Text Adventures are Still Thriving in Interactive Fiction Competition - and On Threads

Today saw the end of IFComp.org's 29th annual text adventure competition (now administered by the charitable non-profit IF Technology Foundation). 74 new and original text adventures competed for a share of the $7,523 prize pool, with the winners announced in a special online ceremony on Twitch this afternoon.

After all the votes were tabulated, the winning game was Dr Ludwig and the Devil, a 90-minute epic in which an esteemed mad scientist tries to double-cross Beelzebub himself — along with "the world's least effective torch and pitchfork-wielding mob!" Coming in second was LAKE Adventure. (Its premise? That it's a 13-year-old's 1993 game being revisited by its author 28 years later — complete with some gloriously retro artwork.) And finishing third was The Little Match Girl 4 (described as "a touching epic time travel fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.")

But also this week, the owner of the web site 80sNostalgia.com has created a text adventure using nothing but inter-linked posts on Threads.

"Think you can get under The Bridge?" its first post challenges. "Test your gaming skills with this Threads exclusive text-based game!

"And then try to get your head around got much work it took to make it..."

Surprise : people still read books too

[thesjaakspoiler]

1 century after the introduction of the cinema.
People didn't have Chuck Norris movies for the first 5 decades but still, even Chuck Norris reads a book from time to time.

Re:

[Darinbob]

And it was only last week I saw a comment on /. that implied no one played text adventures anymore.

Re:

[Gibgezr]

Yes, but really, replace "no one" with "almost no one" and they would be correct. It's incredibly niche. Heck, go look at the Twitch stream in the link, only a handful of names appear in the chat. I don't know how to check how many people observed the stream, but it doesn't appear to have been very popular based on the chat log.

hint, please

[Iamthecheese]

I've taken the scalpel and opened the desk drawer but I can't figure out what to do next. I've tried looking at and interacting with every object in the room. Am I supposed to be looking for the lost experiment? Am I supposed to say something in particular to the devil?

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

It is so obvious, didn't you notice flipping the lamp switch would not turn off the lamp? [spoiler] You are supposed to go West North Southeast then Down into the cellar to pull out the fuse, then go back to the room, ignore the lamp and instead open the curtain.[/spoiler]

Re:

[Iamthecheese]

I'm not seeing a lamp. The lab is " lit by the flickering green lights of my machinery". I'm right at the beginning.

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

Oh, then don't worry about it until you find the gravity boots (so you can exit the room without floating away).

Re:

[Ferocitus]

Oh, then don't worry about it until you find the gravity boots (so you can exit the room without floating away).

Why is the postman not interested in my sugarbowl?

Re:

[joeblog]

I just worked through that game by typing "hint", then 1, then "h" repeatedly and it pretty much tells you exactly what to do. Reminded me how much I enjoyed Zork back in the day, but I don't have as much patience anymore.

We have some particpants here

[narcc]

If I remember correctly, we have, or had, a few users here who regularly participate in the contest.

Text adventures have come a long way from the hopelessly obtuse puzzles you might remember from the Infocom days, with some very innovative concepts and puzzles. A favorite of mine was The Edifice, which had a brilliant language puzzle where you had to pay attention and experiment to decipher a primitive language, which you then used to communicate.

If you're looking to try out some modern efforts but don't know where to begin, you can't go wrong with anything that sounds interesting from Emily Short.

Be sure to check out ifdb.org [slashdot.org] for downloads, ratings, and reviews.

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

> hopelessly obtuse puzzles you might remember from the Infocom days

Like some of the Scott Adam's adventures. "Ah, I was supposed to insert the rod and push/pull it 3 times. The three rocks I found out in the garden were an obvious clue. Duh!"

I did this too as a young teen

[Powercntrl]

I think it was something of a rite of passage for geeky Xennials to attempt to write their own text adventure game. For a brief period I made it playable thorough my dial-up BBS, but I never actually released it for download because it was badly coded, badly written, and was set in a school with subject matter which aged extremely poorly post Columbine. I probably do still have a copy of it on one of my old backups.

Writing it did make me appreciate how much skill and effort creative work actually requires

People still use ink pens ...

[JasterBobaMereel]

Old forms of technology rarely die completely, some become a novelty, or nostalgia

Text games are powered by imagination... are very simple to program, and appeal to writers

Re:

[Mononymous]

very simple to program

Read the source code to a good one, and say that again.

Text Adventure: Yes - NSEW: No

[BrendaEM]

Somehow, each night, we navigate our way to and from the kitchen--without using compass directions. We might head from the bedroom, through the living room, into the bathroom, and back---all without compass ordinates coming into play.

Re:

[BrendaEM]

For those who need to know: I head West out of my bedroom, take a left hand turn in the hallway, heading South. The bathroom is also in a Westerly direction.

Re:

[kackle]

But you didn't turn on a light, so you were eaten by a grue.