Adventure

Colossal Cave Adventure is a text based adventure game developed back in the 1970's by William Crowther. To the best of my knowledge, the game was originally written in FORTRAN in 1975, and then later ported to other languages due to its wild popularity. The basic idea behind Colossal Cave Adventure is that you key in specific commands that the console understands to navigate the caves. For example, if I wanted to go south, then I would type "SOUTH" into the console and I would arrive at a different location on the map (provided South is a valid direction from that specific part of the map). The interesting thing about Crowther was one of the founders of the ARPANET, one of the corner stones of today's global Internet. The idea for Adventure was spawned from Crowther's passion for cave exploration, and in fact, Colossal Cave Adventure's map emulates parts of the maps Crowther created of Mammoth Cave for the Cave Research Foundation. 

Colossal Cave Adventure was then picked up a year later by a man by the name of Don Woods, who expanded on the Crowther's work after first receiving his approval. Woods's version was still written in FORTRAN, but it wasn't until Jim Gillogly of the Rand Corporation (another co-developer of the global Internet we use today), that Collossal Cave Adventure was ported to C. It is this release that became the official release of "Adventure", and was included with the first IBM PC's. At the time, this was the single most advanced implementation of game logic, and spawned several other text based adventure games including ZORK, and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

So why all the history? I bring up the subject of Adventure Game because it is now my turn to write my own text based adventure game for my Computer Science class. The game that so changed the text based adventure genre, has now been relegated to a rudimentary assignment in an Intro to Computer Science class. I am neither saddened by this, nor am I overjoyed by the prospect. I simply find the rich history that is involved in the development of the technology we know and love today amazing. Here we have a story within a story. On one hand, we have a tale of a technology (the Internet) being developed that will change the way mankind communicates forever. On the other, just beneath the surface in fact, we have a tale of a man who was at the forefront of developing this technology, yet on the side he develops something that would captivate the mind of his users for decades to come. And why did Crowther develop such a masterpiece of its day? Was it for money? Recognition? Boredom? Try love; the love for his two daughters whom he wanted to feel more connected to. Who could have guessed that his daughters would love their father's work so much, that they would proceed to pass it around amongst their friends and in doing so, establish a whole new genre of entertainment?

And that is my point of this post. No matter what you do. No matter what your industry of expertise may be. Be sure that all that you do is out of the love and passion, and the will to right by others. A simple act of kindness can, and often does, change the world. I shall leave you now with the original Colossal Cave Adventure. Click the image above and the console will open in a new window. As this is a Java version of the game, you will need to be sure Java is enabled in your browser to play. There is a walkthrough, but try to play the game first without it, and then use the walkthrough to fill in the gaps. Half the fun of Adventure is figuring out the puzzles for yourself. Enjoy :)