I can’t answer for Garry, but my source of these style of games was the 8-bit micro text adventure games from around '82 to 97/98.
Most of these games were designed for cheaper computer hardware that lacked a disk drive, therefore Infocom games were off the table. Games loaded from tape and had to fit into memory.
Later games game in multiple parts, so you could have a 2,3,or 4 act game each as a separate load.
Many many many of these games were built using THE QUILL (aka ADVENTURE WRITER), GAC (Graphic Adventure Creator), and PAWS (The Professional Adventure Writer). Some later games used systems like DAAD or STAC (Atari ST Adventure Creator).
Most games made with these systems were exactly as Garry described. Generally speaking no implicit actions, inventory item limits, some systems allowed weight limits, most of these systems allowed graphics, most allowed coloured text, and multiple fonts.
Adventuron didn’t just appear out of nowhere, it’s very much following in this line of anachronistic 8-bit style text adventures, which is generally speaking, a lot different in flow to Infocom adventures.
PAWS and STAC supported a more complex parser, but all of these tools were database-table based, and therefore there were limits to the style of game and the style of puzzles that could be created. State tends to be represented by flags, and the existence or position of objects. Object lists are central.
Some games approached Infocom level of prose and interactivity (The Beast is a good one), but the z machine / ZIL was clearly more accomplished and had access to more resources than these 8-bit text adventure games.
There are over 2,200 ZX Spectrum text adventures listed here alone:
https://worldofspectrum.org/archive/software/text-adventures
There is a lot to be said for this style of game though, and for those of us that only had cheap second hand computers in the 80s, this was the style of game we knew and loved. My first computer cost my parents $100, a computer plus disk drive that would have ran an Infocom game would have been at least $700.
Infocom games are technically brilliant, but I personally found them to FEEL cold and empty compared to the colourful bright text of these 8 bit text adventures, even for games without graphics.
To me personally, I enjoy the puzzles more than the stories in this style of game, and that’s why I’ve been so pedantically annoying with the “IF” versus “TA” definition debate.
The majority of the self-published games from this era knew what they were, and presented verb/noun state-transition object puzzles with a theme. There were exception games produced within these limitations, and some exceptional narrative styled games that fit too, but there was a always the understanding that puzzles were mandatory and narrative was optional. If a game had a nice narrative whilst presenting cool object centric puzzles - it was a bonus.
My favourite old style text adventure games are:
- The Hobbit
- The Famous Five
- The Beast
- Gremlins
- Robin of Sherwood
- Rebel Planet
- Excalibur
- The Very Big Cave Adventure
- Alien Research Centre
I personally have trouble visualising anything via the written word, so the joy I personally derive from these games is in the state transitions, puzzles and visual flourishes, even if it’s just text colour or a font that makes me FEEL something.
The definition I would (personally) use to describe a traditional text adventure is - a game which has a parser (even without a keyboard, or even with a command builder ui), an object list, locations, inventory, verb/noun or sentence triggered state transitions, a game ‘tick’. Narrative and graphics are optional.
Strong narrative focused text adventures with no graphics are possible under this definition (The Beast, The Famous Five), and zero narrative games are possible under this definition (The Path).
Chris
