5 ms·

The Classic Adventures Solution Archive

61 points by elvis70 3y ago

rerx 3y ago
Huge archive that's heavily biased towards text adventures / interactive fiction. There are only three titles published by Lucasfilm Games, and they predate Monkey Island.
extesy 3y ago
I always loved playing adventures from Level 9 Computing [1], particularly The Worm in Paradise. At that time, no solutions were available, so there was a lot of trial and error involved. I played on Spectrum, and I remember being amazed at their graphics engine that managed to present a full-screen (well, technically a half-screen) illustration for every location in the game. There definitely wasn't enough memory for that, so they probably have used some generative algorithm. [1] https://www.solutionarchive.com/list/company%2C4/ https://www.solutionarchive.com/list/company%2C4/
- pm215 3y ago
  Looking at the Level 9 interpreter sources from https://github.com/DavidKinder/Level9 https://github.com/DavidKinder/Level9 it looks like the pre-bitmap games stored their images as little bytecode programs (with instructions for move, draw, fill, etc, plus a gosub opcode so you could have "draw the same complex shape several times", opcodes for reflecting and scaling, etc) -- check the getinstruction() function in level9.c. So likely hand-composed, not generative algorithm, I think.
philips 3y ago
Any recommendations of text based adventure games for kids? My one child loves playing the Sorcery[1] series with me- I read out loud and they make the choices. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorcery!_(video_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorcery!_(video_game)
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  For kids, I tend to skip IF and instead just make up role playing games with them. My kid will ask me to come up with like a my little pony themed adventure and she'll control two characters and I'll also control a character and play the DM. By being a character myself it adds some richness and allows me to give less obvious hints and push the story to a degree while still giving her room and autonomy. It works really well with kids ~5-7 so far, although it takes a bit out of me lol. For IF, my kid has enjoyed doing some Zork with me, but the puzzles are pretty difficult.
  - alisonatwork 3y ago
    My dad did this for my sister and I growing up and it was excellent. We also played some text adventures, but I wouldn't recommend them for today's kids. Back then it was just cool to sit in front of a computer in the first place so bashing our heads against the wall for months trying to get a babel fish didn't seem as frustrating as it actually was. VNs and Twine style IF would be less frustrating, although a lot of those are probably not age appropriate for younger kids.
    - 7thaccount 3y ago
      With regards to twine, it's so easy to make and share a simple game that most parents could do it and tailor it for their kid.
  - throwaway86530 3y ago
    That resonates with my experience, role playing with my 4 year old daughter was a blast. Playing a character while being DM is a very good idea to pass hints and have more fun, I did not thought about this. > although it takes a bit out of me lol So much this. Preparation took time, and the game itself consumed a lot of my time and mental energy. Sadly, this came to a point were my daughter was highly motivated to play, but I was often not in the mood for that or had enough time to play, so our sessions became less and less frequent, to disappear entirely. I think it's been more than one year we did not play (she is 7 now). Nevertheless it was a great experience. All fathers should consider give it a try. For the record, I never really played this kind of game before, just witnessed some. We probably played more than 30 games. Toward the end it followed the same template where she was a witch (a gentle witch of course) that went from towns to towns to solve issues (generally related to magic). Most often she had to learn a new incantation along the way to help her in this adventure. Sometimes she also had to use previously learned incantations written on her notebook. That was a bit a trick on my part to get her read a bit. Drawing a basic plan of the city helped a bit, so toward the end we did that a lot. In one year or so, his brother will be old enough to play, so I might try again. Something that would help is pre-made campaigns (just in case someone knows some nice resources for that). As I am thinking about this, I guess generative IA can be leveraged for this purpose.
dwheeler 3y ago
Some of these games are available via the Interactive Fiction Archive; it has many interactive fiction (text adventure) games: https://www.ifarchive.org/ https://www.ifarchive.org/
omoikane 3y ago
I thought it was odd that it listed only one Infocom game, only then did I realize there was company named Inforcom that produced Russian games.
beej71 3y ago
Whoa--some of these games feature SLAG hints [1] which is a Perl script I wrote a zillion years ago to produce .z5 runnable Invisiclues files. I had no idea anyone had ever seen or used it. What a fun way to start a Sunday! [1] https://www.solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C615/Zork+I%3A+The+Great+Underground+Empire.html https://www.solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C615/Zork+I%3A+The+...
Luc 3y ago
I'd like to play Zork e.a. while the map gets auto-generated in an adjacent window as I play. I'm pretty sure I've seen this auto-mapping software some years ago. Can anybody point me in the right direction? Edit: it’s not in this list: https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/mapping-tools/ https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/mapping-tools/

61 points by elvis70 3y ago

rerx 3y ago

Huge archive that's heavily biased towards text adventures / interactive fiction. There are only three titles published by Lucasfilm Games, and they predate Monkey Island.

extesy 3y ago

I always loved playing adventures from Level 9 Computing [1], particularly The Worm in Paradise. At that time, no solutions were available, so there was a lot of trial and error involved. I played on Spectrum, and I remember being amazed at their graphics engine that managed to present a full-screen (well, technically a half-screen) illustration for every location in the game. There definitely wasn't enough memory for that, so they probably have used some generative algorithm. [1] https://www.solutionarchive.com/list/company%2C4/ https://www.solutionarchive.com/list/company%2C4/

pm215 3y ago
Looking at the Level 9 interpreter sources from https://github.com/DavidKinder/Level9 https://github.com/DavidKinder/Level9 it looks like the pre-bitmap games stored their images as little bytecode programs (with instructions for move, draw, fill, etc, plus a gosub opcode so you could have "draw the same complex shape several times", opcodes for reflecting and scaling, etc) -- check the getinstruction() function in level9.c. So likely hand-composed, not generative algorithm, I think.

philips 3y ago

Any recommendations of text based adventure games for kids? My one child loves playing the Sorcery[1] series with me- I read out loud and they make the choices. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorcery!_(video_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorcery!_(video_game)

7thaccount 3y ago
For kids, I tend to skip IF and instead just make up role playing games with them. My kid will ask me to come up with like a my little pony themed adventure and she'll control two characters and I'll also control a character and play the DM. By being a character myself it adds some richness and allows me to give less obvious hints and push the story to a degree while still giving her room and autonomy. It works really well with kids ~5-7 so far, although it takes a bit out of me lol. For IF, my kid has enjoyed doing some Zork with me, but the puzzles are pretty difficult.
- alisonatwork 3y ago
  My dad did this for my sister and I growing up and it was excellent. We also played some text adventures, but I wouldn't recommend them for today's kids. Back then it was just cool to sit in front of a computer in the first place so bashing our heads against the wall for months trying to get a babel fish didn't seem as frustrating as it actually was. VNs and Twine style IF would be less frustrating, although a lot of those are probably not age appropriate for younger kids.
  - 7thaccount 3y ago
    With regards to twine, it's so easy to make and share a simple game that most parents could do it and tailor it for their kid.
- throwaway86530 3y ago
  That resonates with my experience, role playing with my 4 year old daughter was a blast. Playing a character while being DM is a very good idea to pass hints and have more fun, I did not thought about this. > although it takes a bit out of me lol So much this. Preparation took time, and the game itself consumed a lot of my time and mental energy. Sadly, this came to a point were my daughter was highly motivated to play, but I was often not in the mood for that or had enough time to play, so our sessions became less and less frequent, to disappear entirely. I think it's been more than one year we did not play (she is 7 now). Nevertheless it was a great experience. All fathers should consider give it a try. For the record, I never really played this kind of game before, just witnessed some. We probably played more than 30 games. Toward the end it followed the same template where she was a witch (a gentle witch of course) that went from towns to towns to solve issues (generally related to magic). Most often she had to learn a new incantation along the way to help her in this adventure. Sometimes she also had to use previously learned incantations written on her notebook. That was a bit a trick on my part to get her read a bit. Drawing a basic plan of the city helped a bit, so toward the end we did that a lot. In one year or so, his brother will be old enough to play, so I might try again. Something that would help is pre-made campaigns (just in case someone knows some nice resources for that). As I am thinking about this, I guess generative IA can be leveraged for this purpose.

dwheeler 3y ago

Some of these games are available via the Interactive Fiction Archive; it has many interactive fiction (text adventure) games: https://www.ifarchive.org/ https://www.ifarchive.org/

omoikane 3y ago

I thought it was odd that it listed only one Infocom game, only then did I realize there was company named Inforcom that produced Russian games.

beej71 3y ago

Whoa--some of these games feature SLAG hints [1] which is a Perl script I wrote a zillion years ago to produce .z5 runnable Invisiclues files. I had no idea anyone had ever seen or used it. What a fun way to start a Sunday! [1] https://www.solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C615/Zork+I%3A+The+Great+Underground+Empire.html https://www.solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C615/Zork+I%3A+The+...

Luc 3y ago

I'd like to play Zork e.a. while the map gets auto-generated in an adjacent window as I play. I'm pretty sure I've seen this auto-mapping software some years ago. Can anybody point me in the right direction? Edit: it’s not in this list: https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/mapping-tools/ https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/mapping-tools/