by Chris Billowsin Playstates Theory0 commentstags: Adventure 2600
It’s Thanksgiving in Canada and I can’t think of a better way of demonstrating gratitude than getting a nice response from Warren Robinette to my email thanking him for Adventure 2600. Here is his response: Chris — Thanks for the nice letter. I meant to give you an immediate response when I first saw it, but your email kinda slipped down the inbox. I have attached something I wrote about Adventure a few years ago, which may interest you, if you haven’t seen it. I kept copyright, so you can post it on your website if you want. I am also working on a book about the implementation of Adventure, which I hope to have online by the end of the year. I am calling it “The Annotated Adventure”. The book is about the program that implemented Adventure, so the target audience is programmers (I think). But if you know Adventure, you might get something out of it without being a nerd. Thanks again for the good words. Back when I was creating Adventure, I had no idea what I’d be doing 35 years later, but if I had made a list, it would not have included corresponding by email […]
by Chris Billowsin Playstates Theory0 commentstags: Adventure 2600
Dear Mr. Robinette, What follows is an open letter to you from my blog to thank you for your pioneering masterpiece, Adventure (1979). It is in response to your GDC presentation that you delivered earlier this year. While you admitted that Will Crowther’s Adventure (1977) inspired you, what you created was a 90 degree game that took the industry in new directions. The amazing thing about Adventure was it was a simulation that provided a dynamic, emergent narrative. You touched on the following accomplishments in your presentation: Yes, Adventure was the first action adventure game. Yes, Adventure pioneered technology to help create the first comic superhero game Superman (1979). Yes, Adventure won an Arcade award, and Superman, that used your technology also won a Arcade award the same year. Yes, Adventure contained the first ever Easter Egg and sent a F-U message to corporate cronies who treated developers like faceless factory workers. These are all things to be in awe of, but what made me so in love with Adventure was that it was primarily a simulation. Not a tedious simulation where making a wrong move would crash your Flight Simulator. It was a fantasy quest simulation with items, dragons, […]
Recent Comments