50 Years of Text Games
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A grad student’s side project spawns a text games renaissance, leading to thousands of new games and decades of innovation.
Aaron A. Reed
Jun 10Comment 3Share
In 1985, a mysterious group of women calling themselves the "Games Mistresses" released the first of a series of text adventure games. The story behind…
Aaron A. Reed
Jun 3Comment 12Share
The forgotten stress relief of dialing in to your local BBS to blow up your neighbor’s Corellian Battleship.
Aaron A. Reed
May 27Comment 4Share
In a world where players could reshape everything about their virtual reality, a vibrant, creative, and radically self-sufficient community was born.
Aaron A. Reed
May 20Comment 4Share
How thousands of players explored a shared virtual world with a quarter of a million rooms using nothing but pencils, paper, and postage stamps.
Aaron A. Reed
May 13Comment 19Share
In communist Czechoslovakia, a network of teenage hackers discovers that text games are a completely uncensored medium.
Aaron A. Reed
May 6Comment 3Share
Infocom’s last Implementor writes a game in a genre men won’t admit to reading and women want to move beyond. Will it suffer a fate worse than death?
Aaron A. Reed
Apr 29Comment 15Share
A writer, mom, and performance artist starts posting a “database narrative” to early online message board The WELL, not sure, at first, if anyone would…
Aaron A. Reed
Apr 22Comment 1Share
In the aftermath of a devastating election, a 1980s game designer starts to wonder if a game could be political.
Aaron A. Reed
Apr 15Comment 5Share
When the best-loved makers of text adventures met the best-loved sci-fi satirist of the decade, the result was an unforgettable classic of interactive …
Aaron A. Reed
Apr 8Comment 7Share
A young writer crosses paths with the designer of Zork, sparking a surprisingly experimental game where you experience reality from six unique perspect…
Aaron A. Reed
Apr 1Comment 4Share
Veronika Megler just wanted a part-time job while she finished her college degree. She didn't realize it would end with her writing one of the first co…
Aaron A. Reed
Mar 25Comment 4Share
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