|
Infocom
Infocom, Inc., was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerstone''. Infocom was founded on June 22, 1979, by staff and students of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and lasted as an independent company until 1986, when it was bought by Activision. Activision shut down the Infocom division in 1989, although they released some titles in the 1990s under the Infocom ''Zork'' brand. Activision abandoned the Infocom trademark in 2002. Overview Infocom games are interactive fiction, text adventures where users direct the action by entering short strings of words to give commands when prompted. Generally the program will respond by describing the results of the action, often the contents of a room if the player has moved within the virtual world. The user reads this information, decides what to do, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zork
''Zork'' is a text adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson (programmer), Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded and split the game into three titles''ZorkI: The Great Underground Empire'', ''ZorkII: The Wizard of Frobozz'', and ''ZorkIII: The Dungeon Master''which were released commercially for a range of personal computers beginning in 1980. In ''Zork'', the player explores the abandoned Great Underground Empire in search of treasure. The player moves between the game's hundreds of locations and interacts with objects by typing commands in natural language processing, natural language that the game interprets. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's commands. It has been described as the most famous piece of interactive fiction. The original game, developed between 1977 and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interactive Fiction
Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the form of Interactive narratives or Interactive narrations. These works can also be understood as a form of video game, either in the form of an adventure game or role-playing video game, role-playing game. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game where the entire interface can be "Text mode, text-only", however, graphical text adventure games, where the text is accompanied by graphics (still images, animations or video) still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is by typing text. Some users of the term distinguish between interactive fiction, known as "Puzzle-free", that focuses on narrative, and "text adventures" that focus on puzzles. Due ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Z-machine
The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions (called story files or Z-code files) and could therefore port its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a Z-machine implementation for that platform. With the large number of incompatible home computer systems in use at the time, this was an important advantage over using native code or developing a compiler for each system. History and design Nomenclature and conventions The "Z" of Z-machine stands for ''Zork'', Infocom's first adventure game. Infocom used file extensions of .dat (Data) and .zip (ZIP = Z-machine Interpreter Program), but the latter clashed with the widespread use of .zip for PKZIP-compatible archive files starting in the 1990s, after Activision had closed Infocom. Infocom produced six versions of the Z-machine. Files using versions 1 a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leather Goddesses Of Phobos
''Leather Goddesses of Phobos'' is an interactive fiction video game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1986. It was released for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Apple II, Mac (computer), Mac, Atari 8-bit computers, Atari ST, Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, and MS-DOS. The game was Infocom's first "sex farce", including selectable gender and "naughtiness"—the latter ranging from "tame" to "lewd". It was one of five top-selling Infocom titles to be re-released in Solid Gold versions. It was Infocom's twenty-first game. Gameplay To start the game a gender must be chosen and the player will get a sidekick character. If the player's character is male, he will meet a burly but dim-witted man named Trent; if the player's character is female, she will find an attractive but somewhat ditzy woman named Tiffany. There are differences in game-play between the two sexes. ''Leather Goddesses of Phobos'' bore a difficulty rating of "Standard". The game has 75 locations, incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornerstone (software)
Cornerstone is a relational database for MS-DOS released by Infocom, a company best known in the 1980s for developing interactive fiction video games. Initially hailed upon release in 1985 for its ease of use, a series of shortcomings and changes in the market kept Cornerstone from achieving success. It is considered a key factor in Infocom's demise. Development Games were only considered a "jumping off" point for Infocom. It was originally established as an outlet to develop "serious" products. Before forming the company, several of the founders had created the game ''Zork'' on mainframes while attending or working at MIT. When they joined to form Infocom, ''Zork'' was a natural choice as a first product because it was practically complete and didn't require much up-front funding. The enormous success of the game and its "sequels" (which were actually the other portions of the original mainframe game, which had been split into pieces that early personal computers could hand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planetfall
''Planetfall'' is a science fiction themed interactive fiction video game written by Steve Meretzky, and published in 1983 as the eighth game from Infocom. The original release was for Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, TRS-80, and IBM PC compatibles (both as a self-booting disk and for MS-DOS). Atari ST and Commodore 64 versions were released in 1985. A version for CP/M was also released. ''Planetfall'' was Meretzky's first published game, and it proved one of his most popular works and a best-seller for Infocom. It was one of five top-selling games to be re-released in Solid Gold versions with in-game hints. ''Planetfall'' uses the Z-machine originally developed for ''Zork'' and was added as a bonus to the ''Zork Anthology''. The word ''planetfall'' is a portmanteau of ''planet'' and ''landfall'', and occasionally used in science fiction to that effect. The book ''Planetfall'' written by Arthur Byron Cover, uses the game image on the cover, and is marketed "In the bestselling tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (computer Game)
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is an interactive fiction video game based on the comedic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, of the same name. It was designed by series creator Douglas Adams and Infocom's Steve Meretzky, and it was first released in 1984 for the Apple II, Mac (computer), Mac, Commodore 64, CP/M, MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, and Atari ST. It is Infocom's fourteenth game. Plot The game loosely mirrors a portion of the series' plot, representing most of the events in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel), the first book. Arthur Dent wakes up one day to find his house about to be destroyed by a construction crew to make way for a new bypass. His friend Ford Prefect (character), Ford Prefect, who is secretly an extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial, helps to calm Arthur down and hitches them a ride on one of the ships in the approaching Vogon constructor fleet, moments before the fleet destroys the Earth to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top United States publisher in 2016. The company was founded as Activision, Inc. on October 1, 1979, in Sunnyvale, California, by former Atari, Inc., Atari game developers upset at their treatment by Atari in order to develop their own games for the popular Atari 2600 home video game console. Activision was the first independent, third-party, console video game developer. The video game crash of 1983, in part created by too many new companies trying to follow in Activision's footsteps without the experience of Activision's founders, hurt Activision's position in console games and forced the company to diversify into games for home computers, including the acquisition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deadline (1982 Video Game)
''Deadline'' is an interactive fiction detective video game published by Infocom in 1982. Written by Marc Blank, it was Infocom's third game. It was released for the Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, IBM PC (as a self-booting disk), Osborne 1, TRS-80, and later for the Amiga and Atari ST. ''Deadline'' was Infocom's first mystery game, their first non-''Zork'' game, and the game that started their tradition of feelies. The number of NPCs, the independence of their behavior from the player's actions, and the parser's complexity were considered revolutionary at the time of the game's release. Also innovative was its use of "feelies"; physical documents that came with the game to help the player solve the mystery, resulting in its more expensive cost relative to other text adventures of the time. Plot The player's character in ''Deadline'' is an unnamed police detective, summoned to a sprawling Connecticut estate to investigate the apparent suicide of wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
