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You know how people on this forum like playing word games like adding or removing one letter from a movie title?

Well how would you like to play a really fun adventure game which is entirely based around word manipulation of this sort? And what if I told you it was also far and away the cleverest, most well-constructed text adventure I ever played?

You wouldn't? You don't want to play a text adventure game?

No, you wouldn't. But it's not like that. The puzzles are logical and have multiple solutions. The story is creative. You are rewarded for messing around. It could be the best thing you play all year. It was once voted the best interactive fiction of all time by the small community of people who care about such things, and deservedly so.

It's totally free. All you have to do is follow the link here and click "play online" on the top right.

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=aearuuxv83plclpl

I've been telling people to play this great game for years and I don't think a single person has ever done so on my recommendation. It's about the size of a small novel. Should take about a couple of evenings to finish. Go on.

oh, you couldn't get started? I thought the tutorial does a pretty good job of explaining all the commands you need, but maybe not if you've never seen this kind of thing before.

IIRC it starts by saying something like "are you awake?"

Say: yes

And then "Can you remember your name?"

Say (I would guess): no

And take it from there.

You see? It's such a shame. A really brilliant piece of work like this ought to have a virality greater than 1, but at least as far as my efforts are concerned it has a virality of zero. I can't even convince other game developers to try it.

Fucken rude smartarse piece of shit game.


Turns out I'm way too fucken thick for this incredibly fun "game"

ok, bring your ticker up to count: (1)

I'm in

Update: the letter remover is F I R E - it's so rare to have an new idea in gaming I'm absolutely tickled when I get to experience it. I think the last time my imagination lit up like this when playing something was Baba Is You

YES! This is how I felt as well. It does to adventure games what Baba Is You did to Sokoban.

I feel bad that Rocky Rockbottom tried in good faith to give it a go but was frustrated by the interface. I know that a text-based game is so alien to modern sensibilities; I grew up playing the Infocom interactive fiction that this game is inspired by (Leather Goddesses of Phobos is a direct inspiration) so I don't know what it feels like to go in cold. But this is a game about words, it could only exist in written form.

It should be quite novice friendly, I thought, since it has a little tutorial at the start, and none of the puzzles involve guessing verbs. The game will tell you all the commands you need to know. In case it is the very beginning which is the sticking point, it should start something like this:

I think when most people think of text adventures they probably think of this sort of thing (if they think of anything at all)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3-0vXrBwwE

but the puzzles here are not that kind of stupid stuff. Even though it comes in the guise of one of those games, there's something much brainier under the skin.

Anybody who wanted to try something where you have total freedom to enter ANYTHING could give AI Dungeon a go. I find it's an uncanny but strangely hollow experience to be able to steer the story in literally any direction you want, but that is a thing now.

I tried it. But it’s a format that has never clicked with me, dating back to INFOCOM games in the 80’s. Some of my friends loved them back then. I’m just way too visually oriented to hang with text stuff