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Tufty McTavish
@tuftymctavish.com

🧵 A chance comment in a post has led me down a rabbit warren of Interactive Fiction memories, floppy diskettes, and apps on modern devices. So this is going to be an ongoing thread about text adventure games, such as these “Lost Treasures of Infocom”. 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #TextAdventures ⌨️ #Infocom 🗺️

Tufty McTavish
@tuftymctavish.com

👨‍💻 Here’s Dan Amrich’s original post that set me off. We’ll be seeing some of the contents of that thread in this one a bit later, but I wanted to acknowledge where all of this spawned from. I’ve specifically not tagged because of waffle notifications! 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #TextAdventures ⌨️ #Infocom 🗺️

Damned Amrich@danamrich.bsky.social

In preparation for getting a different laptop for work, I cleaned off most of my stickers so the next person could decorate it as they see fit. But I feel like I’ve just created the hot new retro console, the Infocom Z Interpreter. “No polygons, no sprites, no graphics — just narrative.”

Tufty McTavish
@tuftymctavish.com

🗺️ Text adventure games, or interactive fiction if you like, were an integral part of my childhood. I started out with the likes of Level 9, Magnetic Scrolls and Infocom. I’ve still got some folders full of maps that I drew out ✏️ e.g “Hollywood Hijinx”. 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #TextAdventures ⌨️ #Infocom 🗺️

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Tufty McTavish
@tuftymctavish.com

🚀 I mentioned elsewhere that I had fond memories of the “Gateway” text (and graphics) adventure game. Well, I found my old map in this notebook of adventure game maps. 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #TextAdventures ⌨️ #Infocom 🗺️

Tufty McTavish@tuftymctavish.com

I have extremely fond memories of additionally playing the (mostly) text adventure game back in the day - I have a *huge* soft spot for those types of games. Finished it too, IIRC. Good times. I guess I can add this book series to the re-read pile 🥹 Might follow-up with your garage shelves pal.

Tufty McTavish
@tuftymctavish.com

📦 Since I’ve whipped both of “The Lost Treasures of Infocom” boxes off the shelf they were gathering dust upon, let’s take a closer look at them. There are a whole bunch of text adventure games within. Look at all of those classics of the genre 😍 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #TextAdventures ⌨️ #Infocom 🗺️

Tufty McTavish
@tuftymctavish.com

💾 Opening up the first of “The Lost Treasures of Infocom” reveals some ancient artefacts of yore! Look at them floppy diskettes 🥹 (Needless to say I took the data off these floppies many years ago, back when I still had the necessary hardware!) 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #TextAdventures ⌨️ #Infocom 🗺️

Tufty McTavish
@tuftymctavish.com

💻 These two packages containing “The Lost Treasures of Infocom” are from a different era of computer hardware. Who still remembers ANSI.SYS? 🙋‍♂️ Yup, I do! Saving a few bytes of memory was often vital in them days!!! 🥲 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #TextAdventures ⌨️ #Infocom 🗺️