Titles and origins
In naming this blog (which for some time ran the risk of being called Title Goes Here) I have drawn on the grand tradition of Using Phrases From Old Text Adventure Games (if you can call it a grand tradition, which I’m not at all sure you can, seeing as how I now can’t think of any other sites to do this apart from Get Lamp, which is in fact a documentary – but still! Oh, wait, there’s XYZZYnews as well. I’m saved.).
“Blasting requires dynamite” is the pithy phrase that’s produced when a player types “blast” at certain points in Adventure (a.k.a. Colossal Cave Adventure), the first text adventure game. I chose it because it’s been part of my family’s lexicon for years, and thus seems appropriate.
Text adventure games – or as we now call them, interactive fiction – have long been an interest of mine. My first encounter with the genre was a game for the BBC Micro (so memorable that I’ve forgotten both the title and the content!), which I played at a tender age. I didn’t play one again for many years, but the early grounding proved useful. Now I’m trying to write one using Inform 7, and I’ll be chronicling my adventures along the way in this blog.
*wiggles happily*
I like seeing you alive! :D
And may I just give you ten billion bonus points for your blog title and its origins? Man, I loved Adventure when I was a kid. I played it obsessively, I used to hassle my dad to ask his workmates for hints because I had no other way to solve it. You have no idea how hard I worked to map the mazes — I even drew actual maps on graph paper. I wonder if dad still has them.
I never did solve it completely as a kid. (I was always few points short at the end.) I finally re-found it later and beat it completely around age 20. Sigh.
I often see variants on the “you are in a twisty little maze of passages, all alike” in a lot of places, it always cracks me up. :D
Sorry, didn’t mean to randomly spam your blog with reminisce, but… yay, it’s good to see you. <3 <3 <3
I like being alive! ;)
I came to Adventure pretty late on – after playing the LucasArts/Sierra point-and-click style games, in fact – but it has a legendary status within the family. The maze defeated me, too… I cheated shamelessly to get out of it.
Please spam my blog all you like! It’s so great to hear from you (it always is). ♥