What's your favorite text adventure?

>>4108638
Final fantasy series on gameboy count?

How about snatcher? Does that count?

>>4108654
>>4108678
Snatcher's an adventure game, but neither are really text adventures.

>>4108638

A Mind Forever Voyaging

> End Joybooth Abuse

>>4108638
This looks like the cover to an especially wild game of Space Station 13

>>4108824
>especially wild
I think you mean "completely average"

Lost Pig

Vespers, where you play as a 15th-century monk during the plague.
>>4108721
Also, this is really good, even if it goes a bit over the top with the lefty political message.

>>4108638

Have those infocom games aged well? Ive only played zork and didn't like it.

>>4109370
It depends on your tolerance for puzzles. Older stuff like the Infocom classics are a lot more puzzle-focused and tend to be cryptic at times, while newer stuff is more narrative-focused and user-friendly. I prefer the newer stuff, but the old stuff is fun if you're a puzzle freak, or just in the right mood.

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>>4109379

Thanks. Is there anything like the choose your own adventure types of interactive fiction out there which is more story based with decisions you need to make?

>>4109384
Absolutely, a lot of interactive fiction has a similar "story node" structure to CYOA books.
IF wiki is a good place to start.
http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Choose_your_own_adventure

Taipan!

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Does Eamon count?

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>>4108638

>>4109379
Older stuff also has ways to make the game unwinnable without you knowing until hours laters.

>>4109425
Photopia was a clever little game, but it was so short. The twists kind of don't have as much impact as they should, because you still feel like you barely know these people.

>>4110105
It's a good game, but I don't get why so many places rank it as the best interactive fiction of all time.

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The Institute for TRS-80

>>4108638

I think my favorite Infocom game might be Infidel. It's a fantastic beginning, and an incredible ending, it's just got this lousy middle section with the dumb puzzles. Heh.
For non-Infocom, maybe Shade, by Andrew Plotkin? I like one-room games, and games that screw with your perception of reality, and it hits both those notes.

>>4109370

Zork was pretty crude and unfair by Infocom standards, their later games are a lot less unforgiving.
Modern games are much more playable, and generally focus on narrative over puzzles.

>>4109498

Yeah, that's why we have the "Zarfian cruelty scale" -- it rates how unfair a game is. Being able to put the game into an unwinnable state without the game making it clear that it happens ranks as "Cruel", the highest rating.

>>4112378
Infidel's puzzles are pretty good. Very grounded and fairly clued, and you get the fun hieroglyphics to decode. Infidel is one of the few Infocom games I beat without hints.

>>4112481

Yeah, I guess they're not really bad, they just sort of feel gamey and out of place inbetween the narrative chunks around it. Not quite soupcans or "I haff tvelve match steek!" but still jarring to me.

I wish I could say I beat it without hints, but I actually found a bug in it that meant the tiles were unsolvable. After about a half an hour of trying everything imaginable, I looked up a walkthrough, tried the solution there, (despite being pretty sure I had done it) and then found it didn't work, and had to reload a save from before I touched the tiles, and then it worked. I don't know what I did, but something fucked it up so I couldn't solve it.
Other than that, hint free, baby.

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What's the /vr/ consensus on Level 9 games, are they any good?

Planetary was the most immerssive that I've played. Hitchhiker's Guide was also fun, but the unwinnable states were all over the place.

You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

>>4112378
If you like one-room games, Suveh Nux is a good one. It was released in like 2006, and the premise is that you're a wizard's apprentice who has to escape a locked vault by learning part of the language of magic. It's all really intuitive and there are a bunch of easter eggs.

>>4112810

Sounds good, my other favorite was Enlightenment, where you're a Zorkian adventurer on his way back out of a dungeon, and there's a troll chained to the only bridge out, and you're all out of troll killing stuff.
But you do have some Grue Away spray -- now if only you could put out all these lights, especially all this damn glowing treasure.

>>4112674
Man, Hitchhiker's is so incredibly frustrating. Part of me can't help but love it.

The Unkuulian Unventure series, especially The Legend Lives.

>>4108824
>Janitor becomes sec officer, and teams up with the chaplain
>Only together can they stop the cult

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>>4112810
>>4112818
Stop talking to yourself. But it's kind of understandable seeing as how I've never seen anyone else that actually plays modern text adventures post on /vr/.

>tfw intfiction barely has any activity these days
>tfw every game that sounds interesting turns out to be CYOA shit

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>>4116709

You've just replied to two of us, dude.

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>>4116724
Well I'll be. I haven't played much since Hadean Lands, has anything great come out since then?

>>4116727

I dunno, I've only recently gotten back into interactive fiction -- I last played seriously around 2001 or 2002, but I used to post on the newsgroups and follow the competitions and all that.

Hey lads, I'm teaching myself to code and making a text adventure as my first big project. What kind of puzzles do you guys like do and what are some if your favorite puzzles in games you've played?

>>4118001

Well, no mazes, mazes are shit. If you want people to try your game, telling them "I wrote my own parser" is unfortunately going to turn some of them off right away (bad experiences over the years) and throwing a maze in will just about guarantee that your game will be dropped as soon as they see it.


This is a good read if you want your game to be good:
http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/info/Craft.Of.Adventure.pdf

If you're just making it for yourself to learn, then throw in whatever seems fun to code, and don't worry about the rest.

>>4116709
I'm fine with intfics that are light on the puzzles. I've been burned by awful puzzle design too many times in the past.

>>4118657
Damn, this is a really interesting read, and not just for making interactive fiction.

>>4118001
>>4118657
Sorry, but making your own parser is either going to be 1) not a good way to learn to code (not for anything beyond the basics, anyway), or 2) not going to result in a very good game. So it really doesn't matter what people suggest because you're simply not going to be making anything that plays well as your first major programming project. If you're still learning to code, the work is going to be 98% the engine and 2% coming up with fun puzzles.

If you really want to do a text adventure project, start with, like, the absolute minimum. Like two rooms, a key, and a locked door. Hide the key under a rug if you're feeling bold. Don't even bother coming up with big design ideas until you get those simple interactions locked down.

>>4108638
My favorite old-school Infocom game is Trinity. I was so close to solving it without hints but got stuck at the very end, argh. My favorite modern-ish one is Savoir-Faire, which was pretty tough but I did solve all on my own.

>>4119864
>burned by awful puzzle design too many times
The amount of times I've come across "puzzles" that literally rely on random chance is ridiculous. There're way too many idiots who think that more puzzles = better, and that harder puzzles = better.

>>4123646
I ran into a puzzle a while back that was unsolvable because I didn't go to a specific location and do something. I love a good text adventure, but the genre's full of horseshit.

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Does this count?

>>4127402
>that haircut
Holy shit, what a dweeb

>>4123646
Serious question: what if you're just bad at puzzles? People on 4chan are pretty bad at having any shred of humility when they get stuck. Bad puzzles exist, sure, but the whining is usually disproportionate.

>>4128016
I know for a fact that I'm bad at puzzles, but I stumble across plenty that essentially boil down to "If you want to cross the bridge you must guess what's in my pocket."

>>4127402
You've got good taste, anon

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>Ctrl+F 9:05
>0 of 0

9:05 is required playing by all /vr/ troopers. YES, THIS MEANS YOU, EVEN IF YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED A TEXT ADVENTURE BEFORE.

http://adamcadre.ac/if/905.html

It'll only take 5 (real) minutes, start to finish.

>>4128370
Holy shit, that was nuts

This counts:
http://kevan.org/wikitext/

>>4128370
Neat-o

>>4112378
>Zork was pretty crude and unfair by Infocom standards, their later games are a lot less unforgiving.
Does this include the later Zork games? I know the last few were full-on graphical adventures, but what about the others? I remember (what is probably) one of you saying that Trinity is Infocom's best interactive fiction game.

>>4108638
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBEKDNndVDI

>>4108721
yup
this game was ingenius. nothing 1/10th this well prepared and interesting could be published in today's industry

>>4128370
I was not prepared for this.

>>4128370
>>4128387
>>4128429
>>4128920
samefag

literally played 5 minutes. lame as fuck

>>4128924
Can you name something better?

I had VooDoo Castle for the Vic=20.
As a kid that game filled me with such a weird feeling. Like a mix of dread, wonder and curiosity. And there were no graphics. Really instilled in me a love for the power words can have over graphics.

http://www.msadams.com/downloads.htm
Scott Adams himself has made all his old work available for free

>>4128920
>>4128387
What was so interesting about this? Is there some other ending than him driving away?

>>4129026
Yeah, you need to go to the technologies building rather than get onto the highway.

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>no mention of Anchorhead
Plebes, the lot of you

So I am assuming anything by Infocom is golden? Or is their early stuff a little too obtuse for a newbie?

>>4129034
I was hoping a second play after learning the twist would reveal new options or paths, but that doesn't seem like the case. Am I missing something?

>>4130975
The way the dev intended the game to go is for the player to go through the game normally and go to work in the first playthrough, and then after discovering the twist actually making your escape by not going to work and instead riding off into the distance. You can check under the bed and find the corpse of the previous owner and find all the stuff you stole in the trunk of the car. Also, if you carefully read all the flavor text you'll notice that the narrator never says that the apartment is their's, which is a nice detail.

>>4127402
my nigga. I like this one.

How are the other Legend games, in general? Only one I ever played was Eric. Any standouts?

>>4130975
Pretty much all Infocom games are going to be tough for newbies compared to the games the fan community is still putting out. Even ones like Wishbringer that are designed to be newbie-friendly still lack a lot of the conveniences, synonyms, hints, and general kindness in design that modern text adventures usually have. If you're a persistent puzzle solver willing to engage your inner autist and draw maps, take notes, and accept that you will almost certainly get stuck, you could tackle an Infocom game as your first.

But, rather than looking for really easy games, I think it's best for beginners to cut their teeth on a hard game that you don't care that much about spoiling. A game where you don't get too upset it you fail at it, and if you end up using a walkthrough it's okay because you're still learning the conventions of the genre. Save the true classics for when you have a little more experience, because unless you have an iron will, you WILL end up ruining the game by playing with a walkthrough in hand if you try Trinity or whatever as your very first one.