Infocom 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.
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control 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 game. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game where the entire interface can be "text-only", however, graphic text adventures 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.
Zork is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers 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—Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, and Zork III: 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 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 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 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.
Steven Eric Meretzky is an American video game developer. He is best known for creating Infocom games in the early 1980s, including collaborating with author Douglas Adams on the interactive fiction version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the first games to be certified "platinum" by the Software Publishers Association. Later, he created the Spellcasting trilogy, the flagship adventure series of Legend Entertainment. He has been involved in almost every aspect of game development, from design to production to quality assurance and box design.
Colossal Cave Adventure is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake.
Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game developer active between 1984 and 1990. A pioneer of audiovisually elaborate text adventure games, it was one of the two largest and most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s.
Tim Anderson is an American computer programmer best known for co-creating the adventure game Zork, one of the first works of interactive fiction and an early descendant of ADVENT.
Colossal Adventure is a text based adventure game published by Level 9 Computing in 1982. It was originally released for the Nascom.
Beyond Zork is an interactive fiction computer game written by Brian Moriarty and released by Infocom in 1987. It was one of the last games in the Zork series developed by Infocom. It signified a notable departure from the standard format of Infocom's earlier games which relied purely on text and puzzle-solving: among other features, Beyond Zork incorporated a crude on-screen map, the use of character statistics and levels, and RPG combat elements.
Telecomsoft was a British video game publisher and a division of British Telecom. The company was founded by Dr. Ederyn Williams in 1984 and operated three separate labels: Firebird, Rainbird, and Silverbird. The first employee was James Leavey, seconded from elsewhere in BT, who, along with Tony Rainbird, became the driving force behind the company in the early days.
Lenslok is a copy protection mechanism found in some computer games and other software on the 8-bit Atari computers, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Sinclair QL, MSX and Amstrad CPC. It was created by John Frost, an inventor and electronics consultant, and marketed by ASAP Developments, a subsidiary of J Rothschild Holdings. The first game to use it was Elite for the ZX Spectrum.
The Worm in Paradise is the third and final video game in the Silicon Dreams trilogy, a series of text adventure games in which the player takes the role of Kim Kimberly. It is the sequel to Snowball and Return to Eden. Worm in Paradise takes place generations after the first two games, when the planet Eden has been colonised. The player is an ordinary citizen in Eden's most populous city, Enoch. The game was noteworthy for having significant social commentary relative to other games of the same genre and era. The game drew inspiration from the novel 1984.
The Guild of Thieves is an interactive fiction game by Magnetic Scrolls first published by Rainbird in 1987. The game takes place in Kerovnia like the previous game The Pawn.
Lords of Time is an interactive fiction computer game designed by Sue Gazzard and released by Level 9 Computing in 1983. Originally purely a textual adventure for 8-bit microcomputers, the game was later released as part of the Time and Magik compilation where graphics were added for all floppy disk versions. Like all Level 9 adventures of its time, it was written in the in-house A-code language which was platform-independent.
Time and Magik is a trilogy of interactive fiction games by Level 9. The individual games were initially released separately in 1983-1986. In 1988 the three games were revised, expanded and re-released together as a compilation by Mandarin Software, a division of Europress Software.
The Price of Magik is the third game in the Time and Magik trilogy.
Silicon Dreams is a trilogy of interactive fiction games developed by Level 9 Computing during the 1980s. The first game was Snowball, released during 1983, followed a year later by Return to Eden, and then by The Worm in Paradise during 1985. The next year they were vended together as the first, second and last of the Silicon Dreams.
Legend of the Sword is a 1988 fantasy interactive fiction video game developed by Silicon Soft and published by Rainbird Software for the Atari ST. Ports for the Amiga and MS-DOS were released later. A Macintosh version was expected to release shortly after the Atari ST version but was never released. A sequel, The Final Battle, was released in 1990.
