X-Git-Url: https://jxself.org/git/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=history.adoc;h=1686645f08430c74d070059ff43a7d5aac1bae7d;hb=87779b71eff236df838b8d9f71b95fed71c19d0c;hp=d01910b2490f97e473112fda481edd5060558795;hpb=9dca58699f821a1e4eaa358a556bf6b27fe382b9;p=open-adventure.git diff --git a/history.adoc b/history.adoc index d01910b..1686645 100644 --- a/history.adoc +++ b/history.adoc @@ -1,9 +1,9 @@ = A brief history of Colossal Cave Adventure = by Eric S. Raymond -Adventure is the fons et origo of all later dungeon-crawling games, -the grandaddy of interactive fiction, and one of the hallowed artifacts -of hacker folklore. +Adventure is the fons et origo of all later dungeon-crawling computer +games, the grandaddy of interactive fiction, and one of the hallowed +artifacts of hacker folklore. The very first version was released by Crowther in 1976, in FORTRAN on the PDP-10 at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman. (Crowther was at the time @@ -69,6 +69,7 @@ he replied on 15 May giving both permission and encouragement. Here is what Don said about differences between the original Adventure and 2.5: +............................................................................ > The bulk of the points come from five new 16-point treasures. (I say "bulk" > because I think at least one of the scores included some padding and I may > have tweaked those.) Each of the new treasures requires solving a puzzle @@ -105,6 +106,29 @@ and 2.5: > succumb even given access to the game source. You really need to fit > together not only the goals and the map and use of inventory space, but > also details like just what _can_ you do in the dark...? +............................................................................ + +== Earlier non-influences == + +There is record of one earlier dungeon-crawling game called "dnd", +written in 1974-75 on the PLATO system at University of Illinois +<>. This was in some ways similar to later roguelike games but +not to Adventure. The designers of later roguelikes frequently site +Adventure as an influence, but not dnd; like PLATO itself, dnd seems +not to have become known outside of its own user community until +rediscovered by computer historians many years after Adventure +shipped. + +There was also Hunt The Wumpus <>, written by Gregory Yob in +1972. Though the wumpus was (much) later included as a monster in the +Nethack roguelike game, this was done in a spirit of conscious +museumization well after early roguelikes. There is no evidence that +Yob's original (circulated in BASIC among microcomputer enthusiasts) +was known to the ARPANET- and minicomputer-centered culture Crowther +and Woods were part of until well after Adventure was written. + +Neither of these games used an attempt at a natural-language parser +even as primitive as Adventure's. == Nomenclature == @@ -115,11 +139,16 @@ versions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and for all I know higher than that. It seems best just to start a new numbering series while acknowledging the links back. -We have reverted to "Advent" for the binary to avoid a name collision +We have reverted to "advent" for the binary to avoid a name collision with the BSD Games version. == Functional changes in Open Adventure == +By default, advent issues "> " as a command prompt. This feature +became common in many variants after the original 350-point version, +but was never backported into Crowther & Woods's main line before now. +The "-o" (oldstyle) version reverts the behavior. + A "seed" command has been added. This is not intended for human use but as a way for game logs to set the PRNG (pseudorandom-number generator) so that random events (dwarf & pirate appearances, the bird's magic word) @@ -145,6 +174,10 @@ which is then linked to the advent binary. - [[[IFA]]] http://rickadams.org/adventure/ -- [[[[DA]]] http://www.filfre.net/sitemap/ +- [[[DA]]] http://www.filfre.net/sitemap/ - [[[SN]]] http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/1/2/000009/000009.html + +- [[[DND]]] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnd_(video_game) + +- [[[WUMPUS]]] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus