What text adventures would YOU recommend?

[TerranRich]

This thread might have existed at one point (as allegedly, all threads have existed at one point or another), but I'm starting it anyway.

What little-known text adventures have you played that you would highly recommend to others? I'm not talking about the famous ones, like Hitchhiker's Guide..., the Zork series, Adventure, et. al.

One that I would suggest: Shades of Grey, where you play a...wait, that would ruin the game. Search for it, and play it. (HERE)

An imaginative psychodrama of self-confrontation and moral dilemma, by way of Haiti, Sherwood Forest, and an American Civil War battlefield. One of the most intriguing storylines I've seen in any game. You wander the city streets, or possibly the castle grounds, with a sense of temporal dislocation and confused memories of vampires, until a friendly fortune-teller helps you put your head back together through a series of visions about your past and what it means to you. Written by seven strangers, the game is divided into self-contained segments of highly variable style, subject matter, and quality. This is at once the game's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Just about everything you hate in games can be found here - mazes, time limits, obscure "guess-the-word" puzzles - but the flawed parts fit into the frame-tale so well, the effect is dazzling. Given a better parser and the removal of some of the more annoying puzzles, this one would easily rate five stars.

I highly suggest to everyone to download this and try it out. it's a compelling game with a few twists and a great story. if you can get used to the annoying parser that affeects many IF games, then download this game!

Any others?

[scotch]

I just like the ones that win the IF comp, short ones like Photopia I like.  But they're more stories than adventures.

[Erica McLane]

Alice in Wonderland. It was good and you can still find it in the Underdogs site.

[Renal Shutdown]

If you can find it, "Play It Again, Sam" on the Speccy.
*IF* you can find it.

[Trapezoid]

I tried to make a Mr. Bean text adventure once.
You could play that, but I never finished it.

[Shattered Sponge]

If you can find it, "Play It Again, Sam" on the Speccy.
*IF* you can find it.

I actually had a copy of that, which I bought in a charity shop (I... er... went there to drop of some clothes... yes... clothes), but the Speccy I bought with it wouldn't bloody work, so I flogged the games on ebay and threw the ZX away.

[frobozz]

In the other thread, I mentioned A Mind Forever Voyaging.  The premise is that you are a sentient machine whose purpose is to calculate the state of the world if certain events transpire (eg. if such-and-such a bill is passed, the nation will eventually become a police state)

Here be the info:

http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=A+Mind+Forever+Voyaging

Now that you mention it, I think I'm going to play it over again...

-Fro.

PS:  Of course, I'd be betraying my handle if I didn't mention the Zork series, so I'd suggest starting with maybe Zork Zero, which came out after Zork III, and then tacking the original trilogy (which wasn't originally in trilogy form but divided up to accomodate the storage limitations of home "microcomputers")

[Matt Brown]

I concur. I played that game. It really made me think a lot, which games dont noramlly do. A true classic. I wish it had graphics thoguh

[Soft, Gooey, Delicious.]

I tried to code a test adventure based on a book my older brother had when I was about 10. I couldn't port the base code from zx81 to quickbasic though. It made me sad.

[Goldmund]

Shades of gray is fantastic. It's monumental. Although the pre-final chapter (wandering in this voodoo garden) was rather boring.
From the newer stuff, I recommend Fallacy of Dawn. It's made in Hugo, has some photographic art, and is very enjoyable.
YOU CANNOT MISS:
Gateway 1 and 2!!!!
And Time Quest!
The latter not so serious like Gateway and Fallacy, but also great. LEGEND RULES YO ASS.

I'm sooo happy that somebody besides me likes IF.
Of course, Terran, you should also play all winners from the IF competitions. One day I'm gonna make the biggest text game in history!11! (after i finish donna okay i go now)

[Dave Gilbert]

Heh.  I used to follow the IF scene pretty closely in the mid-to-late 90s.  Here are some of the better amateur ones:

The Unkuulian Underworld (sp?) series are lots of fun.  There are five of them: UUI, UUII, UU0, UU 1-1/2 (seriously), and The Legend Lives).

Curses by Graham Nelson is a work of genius.

Jigsaw, also by Graham Nelson, is an even bigger work of genius.

"Heroine's Mantle" by Andy Phillips is a great game about a superhero - great writing but the puzzles are real hard.

"I-0" by Adam Cadre is pretty fun also.

Gosh... I played so many of these in college!  I'll have to think of some more...

[woot52]

  trilby's notes

[Ghost]

Curses by Graham Nelson is a work of genius.
Jigsaw, also by Graham Nelson, is an even bigger work of genius.

I totally agree, play those even if you wouldn't normally touch a text adventure with a long stick!

Also worth mentioning:

Nord and Burt Can't Make Head Or Tails Of It, for being a game totally working on puns (so that you can make a gritty pearl a pretty girl)

Hollywood Hijinx, for the sheer cheesyness of it.

The Underoos that ate New York for being the IF equivalent of that game that started the P3n15 award.

Simmer Time for being an interactive book of recipes.

Cubicl3 for being based on Cube. You know, that movie where there's a large cube?

[Khris]

>use shovel on incredibly old thread

You successfully dig up the thread. It's decayed beyond recognition.
Suddenly, an invisible hand crushes your throat.


***  You have died.  ***

You scored 0 out of 0 possible points, earning you the rank of:

N00b.

Would you like to restart, restore or quit?

[Radiant]

Slouching Towards Bedlam.

It's very good.

[Andail]

Almost 6 years, that's got to be some kind of digging record.

[Technocrat]

Well, while we're digging, I might as well contribute. "9.15" is my all-time favourite - it's short, it's easy to get the hang of, and I can guarantee you'll get the ending that makes you look ridiculous the first time you play.

[Huw Dawson]

I KNEW something was wrong when I saw Trapezoid post!

We really should just get a giant list of IF games that you should play. I got a CD with a computer magazine that had 10 of them. One started with you as a photographer looking at this sculpture and it talked to you. One had an entirely nonsensical plot based around colours of a baby mobile. Adventure was there of course. Oh, and there was that one where you were in your apartment waiting for a taxi, and the game seemingly had no end - the only end to the game as far as I could tell was simply opening the door and walking out...

Aaaah, memories. I don't have the CD anymore though.

- Huw

[Dataflashsabot]

anybody know any good detective games? you know, digging through trash to find clues, gritty, dark alleyways, that kind of thing

[ALPHATT]

http://www.lspace.org/games/discworld/

Colour of magic. A text-advanture based on the first discworld book made for the ZX Spectrum.

If you want to play it the site provides an emulator along with the game.