Disposing of old software


Text Games from my Macintosh days.

I've been throwing out old software for the original Apple Macintosh (pre I days) and it's been fun reminiscing about old role playing games. They were text based only, no pictures, explosions or graphics to wow you. Just plain vanilla text to read and interact with. Games like Fool's Errand, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Wishbringer, The Witness etc.

The opening screen would read something like..."You're in a large room with a long corridor. To your right is a closed door. To your left, light can be seen streaming from somewhere. Ahead of you is a long, dark corridor. What do you want to do?" At this point I would type open door or turn left or something like that and the next scene would be described.

If this sounds challenging, it was. All games came with an InvisiClues Hint Booklet! The booklet's purpose reads:


InvisiClue Booklet

The essence of all InterLogic games is solving problems. The purpose of InvisiClues hint booklets is to maximize your enjoyment of the game by giving you only those hints that you need to continue playing and complete the game.

The invisible hints generally progress from a gentle nudge in the right direction to a full answer. The questions, which naturally have to be visible, have been worded to give away as little as possible. You should not use the presence or absence of a question on a certain topic as an indication of importance, and you should not assume that long answers are associated with important questions. This booklet includes dummy questions and answers in order to minimize this problem.

If you are stuck at some point in the game, find the question that most pertains to your problem. Uncap the marker and run it once over the first hint. The writing will appear within a second or two. If you are still stumped, go on to the next hint.

I know, it pales in comparison to this generation of graphic and action laden games. Heck, the text based games didn't even have sound! However, it was nice to interact with them from a text stance. It was like reading an adventure and becoming part of how the story unfolded. Sure the parameters were limited, but the challenge was making the right choices and completing the game.