Thanks for the lists! I am playing A Mind Forever Voyaging now and quite enjoying it. I was overwhelmed at first by being thrown into a difficult-to-map city and expected to fulfill a list of objectives I wasn’t sure how to approach. Once I made it past that first part, things have gone a lot more smoothly. The premise and style (political/dystopian sci-fi) are very much in line with my taste.
I’ve heard Trinity is a similar sort of thing done with a totally different approach, so I’m looking forward to trying that one at some point.
I’m actually surprised at all the recommendations for Hitchhiker’s Guide… I thought that one had a reputation for being nearly impossible! I will have to give it a go. Loved the books when I was a teenager.
So am I. Hitchhiker’s Guide is the most overrated game of all time. It’s incredibly hard and unfair and full of logical inconsistencies. It rates cruel on Zarf’s cruelty scale. If you haven’t read the book, then forget it.
Another overrated game that’s recommended on this thread is The Hobbit. This game had some very clever things going on under the hoods (for the time), but it’s very hard and chock full of bugs. People used to revel in playing the game just to find all the weird bugs.
I suspect that people feel compelled to say they like these games, simply because they’re based on famous books. If you replaced all the names in the games with names that weren’t in the books so that you didn’t know they were based on the books, would they still be popular? I think not. They would have been bagged in reviews and seen for what they really are. Even so, they are ‘must play’ games.
(Now sit back and watch all the pundits defend these games.)
I’m about 2/3 of the way through Hitchhiker’s, and I’m not too impressed. I’ve been a big fan of the books since I read them as a teenager, but the game doesn’t really measure up.
“Eddies,” said Ford, “in the space-time continuum.”
“Ah,” nodded Arthur, “is he. Is he.”
I was going to reply with AMFV, but then I realized you’re right. HHGG was Infocom’s huge hit, but it’s not even good. And I’ve always loved the books.
Still, as you say–a must-play.
In the case of Hitchhiker’s Guide, you might like to read my review in Page 6. It was written at the time the game was commercially available. It includes a history, game playing strategy (fairly spoiler free) and coded hints.
Just like every other Infocom game, except maybe Nord and Bert.
Surely the point of an “essential must-play” list is to see games that tried unique and ambitious things for their time. Asking for the “easiest and most fun” games of the 80s and 90s would be a different list entirely.
I know The Hobbit has received a lot of criticism over the years from people who consider it overrated and can’t see what all the fuss is about, but then has there ever been a game that has received universal acclaim from everyone who played it? I doubt it. When I got onto the internet and discovered the IF scene to be alive and kicking after all these years of assuming it was over with, I made a point of finding the most highly rated game around and seeing just how far IF had come over the years. And, funnily enough, when I tried Photopia I didn’t like it at all. Nicely written but I honestly couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.
I don’t think I had any pre-conceived notions about The Hobbit because of the book which, at the time, I hadn’t even read. From what I remember, I got both for Christmas one year as a teenager: some special offer where you bought the game and got a free copy of the novel thrown in for good measure. As I was a remarkably slow reader back then, I’m sure I played the game long before I got around to tackling the book. I ended up loving both.
In general text adventure game recommendation threads, particularly UK 8-bit ones, The Hobbit always comes up being heavily recommended… usually alongside lots of other games with really obtuse and difficult puzzles, that I only ever believe are being recommended due to nostalgia by people that haven’t really ever gone back to play either the games they’ve recommended, or any other games since the 1980s! (Just to be clear… that wouldn’t be an accusation I’d level at anybody mentioning games here, by the way… this is a much different crowd!)
I would never recommend The Hobbit in one of those sorts of threads, but I can completely understand why it’s been recommended here. I think that The Hobbit manages to be both simultaneously one of the best text adventures ever written and one of the worst text adventures ever written. It was ground-breaking at the time for the fact it attempted to simulate a living, breathing world where all the non-player characters just got on with their own business, irrespective of what the player was doing. The fact that Gandalf and Thorin could go off and get into a fight and get themselves killed, leaving the game unsolvable, was regarded as a positive thing. There was a real hunger for that sort of game at the time. But strip away that aspect and look at the elements that became more important in text adventures going forward, and it is seriously lacking in interesting, logical puzzles.
The Hobbit is not a good example of the text adventure genre. It is not a good beginner’s adventure and there are plenty of ways you can argue that it’s not even a very good adventure. But it is a very good example of the way people were looking to push and explore the genre at the time, when it was still in its infancy really and still left with many of the trappings and ideas that would go on to be used in RPGs. People were playing The Hobbit, and getting stuck in the goblins’ dungeon, a decade after it came out. It inspired so many British adventure writers; particular young British adventure game writers, who often paid homage to it in their own work and produced parodies of it. They were being inspired by the game, not the book, The Hobbit was an extremely important text adventure to me when it came out, being my first ever experience of the genre, but unlike many other games that had that impact on me, bother personal and professional, it’s not one that I ever feel the need to revisit.
So despite it’s failings, The Hobbit is an essential must-play for anyone who is in to the history of text adventures and interactive fiction, particularly British works. It sold incredibly well and had a huge impact on virtually everything that came out after it in the UK scene. For just its technical aspects alone it is worth checking out. But yeah, you could argue that both then and now, that if you’re after clever, logical puzzles, it’s also a bit crap.
Yup my suggestions were very much along the lines of games I think important for understanding the history of text adventure games, not necessarily the best. I agree with many of the critiques of The Hobbit and Hitchhiker’s, but would still argue that they are very important examples of the genre and in the history of IF. This is also why I recommended Hunt the Wumpus, which barely compares with later parser games in terms of depth, but is of pivotal importance in the history.
I completed A Mind Forever Voyaging and found it very interesting and enjoyable overall (with a few minor gripes). You can find my thoughts on that game on this thread.
Next I think I might tackle either Plundered Hearts or Trinity.
Modern IF people do not really understand that most of what they take for granted today was being pioneered in the 80s and, at the time, it was highly experimental. Experiments tend to work some and fail some.
I think (if you can get the images working) Arthur: the Quest for Excalibur is a pretty fun one. You might want to look to eristic.net for some help with the password puzzle, 'cause that’s copy-protected, but otherwise a lot of fun. (Don’t get annoyed when you lose stuff!) Also, the invisible knight / ring puzzle is a really good puzzle. You can’t get the gold key until you have the bag, but in a really interesting way!
And H2G2 isn’t that bad. Okay, the puzzles are less intelligible (like the generator/plotter/tea one) but there are some fun parts. (I have to admit, I used the walkthrough almost throughout. But I do for most games.)
Apart from being a wonderful game, Sunset over Savannah was quite novel in replacing the numerical score with a mood-indicator for the protagonist. The point of the game is character development, and the mood-score emphasises that. Sunset Over Savannah - Details (ifdb.org)
And when I think of SoS, I automatically also think of She’s Got a Thing for a Spring (yes, the inspiration for the current IF-festival’s name). Also a beautiful game, but it stands out as (one of) the first with a very deeply realised NPC. There is no need in-game for Bob to be so well-characterised. Nevertheless, here he is, a person in his own right. She’s Got a Thing for a Spring - Details (ifdb.org)
I sometimes get this with Windows Frotz because I normally use it in a small window for doing screen grabs. However, you can increase the window size to work around this, or reduce the font size.