A few of my games are inspired by obscure or unpublished games that aren’t in IFDB because they’ve never been published anywhere, so I can’t refer to those. (I do give credits in the games themselves if anyone’s interested.) In the interests of “genealogy”, is there any way to reference an unpublished game or a book or a movie or a TV show or…
All the games in The BDB Project are adaptations of games from the late 1980s and they are acknowledged as such in IFDB. They certainly aren’t “ports”, as they’re completely new games, nor are they translations of the original Italian games, as all the text has been completely rewritten to suit the new games.
Every game I’ve ever written has a response to XYZZY, so perhaps I should find and add that tag.
Even with the relatively small number of facts that have been entered to date, we can see some instances of “multi-generational” inspiration:
+-----------------------------+--------------------+-------------------------------+
| inspirer | inspiree | 2nd_gen_inspiree |
+-----------------------------+--------------------+-------------------------------+
| Leather Goddesses of Phobos | Counterfeit Monkey | Retool Looter |
| Colossal Cave Adventure | Zork | Bael's Rock: A Text Adventure |
| Colossal Cave Adventure | Zork | RYFT: A Timely Manor |
| Castle of the Red Prince | Toby's Nose | Erstwhile |
| Castle of the Red Prince | Toby's Nose | In a minute there is time |
| Lime Ergot | Toby's Nose | Erstwhile |
| Lime Ergot | Toby's Nose | In a minute there is time |
+-----------------------------+--------------------+-------------------------------+
I’ll start posting updates of this list every time I get fresh data. If you have any knowledge of inspirations (such as those for your own games, hint hint), please take a moment to update their IFDB pages accordingly.
I’d like to try this with my own games now. I admit I feel funny if, say, I can remember three games that inspired one game of my mine, but only one of them is IF, so I can only list one. But I am extremely fussy in general and I will just chalk this up as a minor personal victory of overcoming my fussiness.
There are currently 92 “inspired by” links in IFDB data, up from 77 three months ago – a nearly 20% increase. Sadly, there are no new “grandparent” links to report compared to last time.
For reference, the current data for IF’s family tree is:
inspiration links as of June 1st, 2026
+------------------------------------------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| inspiree | rel | inspirer |
+------------------------------------------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| A Difficult Puzzle | inspired by | Hard Puzzle |
| A Difficult Puzzle | inspired by | Junior Arithmancer |
| A Difficult Puzzle | inspired by | Time's Enigma |
| Acheton | inspired by | Colossal Cave Adventure |
| An Act of Murder | inspired by | Sleuth |
| Bad Beer | inspired by | Morris |
| Bael's Rock: A Text Adventure | inspired by | Zork |
| Biennio Rosso: An Alternate History | inspired by | Social Democracy: An Alternate History |
| Castle Amnos | inspired by | Varicella |
| Chronicle Play Torn | inspired by | Anchorhead |
| Chronicle Play Torn | inspired by | Wishbringer |
| Contrition | inspired by | Weird City Interloper |
| Counterfeit Monkey | inspired by | Leather Goddesses of Phobos |
| Degeneracy | inspired by | Jacks or Better to Murder, Aces to Win |
| Dessert Island Adventure | inspired by | The Wand |
| Diary of a Drowned Girl | inspired by | Below |
| Down, the Serpent and the Sun | inspired by | La Lagune de Montaigne |
| Editor-In-Chief | inspired by | Social Democracy: An Alternate History |
| Editor-In-Chief | inspired by | Suzerain |
| Erstwhile | inspired by | Color the Truth |
| Erstwhile | inspired by | Toby's Nose |
| Escape from Hell | inspired by | Detectiveland |
| Escape from Hell | inspired by | Inside the Facility |
| Familiar Problems | inspired by | The Meteor, the Stone and a Long Glass of Sherbet |
| Familiar Problems | inspired by | The Vambrace of Destiny |
| Forsaken Denizen | inspired by | Attack of the Yeti Robot Zombies |
| Grief | inspired by | 9:05 |
| Grief | inspired by | Slouching Towards Bedlam |
| Hadean Lands | inspired by | Enchanter |
| HEN AP PRAT GETS SMACKED IN THE TWAT | inspired by | DICK MCBUTTS GETS KICKED IN THE NUTS |
| Hobbiton Recall | inspired by | The Hobbit |
| How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title | inspired by | Unnkulia Zero: The Search for Amanda |
| How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title | inspired by | Unnkulian Underworld: The Unknown Unventure |
| How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title | inspired by | Unnkulian Unventure II: The Secret of Acme |
| Hunter, in Darkness | inspired by | Hunt the Wumpus |
| HUNTING UNICORN | inspired by | howling dogs |
| In a minute there is time | inspired by | Queers in Love at the End of the World |
| In a minute there is time | inspired by | Toby's Nose |
| Intelligence | inspired by | The Roottrees are Dead |
| Loose Ends | inspired by | Vampire: The Masquerade — Night Road |
| Losing Your Grip | inspired by | John's Fire Witch |
| Mars, 2049 AD | inspired by | Craverly Heights |
| meminerimus | inspired by | Color the Truth |
| meminerimus | inspired by | Moon Logic |
| meminerimus | inspired by | Super Halloween Horror Show |
| meminerimus | inspired by | The Wise-Woman's Dog |
| meminerimus | inspired by | Warden: a (bug)folk horror |
| Memoir: Text Adventure | inspired by | Alter Ego |
| Midnight. Swordfight. | inspired by | Figaro |
| Milliways: the Restaurant at the End of the Universe | inspired by | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
| Miss Gosling's Last Case | inspired by | The Impossible Bottle |
| Museum Heist | inspired by | Captain Verdeterre's Plunder |
| Museum Heist | inspired by | Sugarlawn |
| Museum Heist | inspired by | The Prongleman Job |
| Never Gives Up Her Dead | inspired by | Dr Horror's House of Terror |
| Open That Vein | inspired by | Danse Nocturne |
| Resonance | inspired by | Nightfall |
| Résumé | inspired by | Endure |
| Résumé | inspired by | First Draft of the Revolution |
| Retool Looter | inspired by | Counterfeit Monkey |
| Retool Looter | inspired by | Spider and Web |
| RYFT: A Timely Manor | inspired by | Zork |
| Shuffling Around | inspired by | Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It |
| Six | inspired by | Aotearoa |
| smooch.click | inspired by | a partial list of things for which i am grateful |
| smooch.click | inspired by | Aisle |
| smooch.click | inspired by | Queers in Love at the End of the World |
| Stuga | inspired by | Colossal Cave Adventure |
| The Acreage | inspired by | Disco Elysium - The Final Cut |
| The Archivist and the Revolution | inspired by | Bee |
| The Archivist and the Revolution | inspired by | Computerfriend |
| The Archivist and the Revolution | inspired by | Get Your Gun, Dragonfly |
| The Archivist and the Revolution | inspired by | howling dogs |
| The Archivist and the Revolution | inspired by | Solarium |
| The Archivist and the Revolution | inspired by | SPY INTRIGUE |
| The Curious Four go to Black Devil Reef | inspired by | The Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island |
| The Curse of the Scarab | inspired by | Captain Verdeterre's Plunder |
| The Curse of the Scarab | inspired by | Sugarlawn |
| The Weight of a Soul | inspired by | Anchorhead |
| The Weight of a Soul | inspired by | Blue Lacuna |
| This Old Haunted House | inspired by | THE EXIGENT SEASONS |
| Thread unlocked. | inspired by | vanitas |
| Three-Card Trick | inspired by | Coin toss |
| Three-Card Trick | inspired by | HOLY ROBOT EMPIRE |
| Thy Dungeonman | inspired by | Vampire Castle |
| Tickle My Goose! | inspired by | Hampstead |
| Toby's Nose | inspired by | Castle of the Red Prince |
| Toby's Nose | inspired by | Lime Ergot |
| Type Help | inspired by | The Roottrees are Dead |
| Vain Empires | inspired by | Delightful Wallpaper |
| You Can't Save Her | inspired by | With Those We Love Alive |
| Zork | inspired by | Colossal Cave Adventure |
+------------------------------------------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------------------+
I’d like to enter a few but I’m worried it might give Nord and Bert outsize importance.
Inspired by is also a nebulous term (to me) – so many cool Adventuron works finally pushed me to write my own, and some are really not much like what I had. I can’t credit them all, and I don’t know if any one inspired me enough.
As the author of your own games, you’re obviously the most qualified to judge what counts as true inspiration of sufficient magnitude to be worth citing. If Nord and Bert inspired one or more of your games, then go ahead and log those facts – it may temporarily have a surprisingly large presence in the genealogy data, but in the long run that will even out as other citations are added.
For this purpose, the fact that you, as an author, found Nord and Bert to be inspirational is the important part.
