Infocom

Zork

The Classic Text Adventures

Submitted by costik on Tue, 05/22/2007 - 23:09.

Type:

Interactive Fiction

System Requirements:

Like, a computer.

Developer:

Infocom

Zork I

Zork II

Zork III

Zork: Undiscovered Underground

The Zork games are seminal influences on many games to follow, and are the examplars par excellence of the heydey of the text adventure. Purely text in nature, they cast doubt on the very term "video game" -- nothing "video" about them. A description is presented to you; you type in your response (and hope that the parser understands you), grab items, and combine them to solve puzzles. Though derivative of earlier academic games like Crowther's Colossal Cave, they added an element of humor and a puzzle complexity that modern games rarely aspire to.

Brass Hats

Brass Hats

Brass Hats is very much a game in the vein of Advance Wars or Military Madness. It's turn-based, you have your guys, you move them around, they attack other guys, they die, maybe you build some more, maybe you don't, and hopefully they kill all the bad guys. If there's something really witty left to be said about this subgenre of game, it ain't gonna be here and now.

What I love about this subgenre is the attention required from you is completely on-demand. Whatever other swarm of media devices you have ongoing in the background, your attention can shift seamlessly between them and this type of game, given its quick, turn-based nature. But games like this can be a little too simple when you have the brain cycles to spare. However, Brass Hats, with some small additions and adjustments to the overall formula, sharpens the strategy to a finely honed point.

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