There's a quote in 50 Years of Text Games from Dave Lebling, co-creator of Zork, that has been rattling around in my head ever since I read the book, coming to the surface every so often like an M&M in trail mix.
"Obviously, no small computer program can encompass the entire universe. What it can do, however, is simulate enough of the universe to appear more intelligent than it really is."
Lebling's quote comes up first in a chapter about The Oregon Trail. Even by today's standards, the degree to which that 1971 classic simulates the randomness of reality and invites you into its simulation is impressive. When you inevitably perish, it asks you about "a few formalities we must go through," accepting Y/N for each.
- "Would you like a minister?"
- "Would you like a fancy funeral?"
- "Would you like us to inform your next of kin?"
The game follows up with a quirky, morbid rejoinder: "Your aunt Nellie in St. Louis is anxious to hear." Author Aaron Reed notes that, "though the game does nothing with the answers, the mere fact of being asked makes you feel like a part of the story being told. It was a trick that would continue to work across half a century of computer games and counting."
Reed's book—which has over 620 pages of analysis, code samples, photographs, maps, flowcharts, footnotes, asides, cross-references, and other details—thoroughly backs up this claim. Text games, in both their earliest parser form and in more modern incarnations, are a fascinating space in which people have pulled off amazing feats, and innovations continue today. Many of the earliest text games mastered key aspects of world-building, narrative shaping, and player choice that some modern games, with exponentially more resources at their disposal, still struggle with.
Reed, a writer and game designer himself, picks one game for every year from 1971 through 2020. He adds an involving dive into the pre-1970s history of experiments, games, and brutally unforgiving code. Each decade also gets its own introduction, and there are summaries of 500 other text games included. Each of the game picks started out as a post on his Substack, though they have been revised and more deeply integrated with their historical context in the book.
There are classics you might expect, like Adventure, MUD, Hitchhiker's Guide, and Trade Wars. There are definition-stretching inclusions, like the original Choose Your Own Adventure book, The Cave of Time, and Dwarf Fortress. And there are probably at least 20 games most of us have never encountered.
Reed was generous enough to answer some questions I had over email. As of this writing, there are still some Collector's Editions with a bonus book available for purchase, and hardcovers were going fast. Physical copies should ship in late June, and a digital version is available in PDF, reflowable epub, and plain text and on itch.io.
Ars: You wrote that, in late 2019, you weren’t sure you could pull off a project of this scope, but the chance to go deep on each of these games and stitch them together kept you going. Was it still pretty intimidating? 50 years? Some highly regarded titles that might have felt already fully mined?
Reed: It was absolutely intimidating for those reasons and more: from games like Zork or Oregon Trail, where I had to wonder if there was anything new to say about them, to the incredible challenge of writing 50 well-researched pieces with insightful commentary in a fairly short span of time. I think the saving grace was that each game proved to have a fascinating story behind it. I never once ended up with a game I felt "stuck with" covering and had nothing to say about it.
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