Any other Infocommies?

TheZenMonkey

Seriously, that's what we were called back then.

My all-time favorite game list will always include Zork II and Trinity. But I played every single game Infocom ever made at least once -- most of them more than once -- and used to get their newsletter The New Zork Times. (This was before the New York Times got all petulant about that.)

I've played I guess every type of game out there since those days, and I've had great scares and emotional moments, but none of them quite resonates the way it did when I was playing an Infocom adventure and suddenly my IBM PC's floppy drive would whir. That always meant something was about to happen, and my heart would leap into my throat.

Plus -- graph paper mapping!

(Yes, I'm old.)

CiDeRmAn

Wow, I remember them but never played them.
I can recall Zork being as iconic a franchise as could be had in such a new industry, but I was into early 8bit computers back then in the form of the ZX Spectrum, so I never dipped my toes into them.

Just used up 20 mins of my morning with this!!
http://textadventures.co.uk/games/play/5zyoqrsugeopel3ffhz_vq

TheZenMonkey

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Just used up 20 mins of my morning with this!!
http://textadventures.co.uk/games/play/5zyoqrsugeopel3ffhz_vq

Ha ha, excellent! I'm pretty thrilled with the way those older games are still revered and preserved, not to mention that interactive fiction has made a huge mainstream comeback. Off the mainstream, it's never stopped being a very vital art form; the Interactive Fiction Competition is over 20 years old and there's also the XYZZY Awards. Authors like Emily Short and Andrew Plotkin are still writing incredible works, and Steve Jackson's Sorcery! games are now phenomenal iOS apps. Around the World in 80 Days is a wonderful example of how writers are still playing around with form and function.

CiDeRmAn

I cut my teeth on The Hobbit and Gremlins on the ZX Spectrum!
Text Adventures were a huge deal back in the 80s, but the evolution of the point and click adventure with Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, they seemed to die off.
Lords of Midnight and the other Mike Singleton titles are a great form of adventure gaming, recently receiving an update on modern hardware too.

eddhorse

I have been listening to the "Eaten by a Grue" podcast, playing through all the infocom games.

TheZenMonkey

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Lords of Midnight and the other Mike Singleton titles are a great form of adventure gaming, recently receiving an update on modern hardware too.

Never played that one but I just picked it up on iOS to check out. Thanks!

eddhorse wrote: »

I have been listening to the "Eaten by a Grue" podcast, playing through all the infocom games.

Fantastic! My favorite Frontalot song too (aside from "Disaster").

eddhorse

I also have this iOS app :
Lost Treasures of Infocom by Activision Publishing, Inc.
https://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/lost-treasures-of-infocom/id577626745?mt=8

And also have the Frotz app on iOS
Frotz by Craig Smith
https://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/frotz/id287653015?mt=8

Both have Zork for free.

DinoRex

Stories Untold is really worth checking out if you loved the old text adventure games.

TheZenMonkey

eddhorse wrote: »

I also have this iOS app :
Lost Treasures of Infocom by Activision Publishing, Inc.

Oh yes, I've had every iteration of that collection! Sadly it keeps shrinking. Back when it was on floppies it had a few games that aren't around anymore.

DinoRex wrote: »

Stories Untold is really worth checking out if you loved the old text adventure games.

And it has a demo! I love demos. I downloaded the demo. Thanks!