From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg
Ander GM wrote:
El Sun, 23 Feb 2025 15:02:18 -0600
Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> escribi||:
On Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:39:53 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Thu, 20 Feb 2025 02:00:01 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Besides, I don't think graphic adventure died. It just left the
mainstream. Now text adventure. That died proper. Last one I can
remember is Anchorhead.
Besides, JRPG is quite alive and well. You have a Western
perspective on this, and I'm not sure you're even right there. BG3
may be niche, but it is a commercial success.
Not to mention pretty much every major game now includes RPG
mechanics of some sort or another. Features that used to be
definitive to the genre --stats, leveling, inventory, etc.-- are now
common across multiple game-styles.
RPG dying? It's arguably more popular than it ever was before.
As for text adventures... even those live on, albeit greatly reduced
in popularity. But there are still commercial releases (Example: "The
Filmmaker" on Steam). Yes, many of these aren't 'true' text
adventures (in the classic early-80s sense), as they include some
visuals. But even if you really insist on being a purist, ifdb.org
will more than satisfy your needs. There's a lot of traditional
interactive fiction there, with new games released every year.
But I'm a lot more lenient, and a few pictures and maps don't exclude
a game from the genre, as far as I'm concerned (even Infocom
eventually included those features!) You could even argue that many
'visual novels' are just the latest iteration on the concept.
Oh yeah. By "die," I mean "died in the mass market." I have an
install of Inform 7 on my desktop. Interactive Fiction is still very
much a thing. Even the purist, no graphics kind.
The last mass market IF I saw was in Talos Principle 2, as a bit of a
joke and homage. A game within a game.
As I said, I think "Anchorhead" was the last commercially released
text based IF title on Steam. It may have pictures.
Meanwhile, graphic adventures in the style of Sierra still have mass
market releases. They are not by any means "dead."
But everything worthwhile thrives on its own. There's Inform, ADRIFT,
Git, and a newcomer called Twine that I haven't looked into, where
people author IF. Beyond that, there's Frotz, the Magnetic Scrolls
interpreter, etc. if you haven't played all the old commercial titles
from the 80s. I even have a bunch of old Scott Adams games in
z-interpreter format.
I still vow that I will finish "The Lurking Horror." Someday.
The original version it's free at IFDB. No graphics nor sounds, but you
get the whole game.
Shortening it to IF is moderately ambiguous. IF is also an acronym for Interactive Fantasies, creators of _The Prisoner_, which I contend was
the first "tough" game. You are an ex-CIA officer confined to an island
with 20 buildings, each of which contains a different sub-game. I "won"
it once (my objective was departing the island - which to me meant
leaving the buildings behind). However, there was a bit more to the
game, except I almost instantly committed suicide by answering a YES/NO question wrong.
--
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