is Frederik Pohl’s Gateway series (books are amazing too), but you could check out Spellcasting 101 and Eric the Unready which are available on GOG.

And if we’re talking classics I’d recommend Babel for starters, it uses very modern game design without softlocks and unfair fail states, almost entirely narrative driven with simple and satisfying puzzles sprinkled in.

Otherwise I’m a huge fan of anything by Andrew Plotkin.

Not a huge fan of Zork, it’s so rough to play these days without a guide. Maybe other Infocom games should be played first, like Planetfall, it’s relatively not so player hostile.

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dreamon86@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I remember the Questprobe games.

Questprobe was a trilogy of graphical adventure video games featuring Marvel Comics characters.

[Questprobe Featuring The Hulk

](m.youtube.com/watch?v=2WAlzD3c3UA)

[Questprobe featuring The Human Torch and The Thing

](m.youtube.com/watch?v=6SPjUvvEDAk)

[Questprobe featuring Spider-Man

](m.youtube.com/watch?v=-HfmCvsrZMM)

Give them a try if you are familiar with DosBox.

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- PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks [bot] ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): piped.video/watch?v=2WAlzD3c3UA
  
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JBloodthorn@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
My favourite text based game is still Fallthru

https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2014/06/game-151-fallthru-1989.html

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morganth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I recently discovered Photopia, a beautiful little text adventure. It’s not long, but it is very clever and uses narrative voice in a really interesting way.

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