5 ms·

Play the first ever text adventure game in your Linux terminal

81 points by dddavid 3y ago

SeenNotHeard 3y ago
Also at https://web.archive.org/web/20231109230950/https://linuximpact.com/play-the-first-ever-text-adventure-game-in-your-linux-terminal/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231109230950/https://linuximpa...
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  Yeah it seems like it got hugged to death. At least we know a grue didn't get it!
  - musicale 3y ago
    Wrong game, but I expect that's the joke! Now enjoy this immortal tribute: MC Frontalot - It is Pitch Dark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE
jmholla 3y ago
I ran the game and when I `suspend`ed it, it said: I can suspend your adventure for you so you can resume later, but you will have to wait at least 45 minutes before continuing. It definitely enforces it: This adventure was suspended a mere 1 minute ago. Even wizards have to wait longer than that! Does anyone know the motivation behind that design choice? It's especially weird since the README encourages suspending the game every half hour or so.
- cmeacham98 3y ago
  Perhaps to discourage save scumming?
  - oxygen_crisis 3y ago
    Yep, comment lines from the original Crowther and Woods PDP-10 FORTRAN source code: C SUSPEND. OFFER TO EXIT LEAVING THINGS RESTARTABLE, BUT REQUIRING A DELAY C BEFORE RESTARTING (SO CAN'T SAVE THE WORLD BEFORE TRYING SOMETHING RISKY). https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/games/source/ https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/games/source/
    - talkingtab 3y ago
      Yes. People who wrote games "Way Back Then" (wbt) did not see games as about high scores but as more like life choices. There is no save in life. So adventure and rogue (my poison of choice) were more about how to learn, how to adapt. How to fail gracefully (over and over again). Not that learning any of that is very much fun, but hey, that's life. [edit misspell games fortunately there is save in HN]
- fijiaarone 3y ago
  So time sharing systems don’t get filled up with people playing games.
  - fijiaarone 3y ago
    By the way, “Colossal Cave Adventure” was a retcon added at least 20 years later. The game was originally called “advent”.
    - zerocrates 3y ago
      "At least 20 years" is almost certainly an overstatement. Slippage of what people call it is only to be expected for something that doesn't really formally give itself a title (ADVENT being more of a filename), and what it does most directly identify itself as became so synonymous with the genre. The game starts up with "WELCOME TO ADVENTURE!!" and then the instructions (if you ask for them) begin "SOMEWHERE NEARBY IS COLOSSAL CAVE..." so the naming is not exactly out of left field. You can pretty readily find evidence of people calling it "Colossal Cave" and "Colossal Cave Adventure" already in the 80s. I think the first time I saw it (a Mac port from the early 90s or earlier among a pile of other free/shareware games on a set of floppies), it was called "Adventure," obviously also a popular choice for what to call the game, and my preference.
      - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        I first played it on a Commodore PET around 83 or so, but later got it for my Atari ST, probably around 87 and it was already called Colossal Cave then.
        musicale 3y ago
        From the 4.2BSD UNIX User's Manual (2/1/1983) Adventure(6) ... DESCRIPTION The object of the game is to locate and explore Colossal Cave ... So certainly before 1983.
        mcv 3y ago
- ChicagoDave 3y ago
  We figured a way around that. On a PDP, you could detach your session, go about your business, then attach it when you came back.
  - jfk13 3y ago
    When I was at university, my workaround was to patch the relevant bytes in the saved file to reset the timestamp. (Made even more convenient by running it via a wrapper script that automatically zeroed the timestamp on exit.)
pvaldes 3y ago
Is included on linux distros since a lot of time so there is no need to recompile it from source. I tried the game on console many years ago, but I remember it as boring wandering, basically. I never finished it.
- musicale 3y ago
  > Is included on linux distros since a lot of time so there is no need to recompile it from source bsdgames is my favorite package; see also /usr/games and man 6 intro > boring wandering, basically It's not the only game to focus on exploration. As I understand it the exploration came first and the fantasy/puzzle game elements were added later. Note debian also includes open-adventure, a 430-point version, and there are probably others available on various distros.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  I stand corrected. I didn't remembered any cave. What I was really playing was dunnet in emacs, that is cyberpunk themed m-x dunnet Dead end You are at a dead end of a dirt road. The road goes to the east. In the distance you can see that it will eventually fork off. The trees here are very tall royal palms, and they are spaced equidistant from each other. There is a shovel here. > wandering, wandering... > go southeast The bear is very annoyed that you would be so presumptuous as to try and walk right by it. He tells you so by tearing your head off.
pklausler 3y ago
While developing our new from-scratch Fortran compiler (LLVM Flang), getting the original Adventure game’s sources to compile was a key milestone for me, and I got lost in it for hours once it worked. Lots of great memories!
musicale 3y ago
For a slightly modernized take, there is a graphical remake by Roberta Williams' company Cygnus Entertainment: https://www.colossalcave3d.com https://www.colossalcave3d.com Probably not the kind of thing that will be a hit with most current gamers, but it is an interesting and surreal project.
sprokolopolis 3y ago
If you want to play it on macOS, you can install it through Homebrew: brew install open-adventure then to run it type: advent
bradley13 3y ago
Wow, that brings back memories! Back in the day (that's 40+ years ago), I played this so many times. Forerunner to speed running: I tried to optimize the number of moved required to finish the entire game. From "advent" to D&D to other RPGs...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
radarsat1 3y ago
Couple of things: 1) the writeup says this has been written in Fortran but the files in the gitlab are .c/.h. Was it rewritten in C at some point? 2) no one's ported this to a browser version yet? WASM maybe? Sounds like a fun project.
hulitu 3y ago
Wump is a better adventure. :)

81 points by dddavid 3y ago

Also at https://web.archive.org/web/20231109230950/https://linuximpact.com/play-the-first-ever-text-adventure-game-in-your-linux-terminal/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231109230950/https://linuximpa...

I_Am_Nous 3y ago
Yeah it seems like it got hugged to death. At least we know a grue didn't get it!
- musicale 3y ago
  Wrong game, but I expect that's the joke! Now enjoy this immortal tribute: MC Frontalot - It is Pitch Dark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE

jmholla 3y ago

I ran the game and when I `suspend`ed it, it said: I can suspend your adventure for you so you can resume later, but you will have to wait at least 45 minutes before continuing. It definitely enforces it: This adventure was suspended a mere 1 minute ago. Even wizards have to wait longer than that! Does anyone know the motivation behind that design choice? It's especially weird since the README encourages suspending the game every half hour or so.

cmeacham98 3y ago
Perhaps to discourage save scumming?
- oxygen_crisis 3y ago
  Yep, comment lines from the original Crowther and Woods PDP-10 FORTRAN source code: C SUSPEND. OFFER TO EXIT LEAVING THINGS RESTARTABLE, BUT REQUIRING A DELAY C BEFORE RESTARTING (SO CAN'T SAVE THE WORLD BEFORE TRYING SOMETHING RISKY). https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/games/source/ https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/games/source/
  - talkingtab 3y ago
    Yes. People who wrote games "Way Back Then" (wbt) did not see games as about high scores but as more like life choices. There is no save in life. So adventure and rogue (my poison of choice) were more about how to learn, how to adapt. How to fail gracefully (over and over again). Not that learning any of that is very much fun, but hey, that's life. [edit misspell games fortunately there is save in HN]
fijiaarone 3y ago
So time sharing systems don’t get filled up with people playing games.
- fijiaarone 3y ago
  By the way, “Colossal Cave Adventure” was a retcon added at least 20 years later. The game was originally called “advent”.
  - zerocrates 3y ago
    "At least 20 years" is almost certainly an overstatement. Slippage of what people call it is only to be expected for something that doesn't really formally give itself a title (ADVENT being more of a filename), and what it does most directly identify itself as became so synonymous with the genre. The game starts up with "WELCOME TO ADVENTURE!!" and then the instructions (if you ask for them) begin "SOMEWHERE NEARBY IS COLOSSAL CAVE..." so the naming is not exactly out of left field. You can pretty readily find evidence of people calling it "Colossal Cave" and "Colossal Cave Adventure" already in the 80s. I think the first time I saw it (a Mac port from the early 90s or earlier among a pile of other free/shareware games on a set of floppies), it was called "Adventure," obviously also a popular choice for what to call the game, and my preference.
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      I first played it on a Commodore PET around 83 or so, but later got it for my Atari ST, probably around 87 and it was already called Colossal Cave then.
      - musicale 3y ago
        From the 4.2BSD UNIX User's Manual (2/1/1983) Adventure(6) ... DESCRIPTION The object of the game is to locate and explore Colossal Cave ... So certainly before 1983.
      - mcv 3y ago
ChicagoDave 3y ago
We figured a way around that. On a PDP, you could detach your session, go about your business, then attach it when you came back.
- jfk13 3y ago
  When I was at university, my workaround was to patch the relevant bytes in the saved file to reset the timestamp. (Made even more convenient by running it via a wrapper script that automatically zeroed the timestamp on exit.)

pvaldes 3y ago

Is included on linux distros since a lot of time so there is no need to recompile it from source. I tried the game on console many years ago, but I remember it as boring wandering, basically. I never finished it.

musicale 3y ago
> Is included on linux distros since a lot of time so there is no need to recompile it from source bsdgames is my favorite package; see also /usr/games and man 6 intro > boring wandering, basically It's not the only game to focus on exploration. As I understand it the exploration came first and the fantasy/puzzle game elements were added later. Note debian also includes open-adventure, a 430-point version, and there are probably others available on various distros.
pvaldes 3y ago
I stand corrected. I didn't remembered any cave. What I was really playing was dunnet in emacs, that is cyberpunk themed m-x dunnet Dead end You are at a dead end of a dirt road. The road goes to the east. In the distance you can see that it will eventually fork off. The trees here are very tall royal palms, and they are spaced equidistant from each other. There is a shovel here. > wandering, wandering... > go southeast The bear is very annoyed that you would be so presumptuous as to try and walk right by it. He tells you so by tearing your head off.

pklausler 3y ago

While developing our new from-scratch Fortran compiler (LLVM Flang), getting the original Adventure game’s sources to compile was a key milestone for me, and I got lost in it for hours once it worked. Lots of great memories!

musicale 3y ago

For a slightly modernized take, there is a graphical remake by Roberta Williams' company Cygnus Entertainment: https://www.colossalcave3d.com https://www.colossalcave3d.com Probably not the kind of thing that will be a hit with most current gamers, but it is an interesting and surreal project.

sprokolopolis 3y ago

If you want to play it on macOS, you can install it through Homebrew: brew install open-adventure then to run it type: advent

bradley13 3y ago

Wow, that brings back memories! Back in the day (that's 40+ years ago), I played this so many times. Forerunner to speed running: I tried to optimize the number of moved required to finish the entire game. From "advent" to D&D to other RPGs...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

radarsat1 3y ago

Couple of things: 1) the writeup says this has been written in Fortran but the files in the gitlab are .c/.h. Was it rewritten in C at some point? 2) no one's ported this to a browser version yet? WASM maybe? Sounds like a fun project.

hulitu 3y ago

Wump is a better adventure. :)