In this blog, I intend to share transcripts of games from interactive fiction's commercial era. Specifically, I want to analyze what non-Infocom companies and individual authors did right or wrong. Using Google Doc's commenting features, I will narrate my own progression through games. I intend to hit up walkthroughs when needed, and after each transcript, I will give my overall thoughts on each game.
Just compiling the list of possible games for this blog was an interesting process, as a lot of old text adventures don't offer the ability to record scripts. If you look at that fact alone, one can infer a dichotomy between companies who saw the medium as an experience worth recording and ones that didn't. To some extent, it comes down to that old distinction between "interactive fiction" and "text adventures" that some believe in.
In some cases, I have found ways to make transcriptions even where the game didn't originally allow it, but I'm going to try to only cover games with at least some narrative qualities. To some extent, I'll be judging each game's puzzles, but mostly, I hope to explore these early game's approaches to storytelling. It is my hope that this era has more to offer than we often give it credit for, but if anything, I think we can learn from its mistakes.
If I can keep up with it, it should be an interesting journey.
