Classic literature 🤝 text adventure 🤝 #smoochescollier

And people wonder why we're all packrats in games now. We've been hurt before

We visit Infocom's surliest protagonist with guest Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com this time out, playing Michael Berlyn's Infidel as the main course. We also explore another Infocom parody: 1991's The Smirking Horror. retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/41/

Added 600dpi scans to archive.org/details/Case... .

Sometimes you just need higher-res versions of some icons.

"It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things *could* be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not." Coming soon!

"But it's gonna cost you some serious zorkmids" is an actual line starting at 0:30 of this clip.

From Infocom to 80 Days: An oral history of text games and interactive fiction (courtesy of Ars Technica) arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/...

Hey, Gizmodo picked it up. Nice. Tom Hawking takes a trip through the Zork 3 code. gizmodo.com/the-visible-... Last week, boingboing: boingboing.net/2026/04/27/p...

my exploration of the first adventure game contest continues with Horror House, a sort of adventure/strategy game where I have to use a loophole in the combat rules to win the game also, marked differences between book copy and author intent bluerenga.blog/2026/05/03/h...

>OPEN MAILBOX, where you >GET NEWS AND LISTEN TO IT is live! Nick and Jason cover new highlights in classic text adventures and neo-retro interactive fiction, including new Z-Machine/Infocom interpreters, an amazing Cornerstone prank-that-isn't, and more. retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/40/

Visible Zorker status: Deadline is now available to Patreon supporters, and I have started Starcross. I'll do a full blog post at the beginning of May; that's when Visible Zork 3 goes live in public (eblong.com/infocom/visi/). I'll stick to beginning-of-the-month status reports from here on out.

Fellow #infocom text adventure fans, the newest #Vezza #zmachine #interpreter is now available for the #Amstrad #NC200 running CPMish. Using the glorious built in LCD display at 79x18 characters, it was a lot of fun to build. Special mention to Matthew Logue for […] [Original post on hachyderm.io]

Canst thou draw out the Leviathan? Taking on a big text adventure collection takes a big man with a big imagination and a big keyboard. Chris is back! Plus plenty more news this Saturday when This Week in Retro 264 hits your YouTube and podcast feeds.

spent the weekend writing an adventure game and morrowind fangame that recreates the morrowind dialog ui from scratch in the form of a purely text-based adventure game. coming along well! i haven't written interactive fiction in ages #gamedev #indiedev #morrowind #indiegame

in my second post on The Phantom Ship (Yuureisen), the first text-only adventure game in Japanese, I give a little more history including early ads, explore the map, and explore the verbs used and how each language gets a chance to reset their standards bluerenga.blog/2026/04/11/t...

As the inventor of the Press A to Cheryl button* I have many thoughts on the dad game genre also gonna stake the claim that Planetfall was the o.g. dad game *100% stole it from Luigi’s mansion’s Press A to Mario button

Release #2 of exoIF is out! Now over 2000 games. https://www.retro-exo.com/if.html "This pack includes 2332 individual titles, with multiple ports for each title. Over 50 platforms are represented here, from early mainframes to modern browser-based […] [Original post on mastodon.gamedev.place]

Want to chat? We now have a channel on the Interactive Fiction Discord server, thank you to Garry for spinning that up for us: discord.com/channels/797...

Latinorum, a 1985 Commodore 64 text adventure refactored for the modern era, is part of The 2026 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction, playable in both English and Italian. www.springthing.net/2026/play_on...

A new game for the classic Macintosh? Yes please. Transfer Point is a modern graphical text adventure and is such a cosy experience.

Thanks for two years of classic text adventures, conversations, and magazine deep dives. Jason, Nick, and Tim gather to talk about some upcoming new features on the podcast, a lineup change, and a first look at our new hand-crafted show artwork. retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/39

(Melbourne House Sherlock was also a very heavy adverb game, Episode 23 for details) retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/23/

O RLY

for the record bigboxcollection.com exists as well and is fantastic, probably the biggest centralized collection of this stuff

Well well well. Turn one page past the Dog Star Adventure listing in the May 1979 issue of Softside, and who do we find?

Guest player Tim Gilberts joins for interstellar exploration of two oft-overlooked sci-fi titles of the 1970s: Aldebaran III by Peter Langston, and Dog Star Adventure by Lance Micklus. retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/38/

There are also games which are sequels to source books! Below the Root and Fahrenheit 451, for two examples.

Crin's Castle

Cutthroats (Coin/Mary Margaret/The São Vera longplay) for the TI-99/4A youtu.be/MbvLrp3O_0Q?... #Cutthroats #TI-99/4A #Adventure #TextAdventure #InteractiveFiction #MaryMargaret #TheSãoVera #SãoVera #Longplay #Infocom

Cutthroats (Dinner Plate/Night Wind/The Leviathan longplay) for the TI-99/4A youtu.be/L8pW9f3wkjU?... #Cutthroats #TI-99/4A #Adventure #TextAdventure #InteractiveFiction #Longplay #DinnerPlate #NightWind #TheLeviathan #Leviathan #Infocom

In the latest Video Game History Hour podcast, MIT Museum's Dr. Flori Pierri joins us to explore their unexpected journey into the world of video game preservation: https://gamehistory.org/episode-151-games-preservation-at-mit-museum/ (Pictured: Michael Dornbrook, Infocom.)

Remember I was talking about the 1989 context of Infocom documentation? The Video Game History Foundation has just posted some audio recordings from that GDC! Or “CGDC 1989", as it was called then. archive.gamehistory.org/folder/ccdbd...

This weekend, Nick connected a group of permacomputing enthusiasts with Adventure (440 point edition) on the ICL 2966 at @tnmoc.bsky.social. Just about anything can be a platform for retro adventuring if you want it badly enough!

>TAKE PITY AND EXAMINE IT. Nobody's angry with Chris for self-destructive adventure game choices, just worried about him. 1984's hottest adventure titles, up-to-date coding environments for out-of-date platforms, a full 3D FPS in just 64k, and more when This Week in Retro 258 arrives this Saturday!

Zarf is being a good sport about his Patreon targets so we'll spell it out: if you care about old text adventures AT ALL, GIVE HIM YOUR MONEY patreon.com/VisibleZorker

I got a couple of very lovely Atari ST adventure games in the post this morning. I always wanted to own a copy of Wonderland. *drools*

Infocom books still findable in the wild!

More on Zork bugs. (I may be blogging a lot of these…) blog.zarfhome.com/2026/02/when...

🔊 This episode features a really informative chat re. more modern IF creations/history & details on IF competitions I was unfamiliar with. There’s a bit of an experience difference in the chat, perhaps divided on pre/post-Plotkin 🤓 🎮 #VideoGames ⌨️ #TextAdventures #InteractiveFiction 🗺️ #Podcasts 📻

Amstrad CPC community: Unknown text adventures have surfaced and more information about them is needed. Were they commercially released? Who was the author Steve Ralph? Any info appreciated: www.gamesthatwerent.com/2026/02/info...

Ron Martinez (Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy, Hidden Agenda, Trek: TNG - The Transinium Challenge, Make Your Own Murder Party, etc.) returns for everything from Vladimir Nabokov to generative AI with Jason, Nick, and Dave V from @thisweekinretro.bsky.social . retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/37

in fairness, I did find my 3.5" copy of TEST DRIVE III: THE PASSION in a ticking duffle bag at the bus tetminal

Here we go... Announcing the Visible Zorker Project and Patreon! Remember how I did Visible Zork 1 and 2? I'm going to do Zork 3, and then continue through Infocom's entire canon -- in chronological order, one per month. blog.zarfhome.com/2026/01/the-...

Gotta get my #zork on, now!

I played The Colonel's House, a VIC-20 adventure game, about a year ago. The author contacted me not long ago and I did an interview, so I am able to give the history of how the game was made for the first time. bluerenga.blog/2026/01/20/t... original post here: bluerenga.blog/2025/03/10/t...

I was already feeling hella old while playing this 40 year old PC game, so I 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 didn’t need 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀.