Half-Century Challenge Series: https://www.backloggd.com/u/C_F/list/half-century-challenge/
HCC #7 = Colossal Cave Adventure (1976)
>kill dragon
>With what? Your bare hands?
>yes
>CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE JUST VANQUISHED A DRAGON WITH YOUR BARE HANDS! (UNBELIEVABLE, ISN’T IT?)
Welcome back to the Half-Century Challenge folks. Mega recently put out a banger review for the challenge so as usual, check it out too: https://www.backloggd.com/u/MegaTheRealOne/review/1689816/
Today we're tackling what some would go as far as to call the most important video game of all time, Colossal Cave Adventure. Truth be told, this is not actually the first text adventure game (check out my review of Wander in the first link here) and it is obviously not the first video game ever either. However, it was one of the first games to gain a large amount of fame. This is especially true for its nature as a piece of interactive fiction with storytelling that, while still quite simple, was more than one would expect to chew into in 1976.
And while it is far, far, far from an intuitive game, look at the quote I posted above. This is pointed to as THE moment where user-friendliness and the subversion of expectations in software development started being more apparent for the gaming scene: https://medium.com/@aareed/killing-the-dragon-in-adventure-14c4c4edb130
Truth be told, I do not enjoy this game at all. I do not remotely like having to try 4 different synonyms to try grabbing, collecting, getting, or taking something. The RNG elements like the goblins are unbearable. But I heavily respect what it's doing.
"you gotta respect iot, even though it sucks. You just gotta respect it even if you fucking hate it . You gotta respect this shit"
-dril 2021
The magic term in computing, XYZZY, also spread into public consciousness for this game. If Monkey Island has paid tribute to you, you're probably pretty legit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FBgf_blDWQ
Anyway, this is a game I had tried to beat since the day I first used Windows 10 and saw it free in the Windows store. I dropped it like 5 times over the years before finally finishing it last year. I usually quite appreciate playing games like this for historical value even if occasionally I don't enjoy them in a traditional sense, but I'm not sure I got much out of this. It's a game with unreliable narration years before the likes of Portopia dropped, and that's cool. The magic code word is cool. The narrator calling the player out for typing fuck into the terminal is cool. A lot of elements of Colossal Cave are interesting, but in all honesty I struggle to rec this game to anyone. Play the DOS port with a walkthrough if you're really curious about it, but expect to get trolled pretty heavily https://i.imgur.com/6FCOfI7.png
Next time: Space Wars (1977)
HCC #7 = Colossal Cave Adventure (1976)
>kill dragon
>With what? Your bare hands?
>yes
>CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE JUST VANQUISHED A DRAGON WITH YOUR BARE HANDS! (UNBELIEVABLE, ISN’T IT?)
Welcome back to the Half-Century Challenge folks. Mega recently put out a banger review for the challenge so as usual, check it out too: https://www.backloggd.com/u/MegaTheRealOne/review/1689816/
Today we're tackling what some would go as far as to call the most important video game of all time, Colossal Cave Adventure. Truth be told, this is not actually the first text adventure game (check out my review of Wander in the first link here) and it is obviously not the first video game ever either. However, it was one of the first games to gain a large amount of fame. This is especially true for its nature as a piece of interactive fiction with storytelling that, while still quite simple, was more than one would expect to chew into in 1976.
And while it is far, far, far from an intuitive game, look at the quote I posted above. This is pointed to as THE moment where user-friendliness and the subversion of expectations in software development started being more apparent for the gaming scene: https://medium.com/@aareed/killing-the-dragon-in-adventure-14c4c4edb130
Truth be told, I do not enjoy this game at all. I do not remotely like having to try 4 different synonyms to try grabbing, collecting, getting, or taking something. The RNG elements like the goblins are unbearable. But I heavily respect what it's doing.
"you gotta respect iot, even though it sucks. You just gotta respect it even if you fucking hate it . You gotta respect this shit"
-dril 2021
The magic term in computing, XYZZY, also spread into public consciousness for this game. If Monkey Island has paid tribute to you, you're probably pretty legit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FBgf_blDWQ
Anyway, this is a game I had tried to beat since the day I first used Windows 10 and saw it free in the Windows store. I dropped it like 5 times over the years before finally finishing it last year. I usually quite appreciate playing games like this for historical value even if occasionally I don't enjoy them in a traditional sense, but I'm not sure I got much out of this. It's a game with unreliable narration years before the likes of Portopia dropped, and that's cool. The magic code word is cool. The narrator calling the player out for typing fuck into the terminal is cool. A lot of elements of Colossal Cave are interesting, but in all honesty I struggle to rec this game to anyone. Play the DOS port with a walkthrough if you're really curious about it, but expect to get trolled pretty heavily https://i.imgur.com/6FCOfI7.png
Next time: Space Wars (1977)