…and where is the joystick?
Imagine reading a book, and suddenly you come across a page that asks you to decide how the story should continue. The setting and story are clear, but without your input, nothing happens. The fiction becomes interactive, which is why text adventures are often called interactive fiction.
At its core, a text adventure is just that, an interactive story, but played on a screen rather than in a book. You usually use a keyboard to interact; a mouse isn’t typically required, at least not in the earlier games.
At first, individual events are presented as part of a continuous block of text (screenshot), meaning the events follow one another in sequence. Later, the screen is divided into two sections: the description of the scenario at the top and the interactions at the bottom. Graphics, in their simple or modern forms, are generally absent. Instead, visuals are almost entirely replaced by booklets, which are often extensive and provide additional opportunities for immersion.
Of course, graphics were introduced over time, but they were still very restrained, which naturally had a technical background as there was simply a lack of processing power. However, this didn’t deter developers, and they found ways to display more and more. Sometimes it was just individual enemies, but then also entire scenes in the form of banner images located in the upper area.
That’s the basic framework of a text adventure, but this simplicity is exactly what makes it so fascinating. Like the book example earlier, everything, the world around you, the events, potential outcomes, and even your character, is conveyed through text. You interact by using verbs and combining them with nouns, creating a sort of dialogue with the game. What modern games achieve with graphics, text adventures leave entirely to your imagination.
However, not all text adventures are the same. Some require full sentences and respond harshly if you don’t follow the exact format. Others are simpler, accepting just a verb and noun combination. But what causes these differences?
The answer lies in the parser. A parser is a piece of software within the game that processes your input and triggers events by interpreting the text. How well it’s programmed, its precision and the variety of commands it recognizes, determines what you, as the player, can do in the game.
One of the most famous text adventure is Zork, released in 1980 by Infocom. However, Zork is just the tip of the iceberg. The layer below it is substantial, largely thanks to companies like Infocom. But beneath the metaphorical surface of this text adventure iceberg lies even more history to explore.
I want to delve deeper into all of this because Zork is not the beginning, neither for text adventures as a whole nor for their commercial success.
Additionally, I plan to explore how to write a text adventure today, which tools are available, and what to keep in mind during the process.