I Miss Text Based Games
Okay who remembers the old school text based games. You know the ones, where there was a static screen in front of you and you would have to type things like 'go east' or 'use item'. Some of them did not even have graphics just words on the screen that explained what was in front of you. And they were awesome. Sure they were very difficult to beat, you got lost easily and the item you were suppose to use to solve a puzzle usually didn't make much sense, but hey, it was still good fun.
For me it was The Wizard And The Princess for the Atari that got me hooked. Give me a shout-out in the comments if you have played it but I'm sure I am the only one. You started in a town that lead to a desert. From there you would type n,s,w,e and try to navigate your way out of it. Every screen looked very similar (some has rocks) so you ended up just typing directions aimlessly for minutes. If you made it to the end by accident there was a snake that killed you. The only way to fight the snake was with a rock you could pick up in the desert. But all but one rock had a scorpion under it and if you picked up the wrong one, guess what, you got stung and had to start over. Imagine how hard this was as a kid and only through a cheat sheet did I ever get through it.
But despite the difficulty there was still something special about those games that you don't get in today's experiences. Sure there was a lot of trail and error but it really got you thinking. It was one of those games that you would be thinking about when you were at school, trying to figure out if your head how to pass a section. Point and click had that same feel too and I would like to see more Maniac Mansion games for new consoles. Or maybe it is just me.
Hey maybe we can make a game on the steemit site.
Text adventures were of their time. I spent many a night playing Infocom games...well I say playing, it was more like masochistic brain acrobatics.Remember the Babel fish puzzle from the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, need I say more? Yeah they and the later point click games were fun, but they've now become a niche pursuit as the general games playing market has moved on. Yes they were a lot of fun , but I don't wanna spend a couple of hours stuck on a puzzle looking at a blinking cursor again. I'd bet most people today probably wouldn't want to either . Also back in the day there was no instant access to the solution repository we call the internet . Would people today have the discipline to not look up anwsers? I 'm not sure I would ...That said, solving a puzzle in these games really made me feel like I'd achieved something and I rarely get that same sense from games today but as the saying goes The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
Fyi there's a really great Documentary on the subject called Get Lamp, totally worth a watch:
I thought about it today.
There was a game called gorilla on msdos in gwbasic .. I played fondly ... my first pc was 80286 processor and windows were not there :)
Snake game on Nokia 3310 :D @whatageek
Snake xenzia... yeah
I can't even remember the name of any right now. hmmmmm... We've come a long way
I wasted all my life plating Mario 😝😋😝😋
But it was fun....
Bomberman was the best 😍
Yeah I know these types of games, even though I am not too familiar with them.
I LOVE that you mention this 'the type of game you were thinking about at school'.
I agree. Generally with many games back then there was this mythical factor to games when nobody knew the solution, and all kind of rumours as to possible solution ways spread. There were simply no walkthroughs, hence more secrets. These days, the secrets are already uncovered the day of game release, with everyone getting them out on the internet.
I stay away from these kind of learning as much as possible. The type of game you talk about here definitely belongs to those mythical secret treasure trove era! :)
"There was still something special about those games that you don't get in today's experiences", what a game,mine was not far from that as we had to used mud to mold objects; just to provide answers to some funny puzzles..here we are today, how time flies. Thanks @whatageek for reminding me of the beautiful old days, it used to be great fun!
Woah i do not remember any of these games.
But i think it would be cool to try them out :)
Just to get a nostalgic feel :D
Fuck yeah! OG Dungeon Crawl FTW! Love this post, thanks for the nostalgia! #makegamessmartagain