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

Games I Played and Enjoyed

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

IF Games On My "To-Play List"

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

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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