caving

Engrossing but difficult to watch: “Man in Cave” documentary on caver Floyd Collins

I'm conflicted. This is a very well done animated documentary, creating visuals that were not part of the original press…

2 years ago

Into the depths of code. Algorithmic archaeologies and cave fantasies in video games

The full article (by Angelo Careriis) in French, but there is an English abstract, and Google Translate is just a…

2 years ago

This Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World’s Longest Cave

The Medium headline calls Colossal Cave Adventure "one of the first the video games," but it's a stretch to use…

4 years ago

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

In The Republic, Plato uses an extended metaphor involving prisoners who can see nothing but shadows projected on the cavern…

7 years ago

New “Adventure” Details from Will Crowther in Mammoth Cave Book

The new book from the University of Kentucky Press, Mammoth Cave Curiosities" A Guide to Rockphobia, Dating, Saber-toothed Cats and…

7 years ago

Crowther’s Adventure: Tough Memes to Squash

Will Crowther, an RPG-er, created the first text-based adventure game for computers Colossal Cave Adventure in 1975.6 When Don Woods…

8 years ago

The Course of True Fun Never Did Run Smooth: A Midsummer Night’s Dwarf Fortress Reflection

I am in rehearsals to play Oberon in a community theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is a…

8 years ago

Cave Gave Game: Subterranean Space as Videogame Place | Electronic Book Review

Electronic Book Review just published an article I wrote with Dave Thomas, on cave space in video game ecology. Parts…

9 years ago

Son Doong Cave in Viet Nam Featurers Skylight, Jungle

As a fan of Colossal Cave Adventure, I'm curious to know whether there's an active volcano in this cave. Or…

11 years ago

Colossal Cave: The Board Game by Arthur O’Dwyer

The kids and I enjoy nerdy board games. (I love both of you very much, but when we play Star…

11 years ago

Photo of William Crowther, 2012

I just noticed that a few days ago, a Wikipedia user uploaded a photo to the bio for computing history…

11 years ago

Adventure Before Adventure Games: A New Look at Crowther and Woods’s Seminal Program

Lessard pushes back in useful ways against the notion that modern computer games emerged fullly-formed from the coding experiments of…

11 years ago

Towards a canon of “hypertext literature / interactive fiction / digital narrative”

Kim asked on Twitter: “Is there a canon for digital narratives / interactive stories / hypertext literature yet? A list…

11 years ago

‘Island of the Blue Dolphins’ woman’s cave believed found

For more than 20 years, Navy archaeologist Steve Schwartz searched for that cave. It was believed to be home to…

12 years ago

The Evolution of Adventure: Make Game – Asio City

In the early 1970s William Crowther worked for the high-tech R&D company BBN Technologies as part of a team developing…

12 years ago

Gaming Made Me: Colossal Cave Adventure | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

There was only one game. Appropriately for us neighborhood-explorers, for us mapmakers, it was launched by typing ADVENTURE. The game…

12 years ago

Tantalizing Details for Colossal Cave Adventure Enthusiasts

The most detail I've ever seen about Will Crowther's other creative projects; here, in a conversation dated 1996, he discusses…

12 years ago

Documentary Review: Get Lamp « Fictional Fans

I was happy to see this review of a great film I used a few weeks ago in my "Video…

12 years ago

Outside In: Representations of Nature in Video Games | Not Your Mama’s Gamer

Caves and sandboxes are some kinds of game spaces I've explored in conversations (and an unpublished manuscript) with David Thomas,…

13 years ago

“Code on a Grecian Urn”: Humanists attempt to articulate the cultural value of programming

One of my favorite comments from last year's communal exploration of the source code for Colossal Cave Adventure. Stephen Ramsay…

13 years ago