08 Jan 2008 [ Prev
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Jerz, "Somewhere Nearby Is Colossal Cave"
- Read about the first third of "Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave," up to the paragraph marked 21.
- If you love computer programming, you might enjoy looking through the analysis of the computer code. If coding doesn't thrill you, you can skip ahead to the photo tour that starts at paragraph 59.
- Either way, read the final paragraphs, from section 75-87.
This article appeared in an academic journal, but gained a relatively wide readership (if BoingBong, MetaFilter, and Slashdot mean anything to you, it was mentioned on the font page of all three simultaneously).
Will Crowther's "Colossal Cave Adventure" was neither the first computer game nor the first program to emulate conversation[1]; nevertheless, "Adventure" - an interactive textual simulation of a caving expedition, augmented by fantasy-themed puzzles - inspired a generation of hackers.... Text-adventures, also known as "interactive fiction" (IF),[2] attracted modest scholarly attention as an emerging literary form in the 80s;[3] yet "[m]ost commentators and critics of the adventure game genre... fail to mention the original Adventure at all, and those who do usually date it far off the mark... and often neglect to mention its creators" (Aarseth 1997, 107) . The resulting vacuum has attracted memes, some so firmly lodged in our inventory of digital lore that they regularly appear without citation. In order to map out the groundwork for a more accurate assessment of "Adventure", its innovations, and its legacy, this study draws on two crucial resources previously unexamined by digital scholars: Crowther's original source code and Kentucky's original source cave.
Will Crowther's "Colossal Cave Adventure" was neither the first computer game nor the first program to emulate conversation[1]; nevertheless, "Adventure" - an interactive textual simulation of a caving expedition, augmented by fantasy-themed puzzles - inspired a generation of hackers.... Text-adventures, also known as "interactive fiction" (IF),[2] attracted modest scholarly attention as an emerging literary form in the 80s;[3] yet "[m]ost commentators and critics of the adventure game genre... fail to mention the original Adventure at all, and those who do usually date it far off the mark... and often neglect to mention its creators" (Aarseth 1997, 107) . The resulting vacuum has attracted memes, some so firmly lodged in our inventory of digital lore that they regularly appear without citation. In order to map out the groundwork for a more accurate assessment of "Adventure", its innovations, and its legacy, this study draws on two crucial resources previously unexamined by digital scholars: Crowther's original source code and Kentucky's original source cave.
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