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Adventure (also known as ADVENT or Colossal Cave) was the first computer game to appear in the genre of interactive fiction (before it was even called that). Will Crowther, a programmer at the legendary Bolt, Beranek & Newman (developers of ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet), was a caver, who applied his experience in Mammoth Cave (in Kentucky) to create a game that he could enjoy with his young daughters. [1] (http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html) Crowther was exploring the real Mammoth Cave in 1972, and did create a vector map based on surveys of the real cave, but the text game is a completely separate entity, created around 1975 and featuring more fantasy elements such as axe throwing dwarves. The version that is known today was created in 1976 by Don Woods, who added additional rooms and puzzles to Crowther's unfinished game. It was written in FORTRAN, originally for the PDP-10. Many versions of Adventure may be found, for nearly any computer imaginable. Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
Maze of twisty little passages
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike" is a memorable line from the game. Among hackers it is sometimes modified to refer to something other than passages that one can be lost in.
In another part of the game, the player is in a maze of passages that are different, not alike. In this maze, the phrase maze of twisty little passages is varied into twelve slightly different formulations, one for each location:
- Maze of twisty little passages
- Twisty maze of little passages
- Little twisty maze of passages
- Maze of little twisty passages
- Little maze of twisting passages
- Little maze of twisty passages
- Twisting maze of little passages
- Twisty little maze of passages
- Twisting little maze of passages
- Maze of little twisting passages
- Maze of twisting little passages
- Little twisting maze of passages
Plugh When you first arrive at an area known as "Y2", you receive the message A hollow voice says "plugh". The magic word takes you between the rooms "inside building" and "Y2".
Michael Goetz's 581 point CP/M version of Colossal Cave included a long extension on the other side of the Volcano View. Eventually, you descended into a maze of catacombs and a "fake Y2". If you said "Plugh" here you found yourself transported to a Precarious Chair suspended in midair above the molten lava. (The game was on SIGM011 from the CP/M Users Group, 1984.)
xyzzy xyzzy was a magic word found in the game. It has later been used as a metasyntactic variable by hackers and as a marker in program sources for known-incorrect or incomplete code.
Many other interactive fiction games contain responses to the command XYZZY as a tribute to Adventure. Zork, for example, replies with:
- A hollow voice says, "Fool".
while more recent games have shown a trend of increasingly more elaborate and in-jokey responses.
xyzzy was a Microsoft Minesweeper cheat and is the default password for Apple Computer's Network Assistant. It was also the name of a user interface (client) on the VMS operating system for the EARN/BITNET Relay chat system (the forerunner of IRC).
xyzzy is used to enable cheats in Road Rash.
XYZZY is used as the name for a hidden attribute used to store passwords in PennMUSH.
On Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-11/44 processor, the full (but undocumented) form of the console processor's "X" command is XYZZY. (This was introduced in Version 3 of the console code by a firmware programmer who'd obviously spent way too much time playing Adventure.)
Other lines Other memorable lines from the game are: - A huge green fierce snake bars the way!
- With what? Your bare hands? (refers to killing a dragon, etc. )
- It's not hungry (it's merely pinin' for the fjords). (if you try to feed the bird) (A reference to Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch.)
Mike Goetz's extensions in his 580-point CP/M version (SIGM011, 1983) had some memorable moments, too: - With extreme difficulty, you take down from the wall a seven foot high, twenty foot long, three hundred and sixty degree view of Mars taken from the Viking lander. - from the Witt's End extension in Mike Goetz's CP/M version (1983); the denouement of this action follows:
- Into view there bounces a horrible creature!! Six feet across, it resembles a large blob of translucent white jelly; although it looks massive, it is bouncing lightly up and down as though it were as light as a feather. It is emitting a constant throbbing sound, and it >ROAR<s loudly as it sees you. - Mike Goetz's CP/M version (1983); this is a reference to Rover from The Prisoner
Goetz also had a number of ephemerals, including: - From the darkness nearby comes the sound of shuffling feet. As you turn towards the sound, a nine-foot cyclops ambles into the light of your lamp. The cyclops is dressed in a three-piece suit of worsted wool, and is wearing a black silk top-hat and cowboy boots and is carrying an ebony walking-stick. It catches sight of you and stops, seeming frozen in its tracks, with its bloodshot eye bulging in amazement and its fang-filled jaw drooping with shock. After staring at you in incredulous disbelief for a few moments, it reaches into the pocket of its vest and pulls out a small plastic bag filled with a leafy green substance, and examines it carefully. "It must be worth eighty pazools an ounce after all" mumbles the cyclops, who casts one final look at you, shudders, and staggers away out of sight. - Mike Goetz's CP/M version (1983)
Versions Many versions of Colossal Cave have been released over the years. Because Crowther's original version is apparently lost [2] (http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/canon/Adventure.htm), the 350 point version is held to the "definitive original". Extended versions with extra puzzles go up to 770 points or more. The AMP MUD had a multi-player Colossal Cave.
Many versions of the game are simply entitled Adventure.
See also
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