In my tweeny years I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing interactive fiction games on my old Atari 600XL. Why? They were one of the few types of games that fitted into my Atari’s miniscule 16K RAM, and they were FUN dash nabbit!
Zork, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Leather Goddesses of Phobos…
I have Infocom to thank, partly, for my addiction to writing. IF games, or ‘text adventure games’ as they were called back then, got me involved in the storytelling process, got me to put my own words up there on the screen under the beautifully written paragraphs of the Infocom pros. Made me feel like I was part of the creation, the protagonist and author of a virtual novel.
This was in the late 80s…and now IF is back, and it’s on the iPad, thanks to Frotz.