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= Colossal_Cave_Adventure =
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Introduction
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'Colossal Cave Adventure' (also known as 'Adventure' or 'ADVENT') is a
text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther
for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don
Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be
filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of
locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts
with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are
interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program
acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results
of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example
of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure
game, for which it was also the namesake.
The original game, written in 1975 and 1976, was based on Crowther's
maps and experiences caving in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the longest
cave system in the world; further, it was intended, in part, to be
accessible to non-technical players, such as his two daughters.
Woods's version expanded the game in size and increased the number of
fantasy elements present in it, such as a dragon and magic spells.
Both versions, typically played over teleprinters connected to
mainframe computers, were spread around the nascent ARPANET, the
precursor to the Internet, which Crowther was involved in developing.
'Colossal Cave Adventure' was one of the first teletype games and was
massively popular in the computer community of the late 1970s, with
numerous ports and modified versions being created based on Woods's
source code. It directly inspired the creation of numerous games,
including 'Zork' (1977), 'Adventureland' (1978), 'Mystery House'
(1980), 'Rogue' (1980), and 'Adventure' (1980), which went on to be
the foundations of the interactive fiction, adventure, roguelike, and
action-adventure genres. It also influenced the creation of the MUD
and computer role-playing game genres. It has been noted as one of the
most influential video games, and in 2019 was inducted into the World
Video Game Hall of Fame by The Strong and the International Center for
the History of Electronic Games.
Gameplay
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'Colossal Cave Adventure' is a text-based adventure game wherein the
player explores a mysterious cave that is rumored to be filled with
treasure and gold. The player must explore the cave system and solve
puzzles by using items that they find to obtain the treasures and
leave the cave. The player types in one- or two-word commands to move
their character through the cave system, interact with objects in the
cave, pick up items to put into their inventory, and perform other
actions. The allowable commands are contextual to the location, or
room, the player is in; for example, "get lamp" only has an effect if
there is a lamp present. There are dozens of rooms, each of which has
a name such as "Debris Room" and a description, and may contain
objects or obstacles. The program acts as a narrator, describing to
the player their location in the cave and the results of certain
actions. If it does not understand the player's commands, it asks for
the player to retype their actions. The program's replies are
typically in a humorous, conversational tone, much as a Dungeon Master
would use in leading players in a tabletop role-playing game.
The original 1976 version of the game contains five treasures which
can be collected. Although it is based on a real cave system, it
contains a few fantasy elements such as a crystal bridge, magic words,
and axe-wielding dwarves. The player can die by falling into a pit or
being killed by the dwarves, but otherwise the game has no ending or
goal beyond finding the treasures. The 1977 version of the game, upon
which later versions were based, adds ten more treasures and more
fantasy elements. It also adds a points system, whereby completing
certain goals earns a predetermined number of points. The ultimate
goal is to earn the maximum number of points--350, in the 1977
version--which involves finding all the treasures in the game and
safely leaving the cave.
Crowther's original version
=============================
'Colossal Cave Adventure' was originally created by William Crowther
in 1975 and 1976. Crowther and his ex-wife Patricia were both
programmers and cavers and had extensively explored Mammoth Cave in
Kentucky, the longest cave system in the world, in the early 1970s as
part of the Cave Research Foundation. In 1972, Patricia led the
expedition that found a connection between Mammoth Cave and the larger
Flint Ridge Cave System. In addition to caving, the pair produced
vector map surveys of the cave: they transcribed the survey data of
the cave from "muddy little books" into a teleprinter terminal in
their house, which could send and print messages from programs running
on the central computer and was connected to a PDP-1 mainframe
computer at Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) where William Crowther
worked. This data was then fed into a program developed by the pair
that generated plotting commands onto punched tape, which were then
fed into a Honeywell 316 minicomputer attached to a Calcomp drum
plotter at BBN to print paper maps. These maps were some of the
earliest computer-drawn maps of caves.
In 1975, after he and Patricia divorced, William Crowther stopped
caving with the Cave Research Foundation. Driven by what he later
described as an increase in spare time combined with missing his two
daughters, he began working on a text-based game in Fortran on BBN's
PDP-10 mainframe, interfacing through a teletype printer, that they
could play. He combined his memories and maps of the Mammoth Cave
system, particularly a 1975 map of the Bedquilt area of the caves,
including Colossal Cavern, with elements of the 'Dungeons &
Dragons' campaigns that he played with friends to design a game around
exploring a cave for treasure. Crowther wanted the game to be
accessible and not intimidating to non-technical players such as his
children, and so developed a natural language input system to control
the game so that it would be "a thing that gave you the illusion
anyway that you'd typed in English commands and it did what you said".
Crowther later commented that this approach allowed the game to appeal
to both non-programmers and programmers alike, as in the latter case,
it gave programmers a challenge of how to make "an obstinate system"
perform in a manner they wanted it to. This approach was also
developed to allow the game to be played on a teletype printer, rather
than rely on user interface elements used in programs designed for
monitors.
The initial version of the game was about 700 lines of code, plus
another 700 lines of data such as descriptions for 66 rooms,
navigational messages, 193 vocabulary words, and miscellaneous
messages. Once the game was complete, in early 1976, Crowther showed
it off to his co-workers at BBN for feedback, and then considered his
work on the game finished, leaving the compiled game on the mainframe
before taking a month off for vacation. According to one of Crowther's
then-coworkers in 2007, "once it was working, Will wasn't very
interested in perfecting or expanding it." Crowther's work at BBN was
in developing ARPANET, one of the first networks of computers and a
precursor to the Internet, and the PDP-10 mainframe was part of that
network. During his vacation, others found the game and it was
distributed widely across the network to computers at other companies
and universities, which surprised Crowther on his return. The game did
not have an explicit title in it, simply stating "WELCOME TO
ADVENTURE!!" as a part of the opening message and having a file name
of ADVENT; it was referred to as both 'Adventure' and 'Colossal Cave
Adventure', with the latter becoming the more common name over time.
Most computer terminals at the time did not have monitors, and players
would instead play the game over teleprinters connected to the
mainframe.
Woods's modifications
=======================
One person who discovered the game was Don Woods, a graduate student
at Stanford University. Woods found the game on a PDP-10 at the
Stanford Medical School and wanted to expand upon the game. He
contacted Crowther to gain access to the source code by emailing
"crowther" at every domain that existed on the ARPANET. Woods built
upon Crowther's code, introducing more high fantasy-related elements
such as a dragon. He changed the puzzles, adding new elements and
complexities, and added new puzzles and features such as a pirate that
roams the map and steals treasure from the player or objects that
could exist in multiple states. He also introduced a scoring system
within the game and added ten more treasures to collect in addition to
the five in Crowther's original version.
According to cavers who have played the game, much of Crowther's
original version matches the Bedquilt section of Mammoth Cave with
some passages removed for gameplay purposes, though Woods's additions
do not as he had never been there. According to William Mann, a caving
compatriot of Crowther who played both versions when they were
developed, Crowther was focused on creating the cave system as a
setting for a game, while Woods was interested in making a game and
not in replicating the feeling of caving.
Woods's version, released in 1977, expanded Crowther's game to
approximately 3,000 lines of code and 1,800 lines of data, growing to
140 map locations, 293 vocabulary words, and 53 objects. Woods also
added access controls to the game, allowing mainframe administrators
to restrict the game from running during business hours. Woods began
working on the game in March 1977; by May his version was complete
enough to release, and was soon attracting attention around the United
States. Woods continued releasing updated editions in Fortran until
1995. Crowther later said that Woods's bringing fantasy elements
earlier into the gameplay was an improvement to his version, though
Crowther's daughters also recall him telling them when they were
frustrated at puzzles in the game that it was one of Woods's
additions, not his.
Crowther did not distribute the source code to his version to anyone
else, and it was later believed to be lost until it was rediscovered
on an archive of Woods's student account at the Stanford Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory in 2005. Woods, however, distributed the code
to his version alongside the compiled executable. Woods's 1977 version
became the more recognizable and widespread version of 'Colossal Cave
Adventure', in part due to its wider code availability, as it led to
several other variants of the game being produced.
Later versions
================
Both Crowther's and Woods's version were designed to run on the PDP-10
and used features unique to DECSYSTEMS-10 Fortran IV on that
architecture, meaning that the program could not be easily moved to
other systems, even those that could run Fortran programs. One of the
first efforts to port the code to other languages or systems was by
RAND Corporation researcher James Gillogly in 1977. Gillogly, with
agreement from Crowther and Woods, spent several weeks porting the
code to the C programming language to run on the more generic Unix
architecture. It can still be found as part of the BSD Operating
Systems distributions, or as part of the "bsdgames" package under most
Linux distributions, under the command name "adventure". Bob Supnik of
Digital Equipment Corporation also ported the game in Fortran to the
PDP-11 minicomputer in mid-1977, spreading it to other minicomputer
systems. Afterwards, numerous other ports were made of the game to
different languages and systems, sometimes identified by the number of
points available in the game. There were enough ports and variants and
alternate takes of the game by 1982 that an article in 'Your Computer'
described the entire set of games wherein the player enters short
commands to move between set locations as "'Adventure' games", and
provided code for the ZX81 computer for an "Adventure-writing kit"
program that could be used to generate a game with that gameplay. In
2017, Eric S. Raymond created a port for modern computers of Woods's
1995 version of the game as 'Open Adventure' and released the source
code under an open-source license with permission from Crowther and
Woods.
Commercial versions of the game were also released. Microsoft
published a version titled 'Microsoft Adventure' in 1979 for the Apple
II Plus and TRS-80 computers, and again in 1981 for MS-DOS as a launch
title for IBM PCs, one of the few software programs and the only game
at launch. The Software Toolworks released 'The Original Adventure'
for IBM PCs in 1981; endorsed by Crowther and Woods in exchange for a
nominal payment, it was the only version for which they received any
money. Level 9 Computing released multiple versions of the game for
different computer platforms under the name 'Colossal Adventure',
beginning with a version in 1982 for the Nascom that includes an
entire extra section where the player saves elves from flooding caves,
as well as later versions that include pictures of the areas.
A 3D remake of the game, under the title 'Colossal Cave', was released
by Cygnus Entertainment as its first title on January 19, 2023, for
Windows, macOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X,
and Meta Quest 2. It was designed by Ken and Roberta Williams,
co-founders of Sierra Entertainment. The original text version of
'Colossal Cave Adventure' was Roberta's first video game experience
and got her into game development, and her goal in remaking the game
was to recreate of how she felt playing the game in 1979. The remake
was started as a hobby project by the pair during the COVID-19
pandemic, before being expanded into a full commercial product by a
team of thirty.
Video games
=============
'Colossal Cave Adventure' is considered one of the most influential
video games. In 2019, it was inducted into the World Video Game Hall
of Fame by The Strong and the International Center for the History of
Electronic Games. The game is the first well-known example of
interactive fiction and established conventions that have since become
standard in interactive fiction titles, such as the use of shortened
cardinal directions for commands like "e" for "east", as well as
inspiring the contents of the fiction titles themselves. The game is
the namesake and the first well-known example of an adventure game, as
it combined the interactivity of computer programs with the
storytelling of literature or role-playing games such as 'Dungeons
& Dragons', despite its lack of linear plot. The only text
adventure game known to precede it is 'Wander' from 1974, which did
not have the spread or influence of 'Adventure'.
'Colossal Cave Adventure' was immensely popular among the small
computer-using population of the time. Historian Alexander Smith
described it as "ubiquitous" on computer networks by the end of 1977,
alongside 'Star Trek' and 'Lunar Lander', and Walter Bright, creator
of 'Empire' (1977), recalled that 'Adventure' "caused a sensation".
Columnist Jerry Pournelle said that "two weeks' work would be lost"
whenever it arrived at a computer installation as employees played it.
Attempts to restrict the game failed; the only cure was to let
everyone solve it.
Computer game programmers of the time were greatly inspired by the
game; according to game designer and creator of the Inform interactive
fiction language Graham Nelson, "for the five years to 1982 almost
every game created was another 'Advent'". Several of these games were
the initial releases of companies that would go on to become key
innovators for the early adventure game genre. These included 'Zork'
(1977)--which began development within a month of the release of
Woods's version--first by the team of Dave Lebling, Marc Blank, Tim
Anderson, and Bruce Daniels at MIT and later by Infocom;
'Adventureland' (1978) by Scott Adams of Adventure International; and
'Mystery House' (1980) by Roberta and Ken Williams of On-Line Systems.
The 1980 Atari 2600 video game 'Adventure' was an attempt to create a
graphical version of 'Colossal Cave Adventure', and itself became the
first known example of an action-adventure game and introduced the
fantasy genre to video game consoles. 'Carmen Sandiego', an early
educational game series begun in 1985, was inspired by transforming
the idea of moving around the caverns of 'Colossal Cave Adventure'
looking for treasure into moving around the globe searching for clues.
In addition to inspiring adventure games, as described by Matt Barton
in 'Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing
Games', 'Colossal Cave Adventure' demonstrated the "creation of a
virtual world and the means to explore it", and the inclusion of
monsters and simplified combat. For this, it is considered a precursor
of computer role-playing games, though it was lacking several elements
of the genre. Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy name the game as an
influence for their game 'Rogue' in 1980, which went on to become the
namesake of the roguelike genre. 'Colossal Cave Adventure' also
inspired the development of online multiplayer games like MUDs, the
precursors of the modern-day massively multiplayer online role-playing
game.
Other media
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Two phrases from the game have gone on to have a lasting impact in
programming and video games. "Xyzzy" is a magic word that teleports
the player between two locations ("inside building" and the "debris
room"). It was added by Crowther in response to a request from his
sister when play-testing the game to skip the early section of the
game. As an in-joke tribute to 'Adventure', many later games and
computer programs include a hidden "xyzzy" command, the results of
which range from the straightforward to the humorous. Crowther stated
that for its purpose in the game, "magic words should look queer, and
yet somehow be pronounceable", leading him to select "xyzzy".
Additionally, in the game there is a maze created by Crowther where
each of ten room descriptions was exactly the same: "YOU ARE IN A MAZE
OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL ALIKE." The layout of this "all alike"
maze was fixed, so the player would have to figure out how to map the
maze. The phrase "you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all
alike" has become memorialized and popularized in the hacker culture,
where "passages" may be replaced with a different word, as the
situation warrants. This phrase came to signify a situation when
whatever action is taken does not change the result.
'Colossal Cave Adventure' has continued to be referenced by media for
decades since. The 2003 book on the history of interactive fiction
'Twisty Little Passages' was named after the "all alike" maze, and the
2010 documentary on the history of text adventure games 'Get Lamp' is
named for the command to get one of the first objects the player
encounters and must carry to solve the game. The 2013 game 'Kentucky
Route Zero's' third act draws direct inspiration from the game,
showing a computer simulation set up inside of a cave, which is itself
depicting a massive cave system. The game is also a key plot point in
an episode of the 2014 TV series 'Halt and Catch Fire', a period drama
taking place in the early days of the personal computing revolution.
In it, the chief software designer uses the game as a competency test
to determine which programmers will remain on the team. As a tie-in, a
fully playable version of the game augmented with player hints and
artwork revealed when certain locations are visited was made available
on the show's official website.
External links
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* '[
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=fft6pu91j85y4acv Colossal Cave
Adventure]' at the [
http://ifdb.tads.org Interactive Fiction Database]
with downloadable versions for many platforms
* '[
http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Adventure Colossal Cave Adventure]' at
the [
http://ifwiki.org Interactive Fiction Wiki] with downloadable
versions for many platforms
*
[
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/intfic/colossal-cave-adventure-source-code/
Original source code] and [
https://github.com/ghfbsd/adventure
modified source code] for modern Fortran compilers of Crowther's 1976
version
* [
https://gitlab.com/esr/open-adventure 'Open Adventure' source code]
of a port of the 1995 version
* [
http://sierrahelp.com/Games/AdventureHelp.html 1987 Windows port]
of the PDP-11 version of 'Colossal Cave Adventure' for modern Windows
* '[
https://rickadams.org/adventure/ The Colossal Cave Adventure
Page]', containing downloadable versions and details about each
version of the game
* Interviews with [
https://archive.org/details/GETLAMP-Woods Don
Woods] and [
https://archive.org/details/getlamp-djerz Dennis Jerz] for
the 'Get Lamp' documentary film
License
=========
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure
