The game also popularised the word, “plugh”. But also, essentially, an interactive book.īut it does a good job (along with the capacity of your imagination) at creating a cavernous interior with sepulchral voices haunting your every step. Pretty much one sound effect, text on screen, and your imagination must do the rest.Ībout as geeky as retro gaming gets. Itself a heavily narrative experience, it also comes packed with cutting edge graphics, AI, and all the other gubbins.Ĭolossal Cave Adventure is a bare bones romp. If you, for example, compare it to the likes of Red Dead Redemption II (2018). So, yes, as a gaming experience it’s remarkably minimalistic.
So much so, Crowther overhauled the title for a re-release in 1977 with new features with the help of Don Woods. Launching in 1976 on the DEC PDP-10 mainframe (whatever the hell that is), it was a cult hit. Computer programmer Will Crowther is responsible for it. Starting the Genre: Colossal Cave AdventureĬolossal Cave Adventure (also called ADVENT and just Adventure) is one of the most enduring and popular examples of this genre. That sort of thing.īut they piqued our interest, despite the incredibly basic nature of the experience. The Atari ST, home computers such as the IBM, the Commodore 64 etc. So, although games were advancing to a point of proper 2D adventures when we were kids (think of the NES), we still played text adventures. And then you can tell the computer to piss off, or whatever, and it’ll respond in the usual fashion.
"I find you highly attractive, computer, I think we should go on a date, get married, enjoy our honeymoon, bicker over trivial things, and then divorce acrimoniously." Swearing at the computer is a common antic. Of course, you can do stupid stuff and see what happens. And you interact with the narrative in this way. If you pick the right response, the computer will then advance the story. What do you want to do next?"ĭue to the set commands, you have to find a specific response. "Although I'm panicking quite insanely about this development, I suggest running at great speed in the other direction of the monsters."Īnd the computer will respond with a message such as: "You can't do that. So, with that in mind, what course of action seems sensible? You have a think about the situation and then type in your response. In fact, the right one is missing entirely! WTF!? What do you do? As you awake, you see a horde of slobbering alien monsters running at you-they're wielding what appears to be space bazookas and they're chanting over and over, 'Die, you human bastard! Die!' You jump to your feet, but realise your arms are broken. Your ship has crash landed and you're the only survivor. And that leads to your interaction with the digital world.Ī computer script will explain to you a scenario, to which you have to use your brain to think what action you must take.įor example, let’s look at what may play out from the above Planetfall (1985): "You're stranded on a planet in the deep recesses of space. These are text-based, narrative video games where the player types commands into a computer.