Role Playing Games

Adventure

1972. Willy Crowther's "Colossal Cave" Adventure (Advent)

1976. Don Woods (SAIL) adds elements inspired by Tolkien (trolls, etc).

Many other versions: Interactive Fiction Archive.

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully.

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1980. UCSC and UCB. Ken Arnold, Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman. Unix and "cursor addressing" routines. Rogue distributed with BDS Unix 4.2.

Roguelike Games: Rogue, Nethack, Moria and Drygulch (Project Plato, graphics, multiplayer)

 "Although the common features of rogue and its many descendants are `obvious' to many people, they are difficult to describe in simple terms. Generally, the games mentioned below are single-user, fantasy role-playing computer games, generally set in a dungeon, run with a simple character-graphic interface. In all of the games, the player controls a single character, who roams around getting more powerful, in order to fulfill a difficult quest. Sword-and-sorcery rule the day. Logistically, they're all free games; executables, and generally sources, are available by FTP."--Roguelike Games FAQ.

Early Home Computer and Console Based Adventures

Epyx: Starfleet Orion: Temple of Apshai, Rogue, etc. Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, D&D and wargame players, founded company as Automated Simulations (SPI).

Adventure (Atair 2600)

Temple of Apshai, 1979.Temple of Apshai Trilogy (1985, Epyx)

Computer and PC-based exploration games: Empire: Wargame of the Century--not the Startrek game. (Walter Bright, 1981).
"The map is displayed on the player's screen during movement. Each piece is represented by a unique character on the map. With a few exceptions, you can only have ONE piece on a given location. On the map, you are shown only the 8 squares adjacent to your units. This information is updated before and after every move. The map displays the most recent information
known." -- Empire v. 4.0 documentation. URL: http://www.decus.org/libcatalog/document_html/v00012_1.html.
Golden Age of RPG Series  
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