Say "Xyzzy!"...Nothing happens
August 13, 2007 7:14 AM   Subscribe

Real Life "Colossal Cave Adventureā€! Discussion of original source code, different versions of the game, hand draw maps, and lots of photos inside the cave the game is based on. Grab your shiny brass lamp and tasty food and meet me at the Bedquilt entrance.
posted by cosmicbandito (17 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
This was really, really cool. Thanks for posting it!
posted by Malor at 7:48 AM on August 13, 2007


Oh my god, yes. I love text adventure and I love, love, love cave maps. With the little dotted lines that lead off to who knows where, they remind me of the incomplete maps of the world from antiquity. HERE BE DRAGONS.
posted by zsazsa at 8:05 AM on August 13, 2007


The cave photos with attached room descriptions from the game are awesome. This is great!
posted by uncleozzy at 8:07 AM on August 13, 2007


I can feel a new LOLCATS meme coming on. (I can haz mint-cake?)
posted by Jofus at 8:14 AM on August 13, 2007


Plugh!
posted by digiFramph at 8:28 AM on August 13, 2007


So awesome! Thank you for this!
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:38 AM on August 13, 2007


Wow, cool, thanks. What academic research should aspire to be. :)
posted by salvia at 8:38 AM on August 13, 2007


Wow. I never would have imagined that there is an actually maze of twisty passages, all alike. Holy cow.
posted by GuyZero at 9:01 AM on August 13, 2007


That is awesome! Read, saved and favortied. Thank you!
posted by LeeJay at 9:52 AM on August 13, 2007


Wow, geekgasm. How sad is it that I really want to go caving with my laptop now, so I can play along as I go through the caverns?
posted by Aversion Therapy at 9:56 AM on August 13, 2007


On review, there are an awful lot of comments beginning with "wow" in this thread...
posted by Aversion Therapy at 9:57 AM on August 13, 2007


Yeah, this is a keeper--thanks!
posted by everichon at 10:20 AM on August 13, 2007


wow I am amazed.
posted by Grod at 11:33 AM on August 13, 2007


There is a version of colossal cave/advent you can play on-line!
posted by digiFramph at 1:08 PM on August 13, 2007


My dad would have loved this.
posted by Epenthesis at 1:17 PM on August 13, 2007


I read this one on the weekend after a link in rec.games.int-fiction, thought about a post, but wondered about audience interest. Turn out - usenet is still cool!

sometimes

Actually, though (mild derail) in many way the older places of the web are better these days. /. is occasionally even readable since the invention of digg. But I digress.

This is particularly good if you're familiar with the semi-mythic history of the game. Turns out Crowther did do interactive gamey bits (not widely known), and I was especially interested to learn he wrote it in part for something for his kids to do subsequent to his divorce. My dad introduced me and my brother to it on a mainframe at the university he worked at in 79(?), after his divorce, for something to keep us occupied. It became something of an infatuation. For years I kept the printout of my first ever successful traversal through collosal cave.

Many moons later, the first compiled code I ever wrote was using inform downloaded from ftp.gmd.de, and the basics I learned from that kept me employed for years. It wasn't the best game ever written, but Andrew Plotkin liked it, which gave me a considerable egoboo.

/dabs happy tear

Here's to ya, Mr Crowther, and also to Mr Woods, the Lennon to your McCartney. Loosely speaking.
posted by Sparx at 2:39 PM on August 13, 2007


Hey! THe original source code is there too!

http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/

from the post that I assume started it all at
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction/browse_thread/thread/607acaf1a279d4dd/bd53b672a185d177#bd53b672a185d177
posted by GuyZero at 7:59 AM on August 14, 2007


« Older Sounds Like a Case of the Mondays   |   It takes a village Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments