The document outlines the historical evolution of text-based adventures and multi-user dungeons (MUDs) from 1975 onwards, highlighting key developments such as Colossal Cave Adventure, Zork, and various MUD variants. It discusses the emergence of puzzles as central gameplay elements and the development of the Z-machine and Inform7 for interactive fiction. The text concludes by emphasizing the significance of dimensional abstraction, puzzles, and shared experiences in these narratives.

1. Andre Odendaal
@Fengol
April 2019
Prototyping with Text
Adventures and MUDs

2. Agenda
• Historical Context
• Colossal Cave Adventure – Dimensional Abstraction
• Zork - Puzzles
• MUDs – Shared Experience
• Z-Machine and Inform7
• Interactive Fiction Competition

3. Historical Context - 1975
• Microsoft founded (spelt Micro-Soft)
• Viking 1, first probe to Mars, launched
• Heavy metal band Iron Maiden formed
• Atari releases the home version of Pong
• Altair 8800 build-it-yourself microcomputer sold (could run BASIC)

4. The 1st Adventure
• Colossal Cave Adventures created in 1975
• Written in FORTRAN for PDP-10 mainframe & used 330kB
• Maps a simulation of Bedquilt Cave in US state of Kentucky
“You are standing at the end of a road before a
small brick building.
Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of
the building and down a gully.”

5. Dimensional Abstraction
• North, South, East, West
• Up, Down
• Inside, Outside
• Create custom directions

6. Navigation Demo

7. Zork
• Made in 1977 (originally called Dungeon)
• Written in MDL (MIT Design Language) for PDP-10
• Exploring maze-like and solving item-based puzzles. Enemies were
puzzles
• Play now http://zorkonline.net
“You are standing in an open field west of a white
house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.”

8. Puzzles
• Item based
• Action based
• Enemies are puzzles

9. https://fengol.itch.io/text-adventure-puzzle
Puzzle Demo

10. MUDs
• MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) later Essex MUD or MUD1 created in
1978 written in MACRO-10 for DEC PDP-10
• SHADES created in 1985 because MUD1 would shutdown during
holidays
• Lots of variants established:
• Hack ‘n Slash
• PvP
• Roleplaying
• Social

11. Shared Experiences
• The Cybergypsies: a True Tale of
Lust, War, and Betrayal on the
Electronic Frontier
• IRC created in 1988
• World of Warcraft released in US
in 2004

12. MUD Demo
telnet game.guncho.com 4108
type: @teleport CasualDungeon

13. Z-Machine
• Virtual machine developed by Infocom
• Inform developed in 1993 by Graham Nelson
• Latest is Inform 7 http://inform7.com
• Z-Machine standard developed in 1997
• Available on modern platforms:
• Zoom – Mac OS
• Frotz – Multiple platforms
• Frotz for iOS
• ZMachine.NET - .NET
• Zax - Java

14. Inform7 Demo

15. Interactive Fiction Competition
• Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction runs annual interactive fiction
competition
• http://ifcomp.org
• Prizes are donated by public and entries must be freeware or public
domain

16. Conclusion
DIMENSIONAL
ABSTRACTION
PUZZLES SHARED EXPERIENCE