Where Can You Find Text Based Games?

I have always wondered how good text based games are, i have heard good and bad things about them and i would like to try them for my self. If anyone knows sites where there are text based games please respond to this post.

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Check out utopia...

http://games.swirve.com/utopia

One of the most famous text based games with a thriving community.

I think it is the first of its kind and even though it appears simple, it gets really involving and many people have played it for years on end.

Has a large worldwide community as well and made many long term friends through there as well..

Basically it's about managing your province, training troops, invading other ppl's lands and working with the kd to win standings. It's tough to explain here but do go and try it out.

It is turn based.

However if you are looking into real time stuff then I suggest you look into MUDs though personally they are just MMOs without graphics which isn't really something that interests me since it's just a step backward rather than something unique of a text game.

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hah, there's a funny (parody?) one at

www.homestarrunner.com

if you're into that.

But if you seriously want to play a text command game... sorry, I can't help you there.

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I use to play a lot of text based games (known as Interactive Fiction) in my younger days and that increased my typing speed, probably improved my spelling and grammar. It is a good idea to get children to play these types of games, which I think is better than a mouse-click type game. I then went on to learning how to write these games using BASIC at the time, it was a completely text-based game with no graphics, similar to choose your plot story combined with fighting monsters using a dice, holding inventory, and completing puzzles. There are now many Interactive Fiction engines around so that creating your own games are much easier now.

I don't know of any sites but a search for Interactive Fiction will provide you with many related things.

Cheers,

MC

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The father of all the RPG games, text-based games running on big computers, which were devoted to completely different work (payroll work for instance).
The PC's made this kind of game quite old-fashioned.

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You might want to take a look at my game "Finding Martin", a large text-based game with a fantasy/scifii/mystery plot involving time travel. This game is available for free download at The "Finding Martin" Homepage. It was named as a finalist in the 2005 XYZZY awards in the categories of Best Game and Best Puzzles, and some of the people who've played it told me that they found it quite addictive. The web site has a walk-through if you find yourself stuck. You can also send me e-mails to ask for hints if you want to avoid accidentally seeing spoilers in the walk-through. I like corresponding with players since it's a good way to meet people who like the same sort of games that I do.

Or, you could check out some other text-based games such as "Augmented Fourth" by Brian Uri, "Curses" by Graham Nelson, and "So Far" by Andrew Plotkin, available at Baf's Guide to the IF Archive. (IF stands for Interactive Fiction, which is what they call text based games nowadays.) All of these games are available as free downloads along with the free interpreter that you'll need to play those games. Baf's Guide also gives instructions on how to download the interpreter(s) for all of the text games in the archive.

For game reviews check out Brass Lantern, SPAG, and Reviews by Dan Shiovitz.

The latest fashion in text-based games these days seems to be for authors to write shorter games that aspire to artistic interactive fiction with dark themes. The ones that I've recommended tend to be older games that focus on fun adventures and challenging puzzles. "Augmented Fourth" has a great sense of humor and is one of my favorites. But there are games suiting a wide variety of preferences in the IF Archive, from religious to pornographic, from horror to slapstick, from deep to silly.

 

 

 

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I forgot to mention the classic text-based games by Infocom, such as "Zork." These games inspire a lot of nostalgia for those of us who played them decades ago. Activision is the company that currently owns what used to be Infocom, but they aren't selling Infocom games any more. You can buy Infocom games at collector's prices on sites such as E-Bay, but free copies can be found by those who search for such links on Usenet groups. Players of these games usually want to get PDF's of the printed manuals too; Infocom sometimes tried to discourage bootlegging by including puzzles that were difficult to solve without access to printed materials purchased with the game.

For those who aren't quite certain what a text-based game actually is, it's a game in which the player types in simple sentences that usually take the form of commands. Like the following excerpt from Zork:



Since the days when Zork was first popular, players have been able to get text games with more lush descriptions and more developed plot lines (not necessarily done in settings resembling medieval dungeons). But I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for games like Zork, and I think many others feel the same way.

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My favorite and only text based game is DartMud. I wrote a bit about it which I posted in another thread but I guess I'll repost it here! Happy mudding!

I was first introduced to muds in general in 2000, the first and only mud I've played since then is DartMud. Oh sure I've tried plenty of other muds but none are as realistic, complex and detail-oriented as DartMud! The world is constantly changing and almost completely player-run (as far as what goes on in social/political aspects).

It does take a little while to get used to the daily life and the way things work but once you get the hang of it you will find yourself hopelessly addicted. It's great that I've been playing for 6 years and still learn new things and go new places all the time! Soon there will even be a whole new continent complete with it's own culture, languages, native foods and crops, races, etc.

I feel as if I must mention the crafting system as it is incredibly complex but not aggravating (unlike muds where you sit in one spot and work on carving one piece of wood for 10 minutes just to mess it up). No, instead if you wanted to carve a piece of wood you would first need to find a woodaxe and a hand saw, then go out in the woods (minding the wild animals), find a tree and chop it down (and hope it doesn't fall on you), chop it into board, take the board to a smithy that has appropriate tools and THEN you are ready to carve the wood into whatever you want...if you have the skill. Once you get to that point that you're ready to make the wood into what you want it's instant. No sitting around waiting to see if 10 lines of "You continue carving the wood" succeeds or not. That's just one example. There are tons of crafts. My favorites are sewing and leather working.

Finally, WAR. Just like in the real world people don't always get along in DartMud. We do have a number of castles and guilds that don't always agree. We also have quite a few independant people that don't always agree with the castles/guilds. It is not a constant occurrence but every now and again someone will go too far and the world will be torn apart by war. Once my character's husband, a noble of a castle as well, was murdered by another group. My character had revenge on her mind and took out some members from the rival group, and in turn some of the people she lived with lost their lives. After many peace talks and bargaining for each others members held for ransom things eventually went back to normal. To me these are the times in DartMud that are key to building friendships and history for your character. Great fun too! When you log on and your hands are shaking because you don't know if someone is hiding next to your character's bed ready to kill them...you know it's an awesome game.

Over the years DartMud has made me laugh, cry and sometimes even punch things! There is no experience quite like it and I won't be happy until I've tried to convince everyone in the world to play!!

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I'll add my 2 cents about text based games I guess. I've been playing a game called Fantasy Film-maker since Oct. 2005. It's not an RPG, it's a movie studio simulation game. I like it because you play with people from all over the world to be the top film studio. They have a database of real actors with stats for them in different film genres. You can write plots for films, send them to a scriptwriter (takes 1-10 days to finish), cast and put into production, then release the film to cinema. After a week in cinema you can release it to video/DVD. They have assests you can buy/sell. A court where you can sue other companies.

Right now the game is finishing its testing after its update. It will be open to the public again on July 29th, 2006. Great game, I recommend it highly.

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Well, I remember quite a while ago when I played this game called SmartMonsters. From what I recollect of the game, you role play as a character, try to earn money, skills etc. Then, based on those skills, you can chose a profession, such as a lawyer, or a politician (in order to achieve these, you'd have to learn skills in backstabbing, apparently ) or a real-estate agent, etc. The game is fun and it seems to be constantly renovating itself.

At first the game is a bit confusing, and I'd recommend not getting out of the Sanctuary Island until you've familiarized yourself with what to do. Usually the players there will guide you and you can always ask for help through the chat system. (Everyone's in-character and are really helpful) Meanwhile, it's also useful to look over the different commands. For instance, you want to type pick pear in order to grab a pear off a pear tree or laugh to show other players your feelings about a certain thing.

You gain experience points by looking around the place, so the look command is very important. Using that often will make you gain experience faster. Most players there will recommend that you don't leave Sanctuary Island until you reach level 5, but that's virtually impossible. You can't gain that much experience at Sanctuary Island. It's probably better to gather a large amount of food and then head off either north or south. Once you start moving off of Sanctuary Island, it's good to look at the maps, as things will get confusing. The maps are written by players, but can help you get out of some predicaments rather quickly.

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