Jeffrey Rosenthal's Interactive Fiction (Text Adventure) Page

I enjoy interactive fiction (text adventure) computer games, as an alternative to the modern computer game style of "flashing lights and fancy graphics and loud sound effects but little actual content". The basic idea of IF games is simplicity itself: the computer provides certain text (e.g. "You are in a large room. There is a spatula here."), and you type your character's actions in plain text (e.g. "Get spatula. Go north."). Out of this simple design can emerge elaborate journeys, in elaborate settings, involving puzzles and traps and joy and intrigue -- at its best, a cross between a computer game and an engaging novel. (And if you get stuck when playing a game, there is often a hints or solution file available.)

For more information, and hundreds of freely-available games, see e.g. Baf's Guide, or the Interactive Fiction Archive (or a mirror), or the IFDB.

I also enjoy creating maps for IF games, using the simple software admap by Fredric Ihren. Some of my maps are below. WARNING: The maps contain spoilers!

Running IF Games

If you install a TADS interpreter (e.g. QTads or FrobTADS or Spatterlight or WinTADS or Player Kit for Windows), then you can play any IF game which has a .gam file. (See also an obscure TADS Yellow Dog Linux fix.) Similarly, with XZip or Zoom or Frotz you can play any game in "Infocom Z-code" format, i.e. having a .z5 or .z8 file. Together this includes the majority of IF games.

My Own Game: Galactic Peace (gpeace.gam)

Over the years 2001-2009, I gradually wrote my own small, simple TADS game, called Galactic Peace. See the Galactic Peace web page including the gpeace.gam game file and walkthrough. Any comments or suggestions of any kind are most appreciated. Have fun!

My Favourite IF Games

Lost New York (by Neil deMause): Really great!
Babel (by Ian Finley): Interesting, and also creepy.
Adventure (a.k.a. Colossal Cave) (by William Crowther and Donald Woods): The classic. (See my maps below.)

Games I Played and Enjoyed

MacWesleyan (by Neil deMause): Fun and amusing.
John's Fire Witch (by John Baker) [see my Firewitch map]
Glowgrass (by Nate Cull): Short and interesting. [see my Glowgrass map / PDF]
Enlisted (by G.F. Berry) [see my Enlisted map]
On The Farm (by Lenny Pitts) [see my On The Farm map, created jointly with Emile LeBlanc]
Toonesia (toonesia.gam; recommended by my brother): Quite short and pretty silly, but fun and well programmed.
The Jewel of Knowledge (by Francesco Bova) [solved with Emile LeBlanc]
Sunset Over Savannah (mostly with Erik Stewart; see our map)
Arrival (including the optional HTML TADS features) [solved with Erik Stewart]
Save Princeton (see my map)
Common Ground (extremely short, and disappointingly little player choice, but a slightly interesting story which is worth (barely) the short time it takes to play the game)
Small World (a few minor flaws, but mostly really good!)

Games I Started, and Mostly Enjoyed, but Didn't (Yet?) Finish

Curses (see the maps I created)
Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina
The Plant
Worlds Apart (see my partial map, in postscript or pdf)
Photopia
Ditch Day Drifter (with Erik Stewart; see our latest map)
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (hhgg.z5; odd but amusing ... see reviews)

IF Games On My "To-Play List"

(Let me know if you would like to play any of them with me!)

Losing Your Grip (now open source!)
Hunter, in Darkness
The Frenetic Five vs. Mr. Redundancy Man
Slouching Towards Bedlam
Finding Martin

Adventure (Colossal Cave Revisited)

As a throwback to my youth, I recently replayed the wonderful original Adventure game, now referred to as Colossal Cave. See the maps I created (for the original, 350-point version of the game). Note that I just did them quickly, for myself, and they are not 100% complete or 100% accurate or particularly beautiful. In fact, there are already many different solutions of this game available on the web, including some other maps which are doubtless better than mine.

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