Infocom was a software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable 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, graphical text adventure games, where the text is accompanied by graphics 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 one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games, with roots drawn from the original genre game Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written between 1977 and 1979 using the MDL programming language on a DEC PDP-10 computer. The authors—Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling—were members of the MIT Dynamic Modelling Group.
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies like Revolution Software and Adventure Soft. It was originally written by Ludvig Strigeus. Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, ScummVM is free software.
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.
Return to Zork is a 1993 graphic adventure game in the Zork series. It was developed by Activision and was the final Zork game to be published under the Infocom label.
Cyan, Inc., also known as Cyan Worlds, Inc., is an American video game developer. Founded as Cyan Productions by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, the company is best known as the creator of the Myst series. The company is located in Mead, Washington, just outside Spokane.
Zork: Grand Inquisitor is a graphic adventure game developed by Activision, released for Windows in 1997 and Macintosh in 2001. It builds upon the Zork and Enchanter series of interactive fiction video games originally released by Infocom, and sees players attempting to restore magic to Zork by solving puzzles and using spells. The game stars Erick Avari, Michael McKean, Amy D. Jacobson, Marty Ingels, Earl Boen, Jordana Capra, Dirk Benedict, and Rip Taylor. Zork: The Undiscovered Underground was written and released as a promotional prequel to the game.
Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands is a 1996 graphic adventure game developed by Zombie LLC and published by Activision. It is the eleventh game in the Zork series, and the first such title not to appear under the Infocom label. It features a darker, less comical story within the Zork setting. The story focuses on players investigating the sudden disappearance of four prominent figures and their children to the hands of a mysterious being known as the "Nemesis", and uncovering a sinister plot during their investigations that they must thwart. The game was released for Windows 95, and ported to MS-DOS and Macintosh by Quicksilver Software.
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.
The Manhole is an adventure video game in which the player opens a manhole and reveals a gigantic beanstalk, leading to fantastic worlds.
Zork: The Undiscovered Underground is an interactive fiction video game written by former Infocom Implementors Marc Blank and Michael Berlyn and implemented by G. Kevin Wilson using the Inform language. The game was commissioned by Activision as a free promotional product to coincide with the release of Zork: Grand Inquisitor. It was released on August 28, 1997.
Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I, later known as Zork I, is an interactive fiction video game written by Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels, and Tim Anderson and published by Infocom in 1980. It was the first game in the Zork trilogy and was released for a wide range of computer systems, followed by Zork II and Zork III. It was Infocom's first game, and sold 378,000 copies by 1986.
Marc Blank is an American game developer and software engineer. He is best known as part of the team that created one of the first commercially successful text adventure computer games, Zork.
"Hello, sailor" is a sexual proposition made to a sailor, presumably by a prostitute or promiscuous woman supposing the sailor to be male and sexually frustrated after a long time at sea. This usage has become a camp catchphrase, implying that sailors stay away at sea so long that they cannot tell the difference between a woman and a man in drag, or a play on the common conception that many sailors are homosexual. Hello, Sailor in this usage is also the title of several books, including one by Eric Idle and another about gay life in the British merchant navy, as well as a 2007 Liverpool museum exhibit about gay sailors. The British comedy act Monty Python, which includes Eric Idle, also made use of the phrase in several of their sketches.
Jolt Online Gaming was an online gaming company hosted in Ireland. Its main site provided news, reviews, and interviews concerning upcoming games on consoles and computers, while its gaming network Jolt Online Gaming Network hosted and published free-to-play browser-based games. Notable works included Utopia, Utopia Kingdoms, Legends of Zork, and NationStates 2.
Multi-User Dungeon, or MUD, is the first MUD and the oldest virtual world in existence.
Domain-specific entertainment languages are a group of domain-specific languages that are used describe computer games or environments, or potentially used for other entertainment such as video or music.
William David Volk in New York City, New York is a mobile game developer and publisher. He is the Chief Futurist of Forward Reality, a VR publisher.
Breakers is a science fiction text adventure released in 1986 by Synapse Software, a division of Broderbund, for the Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS. The game was the last of Broderbund's "Electronic Novels" series, and was not a commercial success. Although critics complimented the complex storyline, they found the game's parsing software had not kept pace with other game developers.
