Text adventures
Text adventures are a form of computer-based interactive fiction (IF) of the
kind published by many software companies in the 1980s; one of the best known
firms being the American pioneer Infocom,
whose “Zork”
trilogy became the canonical example of the genre. The games usually take
the form of an immersive prose environment in which the player or reader is
cast as a second-person protagonist. Think of them as written stories on your
computer which can respond to you.
The games themselves range from simple puzzle quests to true interactive literature. And although text-only or illustrated text games may seem like a quaint anachronism in today’s fast-paced world of 3-D texture-mapped graphical video games, they nevertheless maintain a strong following among a small group of aficionados, who consider the rich imagination-stirring possibilities of well-written prose to be far more engaging than the latest shoot ’em up extravaganza.
TADS
TADS is a powerful and versatile system for writing such games; probably the
oldest still in regular use today. It was originally a shareware (try before
you buy) package published by High Energy Software in 1987. However, in mid
1996 TADS author Michael J. Roberts announced that TADS was to become a freeware
product and that High Energy Software would be shutting down as a company.
He stressed, however, that TADS would not be orphaned by this move, and that
he intended to continue supporting it indefinitely.
He has made good on his promise, and has even released the source code that makes up the program. You no longer have to pay fees to use TADS - it’s totally free of charge! However, note that Mike Roberts retains copyright control over the TADS system. It’s free, but not in the public domain.
TADS as a language is similar to C, but with many features specifically designed to make it easier to write text adventures. TADS isn’t intended to be as general-purpose as C, nor is it as difficult to master.
One very interesting TADS feature is support for HTML, the HyperText Markup Language used in Web page building. That means that a TADS game can contain graphics and sound - perfect for creating an illustrated text adventure. (though note that multimedia TADS uses HTML for text markup only - it’s not an Internet-connected version of TADS or anything)
The latest development is T3, which is a new virtual machine (the underlying software engine) environment for the TADS language.
Writing and Playing
TADS is, as mentioned above, a programming and authoring environment. That
means you can use it to write your own interactive fiction. However it’s
also a game-playing environment. Many people have written text adventures
using TADS, and many of these games are available - as freeware or shareware
- over the Internet. You can download copies of these games to your computer,
then use the TADS system to play them.
Finding TADS
There are a number of places you can download the complete TADS package. For
simplicity’s sake, however, I’ve broken up the URLs into two categories
- those for people interested in playing
TADS games only and those for people interested in writing
their own TADS games. Check those links for details.
Interactive Fiction Online
Although text-only interactive fiction is no longer a commercially viable
form of software product, the Internet has become the prime meeting place
for hobbyist fans of text adventures. In particular there are two Usenet newsgroups
that form the focus of this activity.
Players of text adventures can go to the group rec.games.int-fiction, where text adventures are discussed on a regular basis. If you’re stuck in a game or want to offer some critical perspective on a game you’ve just played, this is the venue!
Alternatively if you're interesting in writing (or at least talking about writing) text adventures, then r.g.i-f’s older sister newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction is for you.
Julian Arnold also maintains an excellent FAQ for rec.arts.int-fiction.
http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/info/rec.arts.int-fiction.FAQ
The IF Archive
The central Internet resource for interactive fiction is definitely the IF
Archive, generously housed by Zarf and Goob and maintained by Stephen Granade
and David Kinder. For many years it was run from GMD, the German National
Research Centre for Information Technology by volunteer maintainers Volker
Blasius and David Kinder (all folks to whom we owe a debt of gratitude) so
you may still see some references to GMD here and there. The IF Archive contains
thousands of games, programs and informational documents on the subject of
IF in general. Naturally it has a special section dedicated to TADS games
and TADS resources.
The main URL for the IF-archive is either:
http://www.ifarchive.org/ or, if you prefer old-style FTP, ftp://ifarchive.org/if-archive/
There’s also a fast mirror archive at Washington University in the USA:
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive/
If you live outside the US the main ifarchive.org site also lists a number of other mirror locations that may be faster for you.
The TADS section is in the directory:
http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/programming/tads2/ (WUSTL mirror)
Other Interesting IF Sites
There are a host of great Web sites out there, packed with information on
the world of IF. Here are a few select links.