There are times when I stop and think about how good graphics look in games these days. There is so much detail to the characters you control and interact with, there’s the built up 3D worlds and the freedom to explore them, the objects to interact with (weapons, vehicles, containers, etc) and there’s the audio – the music, the sound effects and the speech. When I think of these, it’s not about the development from one game to another, but I think about how they are compared to games I played when I was younger. Games such as Pong, Space Invaders and Pac-Man. Back in those days, I was happy to play those games, I could never have imagined games to look as impressive and be as immersive as they are today.

Other times I think about when I played games on my Commodore 64 or at my friend’s house playing on his Spectrum 48k. I imagine what would it have been like if I could have invited my friend to my house, but instead of playing on the Commodore 64, I had the Xbox 360. While my friend was playing Yie Ar Kung Fu, I would have Street Fighter, while he played Out Run, I had Burnout Paradise, while he played Commando, I had Call Of Duty. If this is how much games have changed, what will games look like in another 25 – 30 years.

Games have advanced so much with so much visual and audio splendour, but what about games that had none. Those game worlds that only existed how your imagination created them based on a small description. I am, of course, referring to text based adventure games. There were only words on a screen, telling you where you were, what objects/buildings were nearby and which compass directions you could move to leave your current location. Yet anyone playing these games would always visualise the locations, similar to how you imagine the scenes when reading a book (or so I would imagine if I actually read a book).

After the description of the location you would have a command prompt, often asking you “What Now?>” or “What Would You Like To Do Next?>”. With playing so many of these games, it was not unusual just to see the command prompt as just > either. Your responses to how you interacted mostly consisted of typing two words as a verb noun combination, examples being “Get Lamp”, “Open Door”, and “Pull Rope”. Imagining yourself in the world helped you try and decide how to interact and how to solve the puzzles before you. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear, yet these games held my attention time and again. Some of these games did advance to showing a picture of the scene while others remained as purely text only, both types still required text input to control the game. I loved playing text based adventure games, but often got stuck. There was no internet to consult (yes, there was a time before the internet and NO I am not old) so if you tried everything you could to progress you would hope that you could find someone else who was playing the same game and get some help from them otherwise you would turn to the games magazines.

The help you got from these magazines worked in a few different ways. There were tips sections, and now and again there would be be a tip submitted by a reader about a puzzle in a game. Very random and not a great way to rely on for help. There were addresses you could write to asking for a solution to a game and wait for the response by post (seriously, how did we survive without the internet). And for more interactive help there were readers who would list the games they had beaten and supply their telephone number offering help to anyone who was stuck. Strangers helping strangers all in the name of gaming,

Of course, the ability to spell helped a great deal in these games and there is one particular instance I can recall were I was stuck purely because I misspelled a word. I was playing a Fantastic Four game, and could switch between The Thing and The Human Torch (only these two of the Fantastic Four were in the game). For some reason The Thing was at the bottom of a shaft and a huge boulder blocked the top. The Human Torch was outside and you had to find a way to get them back together. You could fire a supernova blast at the boulder, as The Human Torch, which resulted in a small piece breaking off and falling down the shaft. You would lift the pebble as The Thing and throw it at the boulder which would shatter the boulder because of The Thing’s strength. At least, this was the idea, but it never worked for me. I phoned someone who had beaten the game and they told me this was what to do as well, I explained I had tried but it didn’t seem to work and the other person insisted it was the correct solution. We debated back and forth about this, and then I suddenly realised why it wasn’t working for me. For some reason, I was typing peeble instead of pebble, and not just once, but every time I played it. Once, I figured this out, I smashed that boulder and was able to fly The Human Torch down to The Thing. I don’t recall if I got The Thing out of the shaft, and I know I never actually beat this game.

After playing so many of these games, I started to make maps of the locations to help keep track of where I was, where other objects were and how to get back to them. There were different stages to map making for these games, now it wasn’t as creative as drawing a detailed geographical map, instead using boxes to describe the locations. I started by drawing a box on a page and if an exit was to the north, I would draw another box directly above the first one. Each box contained the location name (in black ink) and objects there (in green ink) and a line connecting the two locations (in red ink). The maps were all squashed together, and it wasn’t until I met a fellow text adventure game player in college that I realised to space the boxes out as he showed me maps he had drawn up.

This worked well up to a point, I would start in the middle of a page with the first location, the maps may have veered more in one direction leaving me running our of space on one side of the page but leaving a large blank area on the other. This progressed into cutting up pages into tiny little squares and having a box full of them. Now as I played a game, I would fill in the locations on these small pieces of paper and stick them to the wall with blu-tac. When I finally completed a game, I would draw them up on a map on paper to keep for future records. There were times when I had multiple maps on the go with countless pieces of paper on the wall or cupboards doors.

There was great enjoyment in not only playing these games, but also in drawing up the maps and seeing them all drawn up neatly at the end of it. Sadly, I have not seen the maps I drew up in years and I fear I might have thrown them out one time when I was clearing out a book cupboard. A few moments ago I went into the spare room (junk room) to see if I could find them. Unfortunately, I did not, however I did discover a box of Commodore 64 cassettes (kids before DVD we had CD, before them we had floppy discs and before them we had cassettes – seriously, I’m not old). Within the cassettes (which I thought were all in the attic) I found a number of Zzap64 covertapes and a selection of text adventure games, Majik, The Quest For The Golden Eggcup, Rigel’s Revenge, S*M*A*S*H*E*D, Spiderman, Zzzz and a few others. The memories.

As much as I love playing the games I have today, there was something special about creating the world in your mind and working out puzzles with only words. Whether I will play another one of these games is unlikely, although I do like the thought of playing one on an iPad. Books still exist and are still read manually (not by me) so maybe a text based adventure game could still be enjoyed.

You are sitting in a room in front of a computer (possibly in just your underwear). On the screen is an article about text based adventure games which you have just read and a section titled Comments. A keyboard sits in front of you. There is one doorway which is your only exit.

What Now?>

Last five articles by The Rook

• Gaming Through Time
• Exclusive Exclusions
• I Heart Portal
• Only When I Game
• TBP