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4 people found the following review helpful:
The First and Still the Best, January 6, 2021I know some people who play and read these types of game today aren't a fan of this type of game. But really, this one did start it all. I played, learned, and liked the original two-word parser.
Really, even if you've read and played a lot of other types of IF, you really should find a way to play this one. Sure, it's a simple parser, but the adventure is fantastic. No, there's no huge storyline. But finding your way around and learning your way through this massive cave just can't be beat. Try it. Really.
- mifga (Brooklyn, NY), October 15, 2020
- Arrowhead12 (Edmonton, Alberta), June 11, 2020
- Zape, June 3, 2020
- Zoe Victoria (Under your bed), April 24, 2020
- edcst, April 2, 2020
- plutonick, February 7, 2020
- Ry (Philippines), October 4, 2019
- Zach Shifflett (VA, United States), December 11, 2018
- doodlelogic, July 29, 2018
- stet, November 22, 2017
4 of
4 people found the following review helpful:
The original, and one of the best depending on your likes, September 4, 2017Adventure was the very first text adventure of all time. It inspired the genre and its name.
The point of the game is to gather a variety of treasures and bring them back to a small building. The game is pretty accurately based on the Mammoth Caves, which explains the mazes and the fact that exits and entrances sometimes don't match up exactly (i.e. going west and then east may not leave you where you started).
For me, the most enjoyable way to play this game was to keep it at a slow pace, going back to it time and again while playing other games. I kept a numbered list of every room with all of its exits to other rooms. This made the game much easier. After several weeks, I got to a point where I couldn't get any further for several days. I finally looked up a walkthrough for the last three or four puzzles.
Once you get all the treasures, there is an endgame that is surprisingly good; it seems more like a modern deconstruction of the game than the very first game of all.
I played the 350 point version, and I found the game incredibly enjoyable. I admit that I used the wicker cage bug (as mentioned in another review), where you can carry everything in the wicker cage. To get full points, you must remove the items from the cage outside of the building before placing them in there.
Every Interactive Fiction player should play this game because so many other games reference it heavily.
- tekket (Česká Lípa, Czech Republic), August 12, 2017
- jamesb (Lexington, Kentucky), July 12, 2017
- LynXsh, April 26, 2017
- Spike, February 26, 2017
- Greg Frost (Seattle, Washington), February 11, 2017
- Denk, February 3, 2017
- Xavid, December 7, 2016
- NinaS, July 3, 2016
- LayzaSkully (Italy), June 22, 2016
- namekuseijin (anywhere but home), January 12, 2016
- bignose (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), November 7, 2015
2 of
4 people found the following review helpful:
A New Version of an Old Version of the Original Text Adventure, October 31, 2015by jgerrie (Cape Breton Island, Canada) For Retrochallenge 2015 I ported Will Crowther's original Colossal Cave "Adventure" source code to Microsoft Micro Color Basic. The new basic source code should be easily shifted to other Basics. I elaborated a few uncompleted elements and areas and changed a few things to create some new challenges for old players.
I also added some new commands such as SCORE, which will tell you how you're doing and if you have won. HELP will provide some rudimentary aid. UNLOAD will perform the same function as the more standard "drop all" command of other adventures. QUIT not only exits but prompts whether you would like to save the progress you have made so far. You are prompted each time the program is run if you wish to load a previous game. The same file name "COLOSDAT" is used for each save, but in the emulator (VMC10.exe) you can save the resulting virtual cassette file to any file name you like in order to differentiate between different saves.
I re-coded the program from the Fortran source code and data file of Will Crowther's original version of "Advent" for the PDP-10 recently recovered from an old back-up tape by Dennis Jerz. This is not the classic "350 point" version modified by Don Woods. So if you are interested in playing a new version of the original version of the "original" text adventure, you can try this one out. My version contains all the room movement info in numeric form and most of the text descriptions of rooms and events. I had to wedge it into 20K of my favourite 8-bit the TRS-80 MC-10, so some of the descriptions got "edited" a little, but I was able to transfer the map info from the data file into Basic DATA statements, so it's a largely accurate rendition of the original map. I only made a very few tweaks where directions were quite clearly messed up or to eliminate a few NE, NW, SE and SW directions.
Using various descriptions from the Net of the puzzles and other game challenges and by examining Crowther's original source, I was able to recreate what I believe is a reasonably accurate presentation of all the original game elements. However, as I worked on the rooms in the Bedquilt (“Under Construction”) area of Crowther's original code I really could sense where his patience with the project petered out (sometime in 1975 or 1976) so I also ended up adding a few unique elements of my own to “complete” what is obviously an unfinished work just begging for elaboration. I can understand what tempted Don Woods to make his additions in 1977 to create the classic version.
That being said, I do not like some of the more surreal fantasy elements that Woods added. Crowther's version has a more austere set of locations, but they have a feel of realism that is absent from the classic version's chaotic hurly-burly of branches. Also, there is clearly a sense that Crowther's fantasy elements (Hall of the Mountain King, nasty little dwarfs, finding a cave in the woods) were drawn from a single classic narrative source, such as the story of Peer Gynt, rather than a hodgepodge of fantasy cliche's. I tried to respect this integrity in the few additions I made to fill out Crowther's obviously abandoned work.
Don Woods helped Crowther overcome the problem of the game's unfinished nature by significantly expanding the complexity of the cave and by adding improved scoring and completion routines. It's this latter version which is normally referred to as "the original adventure" or the "350 point" version. In homage to this latter title I have also made my re-coded version worth 350 points, although these points only represent six 50 point treasures. Only five of these treasures are present in Crowther's original. I have added one treasure and one puzzle and a few new threats. I have also slightly changed the operation of some of the magic of the original to prevent old hands from simply applying their prior knowledge.
The following file contains the Virtual MC-10 emulator and the program file COLOSSAL.C10 for loading and running in the emulator:
http://faculty.cbu.ca/jgerrie/Home/VMC10_073D.zip
- necromancer, July 17, 2015
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