My dad is an electrical engineer. Because of this, I've had a computer in my house since the day I was born. The original machine took up a six-foot banquet table in my parent's bedroom sending simple documents to a dot-matrix printer that screeched like a dying banshee. I often lay awake at night listening to the tortured ink scraping onto the page.

Being an insider in the world of computers gave my Dad access to all sorts of prototype games. These were the most primitive graphics imaginable. I would hunch over the black and green screen for hours shooting asterisks from my X-O-X X-Wing Fighter at Darth Vader's ><-O-><� Tie-Fighter. Atari was light years away. Heck, Pong was several steps up in the technological world.

One of the games I had access to early on was a Beta version of a text game that I played obsessively. The 9-inch floppy disks would slide into the computer and Adventure (aka Colossal Cave) would begin. Oh how I loved Adventure. No images to slow you down--your imagination ran wild as you played. Being only 6 or 7 years old, I never progressed very far, but would play the same half hour introduction for hours at a time. I never thought to purchase the finished version of Adventure, but I’ve played it a couple of times online since—still only progressing only about a half hour into the game.

This great parody of Adventure really killed me. I nearly fell out of my seat with laughter and glee. Frinklin has consistantly mocked me when I try to describe playing a game that played like a “Choose Your Own Adventureâ€� book. The fact that over 250 people commented on his "Xyzzy" (*poof*) post confirms that my nostalgic memories aren't just fluff, but are the same as numerous other devoted Adventure players.

A sampling:

> GIVE CONTRACTS
Who do you want to give the contracts to?

> HALLIBURTON
What kind of contracts do you wish to give to Halliburton?

> NO-BID
You give the no-bid contracts to Halliburton.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq remains unchanged.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq remains unchanged.

> WEAR FLIGHTSUIT
You put on the flightsuit.

> SAY "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"
"Mission accomplished."

> EXAMINE MISSION
The mission is not accomplished.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq remains unchanged.

Some insurgents arrive.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq deteriorates.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq deteriorates.

Some insurgents arrive.
There is a small number of insurgents here.

Genius!

Posted by: Ensie at 11:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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