# Original Text Adventure discussion--Zork anyone?



## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike."

Or was the Cave adventure?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

There were a bunch that all used the same sorts of commands . . . . our favorite was based on Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, except we got stuck trying to prove we were sentient or something to a door and never made it through. . . . .


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Oh, yeah, most of them (if not all) used Infocom's z-machine game engine with a standard set of instructions. Somewhere I have a compiler... 

I was talking about the thing I quoted "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike." I'm not sure whether that was in Zork or the original Cave Adventure, or both. Zork was more or less based on the Cave Adventure, so it may have been in both.

EDIT: The Colossal Cave Adventure, the start of them all that came on the first Wang word processors, is available in the AppStore and is one of the first things I got back in 2011 for my original Fire:



Betsy


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike."  - Colossal Cave, as I recall.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

_It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue._


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

VydorScope said:


> _It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue._


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Ann, is that a cultural icon I should know?

Vydor, can't tell you how many times I was eaten by a grue.  That phrase strikes fear into my heart.




Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

If you are a fan of the old text adventures, by the way, you might be interested in 

www.ifarchive.org


and the jfrotz app, available through Google play, will let you play on your Android device.  I had something similar on my Palm T/X.



Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Ann, is that a cultural icon I should know?
> 
> Vydor, can't tell you how many times I was eaten by a grue. That phrase strikes fear into my heart.
> 
> ...


That's Grue! Well, actually, Gru, from _Despicable Me_. Voiced by Steve Carrell. Cute movies. About a master super villian who end up fostering 3 little girls -- with predictable results. He's also got minions:


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Yeah, I've seen the minions.  I think there was a FAOTD with the minions in it.  Haven't seen the movie.  We don't often go to animated movies...though we've liked the few we've seen (Cars, Shrek, um.... what was the one with the chickens?...um....and one other one I can't think of right now.) 

I don't think the Grue in the text adventures looked anything like that.

Betsy


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

_> what is a grue?
The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale._

(src:Wikipedia)


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Betsy, you must see the Despicable Me movies. I shunned the first one for a year after it came out. It looked really lame to me.. then for some reason I saw it, and it was instantaneous LOVE! When DM2 came out we saw it opening day, and bought it the moment it was out on blueray.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

>open mailbox
Opening the small mailbox reveals a leaflet.

>read leaflet
(Taken)
"WELCOME TO ZORK!

ZORK is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortals. No computer should be without one!"


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

BTackitt said:


> Betsy, you must see the Despicable Me movies. I shunned the first one for a year after it came out. It looked really lame to me.. then for some reason I saw it, and it was instantaneous LOVE! When DM2 came out we saw it opening day, and bought it the moment it was out on blueray.


Oh, I expect I'll watch it eventually. I'm not shunning it, it's just that my tastes run to drama. Not enough shooting in most animated features.  We seldom see comedies in the theater either, catching the best ones on cable. Cars was a rare exception; we saw that in the theater because it was about, well, cars and racing, hubby's two great loves. I eventually catch them all on cable.

Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Chad Winters said:


> West of House
> You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
> There is a small mailbox here.
> 
> ...


Ahhh, yes. Loved Zork. Had them all.....


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