The Retro Adventurers

06/09/2024

Valhalla! Tension so thick you can cut it with a knife.

27/08/2024

Waiting for the Colossal Cave Adventure punch-up which includes these snarky reviews...

Come experience what has disappointed millions of people for over 225 years!

Mammoth Cave National Park recently rated as one of the “most disappointing U.S. tourist attractions”! While we think the world’s longest cave system and over 4,000 years of human history is AMAZING, others find that the cave is “very dark” and there is “nothing cool” here to see.

If you would like to experience the disappointment of Mammoth Cave, visit our website and choose from one of our many activities that will leave you unfulfilled! You can be disappointed by a “dry hole with very few stalagmites and stalactites” or discover nothing “other than trees” on over 80+ miles of hiking, biking, horseback riding, and water trails. (Fair warning – there are bugs in the outdoors, cellular phone service is spotty, and there are stairs on some of our cave tours.)

A world of regret awaits you at Mammoth Cave!

Make your cave tour reservations and find all the information you need to plan your very own “not enjoyable” visit to Mammoth Cave National Park at: https://ow.ly/8ifx50T59Eo

26/08/2024

Widely reported by now: The upcoming Retro Games "The Spectrum" to include The Hobbit as a pack-in game, which we believe makes it unique in their line as the only commercial text adventure to ship with one of their throwback/recreation computers. (We covered The Hobbit in episode 2.)

Retro Games Ltd, the force behind the popular "The" series of plug-and-play mini and full-size (maxi) computer consoles I've been covering since 2016, including TheC64 (Commodore 64 and VIC-20 computer platform Minis and Maxis), TheA500 Mini (Commodore Amiga), and The400 Mini (Atari 8-bit computers)...

22/08/2024

Episode 6 is live now, with Dave and Jason taking on two BBC Micro originals, Twin Kingdom Valley and Sphinx Adventure.
https://retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/episode-6-twin-kingdom-valley-and-sphinx-adventure/

13/08/2024

Seriously retro: check out Consider the Consequences, the original branching gamebook from 1930 (!)

Flat text: https://archive.org/details/consider-the-consequences-1930/mode/2up
Playable (Twine) 2023 edition: https://geetheriot.itch.io/consider-the-consequences

11/08/2024

Do tell, Associated Press. How wide is the range?

12/06/2024

Our most recent Legendary Creators interview was cut short by the harbormaster! Clearly our guests had not obtained the gold collar by bribing the cat with the mouse which we obtained by hanging the coat outside the alley door with a piece of cheese obtained after breaking into the artisanal cheese shop with a hairpin we obtained by giving the bracelet to the woman standing nearby! But at least nobody wandered in the wrong direction and was summarily killed and mocked for needing to restart.

Three guesses who we just spoke with!

08/06/2024

Tim Gilberts of Gilsoft joins Retro Adventurers Dave and Jason to discuss the origins and lasting impact of adventure creation systems The Quill and PAW.

https://retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/episode-5-a-conversation-with-tim-gilberts/

05/06/2024

Fun coincidence: today we have an interview scheduled with one of the guiding lights behind The Quill, and we learn about a brand-new Quill game’s release! Ghostship Delgado by Tony Kingsmill.

A new interactive fiction game

26/05/2024

Dave and Jason seek revenge on the dread pirate Skarvench and go on an interplanetary hunt for the mysterious Wing. This episode of The Retro Adventurers explores the neo-retro title Down Among the Dead Men (originally published as a Virtual Reality Adventures gamebook in 1993, converted into ZIL (Zork Implementation Language) and Z-Machine binary format in 2020 by SD Separa) and the oft-overlooked Interplay launch title The Tracer Sanction, originally published by Activision.

https://retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/episode-4-the-tracer-sanction-and-down-among-the-dead-men/

22/05/2024

Dave and Jason recorded Episode 4 today (coming soon!) featuring planet-hopping text/graphic classic The Tracer Sanction by Interplay as the main course.
What's your favorite interplanetary adventure game?

17/05/2024

Episode 3 of The Retro Adventurers, a conversation with the indispensable Scott Adams, is now live. We talk Marvel Comics, relationships with Texas Instruments and Commodore turned sour, the makings of the classics and his ongoing development work at Clopas LLC. (And he's for hire!)
Available through all major podcast platforms.

https://retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/episode-3-a-conversation-with-scott-adams/

10/05/2024

What’s a favorite text adventure book? Could be a tie-in novella, a design or programming manual, a hint book or compendium, a gamebook, or whatever comes to mind when you consider the question.

07/05/2024

Extensive video conversation with Amy Briggs, best known to retro adventurers as the author of Infocom's Plundered Hearts.

02/05/2024

According to server data, all of our Australian listeners to date are in either New South Wales or Queensland. This brings to mind the concept of the Barassi Line (pictured):

Text adventures are to rugby as [fill in the blank] is to Australian Rules?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barassi_Line

29/04/2024

Adventure International was one of the first breakout success stories of personal computer gaming. After more than 45 years, founder and lead developer Scott Adams is still synonymous with this game style. What was your first exposure to an Adams/AI game?
(And is there a single more iconic image of the early, anything-goes wave of computer gaming than this Mystery Fun House cover?)

26/04/2024

Episode 2 has escaped in a barrel from the Elf King's Hall. Dave and Jason skim the alien Planet of Death before exploring the even-more-violent world of The Hobbit. Available for your listening pleasure on the Major Podcast Platforms (just search "retro adventurers"!) or visit retroadventurers.com and subscribe there.
Special thanks to Robin of 8-Bit Show And Tell for some final engineering fixes!

23/04/2024

With one well placed blow we cleaved the skull of our original Episode 2 plan. We still have Planet of Death for starters but there's a new main course in store! New episode dropping soon.
Perfect time to subscribe to our podcast feed if you haven't already! Find us now on Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Spotify, Amazon, PodcastAddict, and other major distributors.

19/04/2024

Our main course in our upcoming second episode will be Knight Orc by Level 9 Computing. Check out the classic BBC Micro version online: http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=3291

Quick tip, which tripped us up! When you think the emulation has crashed, pressing SHIFT will reveal more text!

Tune in soon to hear our thoughts on this classic, and other text adventure based ramblings.

17/04/2024

Our second episode is coming up and our appetizer game is Planet of Death. Take the ZX81 Screen Refresh Challenge!
Can *you* overcome the perils of Planet Of Death *and* endure screen blank on every keypress?!

Play online: Planet of Death with the JtyOne ZX81 emulator, with a touch keyboard for iPhone, iPad, Android mobiles and tablets

06/04/2024

Episode 1 of The Retro Adventurers, covering The Pawn and Around the World, is now live. Special thanks to Robin Harbron and Fredrik Ramsberg for their time screening pre-release editions.

Feeds should be coming live on Apple and other major podcast platforms. Listen online or get a feed URL today from retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/1

The premiere of The Retro Adventurers. Three old-school gamers talk about text adventures they have loved, hated, or are just experiencing for the first time. In this episode, Ben Collier, Jason Compton, and Dave Hawkins take a look at early text adventure Around the World and the first Magnetic Scr...

02/04/2024

The Retro Adventurers take on two games every episode: one main course and one appetizer. For our premiere (coming soon!) we visit the Magnetic Scrolls debut offering The Pawn, and the November 1981 Softside Adventure Around the World.
Have you played them? What did you think?