''Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom'' is a collection of 33 computer games from

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 narrati ...

pioneer

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), Cornerston ...

, and the top 6 winners of the 1995 Interactive Fiction Competition, released in 1996. All 39 games are combined on a single cross-platform CD-ROM, which also includes

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

s of all the Infocom games' instructions, maps, and hint booklets. Infocom was closed in 1989 by its then-parent company

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 o ...

. Still holding the

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

to nearly all the past Infocom titles, Activision bundled them together in this collection, following up the earlier '' Lost Treasures of Infocom'' series. The Infocom games included are: The Interactive Fiction Competition winners included are: * '' A Change in the Weather'' * '' The Magic Toyshop'' * '' The Mind Electric'' * '' The One That Got Away'' * '' Toonesia'' * ''Uncle Zebulon's Will'' The collection includes all the contents of the two ''Lost Treasures of Infocom'' collections except for ''

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is a Science fiction comedy, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC ...

'' and ''

James Clavell's Shōgun ''James Clavell's Shōgun'' is a graphic and Adventure game, text adventure game written by Dave Lebling game and published by Infocom in 1989. It was released for the Amiga, Apple II, MS-DOS, and Mac (computer), Mac. The game is based on the 19 ...

''. The rights to these two games, based on novels by

Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humorist, and screenwriter, best known as the creator of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ...

and

James Clavell James Clavell (born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell; 10 October 1921 – 7 September 1994) was a British and American writer, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his ''Asian Saga'' nov ...

, respectively, had reverted to the novels' authors. Unlike the ''Lost Treasures'' collections, though, ''Masterpieces'' included the adult game ''Leather Goddesses of Phobos''.

Reception

A reviewer for '' Next Generation'' scored the compilation a perfect five out of five stars. He praised the "functionally comprehensive" selection of Infocom games and the six Interactive Fiction Competition games, estimated the total playtime at 1,200 hours minimum, and said the gameplay "represents the pinnacle of well written, interactive fiction."

References

External links

* Infocom games 1996 video games DOS games Classic Mac OS games Activision video game compilations Video games developed in the United States {{adventure-videogame-stub