Aarseth also mentions the game Rogue, from which many of our modern games are descended. A version of it can be found here: http://ww1.freearcade.com/Zplet.jav/Rogue.html

Hmmm, I just noticed that site has some Scott Adams games as well. I haven't played these, but Aarseth mentions him a few times in the chapter as well.
http://ww1.freearcade.com/Zplet.jav/Scottadams.html

Last one, I promise...
Scott Adams' website, including information his current projects (he's making graphical adentures now):
http://www.msadams.com/index.htm

Well I just played adventure, and it brought back a few memories of old school king's quest and other such games. It was fun until I couldn't get past the snake. I saw in the tips section that you needed the bird, but I had already killed the bird (accidentially, I just tried to use 'kick bird' since I couldn't catch it). Oh well.

The old Sierra Quest games are still my favorites (Trial by Fire being by far the best).

I tried to catch the bird to get past the snake, but I didn't seem to have any food ti wanted.

you have to drop the rod to catch the bird... yay for hints! i got to the pirate's treasure after he took my stuff... but i was carrying too many items to carry both the coins, silver bars, the chest, the cage (with bird) and the rod... the keys...MAN i had a lot of stuff
then my lamp was getting dim then i got killed by the dwarf.
this DEFinitly reminds me of kings quest... i always needed the cheat sheets to get anywhere. i dont think this game is any different

HAhahahaha... I like how this Adventure game led to interactive porn on cd roms... (pg.100 aarseth) HI-larious. I dont even want to think about the commands you'd have to type for those games. wow.

i may just be really inept at typing the commands but this story is pretty difficult to navigate. guess im just spoiled by the visual aestetics of a quality lucasarts adventure game (sam and max being the greatest). subsequently, i appreciate the linear direction of a good print book much more after this experience.

Yes, its hard to navigate. I want the graphical component that has accompanied all of the Sierra and Lucasarts games. The graphics provide us with the ability to orient ourselves in a non-linear world made from 0s and 1s.

that game was fun but frustrating...there is a very limited number of verbs you can use and you cant really varry the commands...however it was fun in a primal way...lol... i also found it har to navigate because i am a very visual person and although descriptions were given it was still challanging because you have to keep track of your commands or you'll end up going in circles

Ahh, you whippersnappers. ;) In my day, you played games like this because the computer not only couldn't handle good graphics; on the systems it was originally written on, sometimes there wasn't a graphics display AT ALL. All you COULD show was text. =)

You couldn't even change the color of the black screen and text. If you were lucky, you might have a filter you placed physically over the screen that made the words a softer amber color so you wouldn't go blind reading it after a while.

Yes, all this in the dark ages thirty years ago. (Actually I wasn't playing these until about eight or nine years later, in the eighties, but except for it being on a home computer instead of a mainframe like in the seventies, a lot of this was still true... and I'm glossing over some of the REAL 'primitive' systems you might play these on, where you could only see each turn by physically printing it out!)

My dad's been working with computers since the seventies, so to teach me about not taking modern conveniences for granted he told me not about walking to school in the snow up hill (both ways!), but about disk drives the size of washing machines.

I was pretty glad that KQ came in those happy 5" disks, because I was pretty sure I couldn't lift a disk the size of a load of laundry. :)

This game is really bringing me back to the 80's when my mom would have to pry me away from the Commodore 64. I was hooked on the 3 text RPGs I had (whenever they'd actually load). I know that they played a key role in enhancing my memory...imagine a 4 year old - "Ok back to the castle...west, west, west, north, north, west, west, etc.."

My favorite command:
Jump.
"Whee!"
Jump.
"Whee!"
Jump.
"Whee!"
Jump.
"You've broken your leg."

Ah, great now I want to hook up the C64 again.

i found the 'adventure' game to be both frustrating as an activity and confusing with regards to navigating the imagined world with which the game creates. perhaps i have been long spoiled by graphical interfaces, but i found myself struggling to recall where in the game's dungeon i had been and where it was i was meant to be going. i could keep a mental picture in focus for about two or three rooms but when faced with a daunting: "there are opening to the NW, N/S, E/W,..." i just lost it and myself. i ended up wandering a lot, getting lost in the maze place (had to look at the cheats to get out) and wondering where i was supposed to be going, and why i was there in the first place! argh! needless to say i quick rather promptly and went to look at internet news sites or something. games like these are outdated for a reason!

and a shout out to king's quest IV: pricilla's peril. that game introduced me to interactive fantasy in my youth, which has now given way to the paranoid delusions of an aging imagination. the bonesmen rule the country! 322! AHHH!

and how bout some love for THE LEGEND OF ZELDA?

I am a big Legend of Zelda of fan. Don't you mean, how about some love for one of the greatest games of all time, Legend of Zelda:Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64?

Playing this game takes me back... way back actually, I had to fight with them but now I have Eric the Unready and Rise of the Dragon working on my computer... those were the good days. Companions of Xanth or Monkey Island, anyone? :-P So many wasted hours...

The problem with any pure text based interface is by definition it can't be particularly innovative or user friendly... thus a player's frustration with something like Adventure. It's the same frustration those kids raised on Windows have when a DOS prompt or Unix window confronts them... typing commands out requires time and an internal database of prompts that graphic interfaces don't require.

Course most graphic based interfaces started by just placing the same bloody commands on little buttons... cutting down on typing but not particularly impressive. The only truly impressive concept I remember for interaction in those early games was Loom by LucasArts... Anyone else remember that? Nifty music based system for doing different spell like things? One of the first I remember like that, and very well realized for its time. Great game.

I'm so nostalgic... there's something about those early games that draws me in, their simplicity is appealing.

I remember Loom, what about the Monkey Island series?

http://www.agdinteractive.com/
AGD Interactive: KQ 1 and 2 are already finished and my favorite QfG 2 is being made.
All in splendorous VGA graphics!

http://www.hero6.com/
Hero 6: Quest for MORE Glory.

For an interesting reversal of the cave-exploration theme, try Avernum 3 by Spider Web Software (a HUGE free demo is available of their web site). It is an enormous tile-based game bery much in the style of old console RPG's. The catch here is that you and your team are emerging from a system of underground caves and exploring the surface world.
http://www.avernum.com/avernum3/index.html

I went to that site mentioned in class... which was

http://www.wurb.com/if/game?sort=H

and i really wanted to play some games on there... but obviously im not as computer inclined as i previously thought. Sooo my question is how do i play it after i download it? I assume it has to do something with a platform. Help a dumb kid out and I'll be your best friend forever.

Thanks
-Vox

Yes, it probably is a platform incompatability. What you'll do will depend on your platform (OS) and the platform for which your game is designed. Just post those andf I'll try to help you out.

I have finished king's quest 1 and 2, really enjoyed it by the way, and have king's quest 7 on cd-rom. I'm looking for some site to download the other episodes: 3-4-5-6-8. could anyone of you help me?