Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

Thanks! I’m always leery of stuff vanishing from the internet, like almost happened with Zeno.

Good idea! Here it is in a zip file. Open arctic-adventure.html in your browser. Same exact experience as the online…

That’s great! Would you consider offering a downloadable version, if possible?

It certainly feels like this game, at least in the state he left it, is a programming language parser with…

ACMI has a copy of the 1983 one as well https://www.acmi.net.au/works/100097–the-search-for-king-solomons-mines-computer-game-for-commodore-64/ I’ll get into all of this in my next…

Haha… Gunther told me I’d get a laugh out of the book’s cover, and he was right! Maybe the aliens…

Edit: I just realized that Search for King Solomon’s Mines (Reynolds) and King Solomon’s Mines (Betts) are two different games,…

Something weird there: It’s credited to “Program One Inc.” on the back of the package, but Softgold on the tape.…

Assuming it’s the same game, the Museum of Computer Adventure Game History shows a Dotsoft version – https://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=solomonsmines – with…

Latest update on my Arctic Adventure: I used Claude Code to create a web-native version with fairly elaborate graphics, a…

When I hear the phrase “the first video game,” what has always come to mind for me is Spacewar! .

yeah, I managed to snag the map I do still think it’s possible “Africa Odd” is that game given the…

I can’t see anything that would support the 1982 date on Solomon, from the CASA side of things. What I…

I wanted to ask a question about “African Odd”, this seems as good a place as any I see CASA…

Cliff was having trouble making a comment, so this is on his behalf: Thanks Jason for rescuing it! The games…

He had a whole page dedicated to why he had that nickname (and it was a reference to the philosopher),…

Zeno was the author’s username on mainframes for many years, so I assume it’s just a personal reference (he still…

As an aside, I wonder why the game is called that. a. Because Zeno’s paradox says that you can always…

was Over the Spectrum yours? I was assuming so but there wasn’t a way to be 100% https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/04/over-the-spectrum-adventure-1982/

sorry, it looks like comment landed in spam filter, I pulled it out! This is terrific, thank you! I’ll have…

I just remembered something strange about his pages relating to the book (which were deeply nested and almost impossible to…

The book is very much a “how do I write a Computerized Fantasy Game”, with practical examples of what could…

This game is deranged, and I’m so glad you’re playing it. It feels like the next “Ferret”

I included the unpacked VMARC with all the code in the download package I sent, IIRC. I think PC Zeno…

I believe you can use the mouse to click wherever, and Tab will take you to the next interactable field.…

[…] when I wrote about my favorite games of Tlön — essentially, imagining games from an imaginary universe where the…

[…] (Continued from my previous post.) […]

Chiming in here with two tips if you want to play yourself: Make sure you /SHUTDOWN and QUIT the emulator…

[…] was in 1959; the same year, Christopher Strachey (who created one of the candidates for “world’s first videogame”, see…

[…] a company has only come up here so far in passing, as a competitor to other companies like ICL…

[…] as a company has only come up here so far in passing, as a competitor to other companies like…

I see, so the code is in good hands now. QB64 is a great compiler.

Hey! Cliff Ramshaw here. I came across this site recently, and was delighted to read the article and the comments.…

My initial intention was to get the game woriking on modern Windows. VB6 was a suitable choice as a stepping…

[…] magazine for the entire Zenith community”. Robert Lafore’s Six Micro-Stories and Dragons of Hong Kong have been covered by…

[…] the “independent magazine for the entire Zenith community”. Robert Lafore’s Six Micro-Stories and Dragons of Hong Kong have been…

Thanks! (Hope it is clear I wasn’t begrudging anyone, including Wikipedia — not a mistake anyone would expect!)

Someone pointed me to this blog post- I’m the one who uploaded the original image for the article. It’s not…

The wikipedia image is definitely a reproduction and not in any way a processed actual photograph. If you look closely…

You mentioned Strachey used slides in a presentation. Were the photos taken from the slides as I guess it might…

I was about to make a post about Ahoy’s intriguing Tennis for Two YouTube video and then I actually clicked…

one quick thing to mention is Aaron Reed has a picture likely from the book (since he also mentions another…

Looking at the code for something linked to the “crystal does’nt explode” message, the only thing I can see is…

it appears there was also have been an IBM-PC port. on page 93 (as numbered) of PC Mag 1982 volume…

the mac garden one is an older one – I haven’t tried emulating mac on mac before (just mac on…

Very cool! I hate to bother you, but do you think there is any way you could ask your father…

If you can find the earlier, non-SE versions of RHEM, maybe those are easier to emulate?

I do have a Mac around here – I’ll check it out later

re:RHEM, yeah, the problem is the backwards compatibility. Old games, and by “old” I mean “games I bought in 2018,”…

With an in-game notetaking facility! and when you die yourself, you can return to the location to discover your old…

at least the first one has a Mac version I think Apple hates backwards compatibility though? https://www.macintoshrepository.org/5112-rhem

Rhem sounds like I might really like it and also like it won’t run on my Mac. Maybe I should…

oo, or a horror game! with the notes of all the failed former adventurers that blundered into all the various…

I have not! Read along with Carl Muckenhoupt’s playthrough of one of them. oh agggh it also seems like it’s…

have you played any of the Rhem series? that’s like “Bad Infosec: The Game”

My guess is that “crystal does’nt explode” is a reference to the rod in adventure–that this rod can’t be used…

checking that page, I learned something new about Norse Mythology >In the Norse Mythology tale of “The Death of Baldur”,…

John is making a reference to this trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigLippedAlligatorMoment

Given the game’s puns the author may have meant something like that with the boat name

[…] (Continued from my previous post.) […]

Maybe try HOLD BREATH before swimming down? I’d also wonder if there was some nautical term for tying the boat…

Dreamweb is a top-down pure adventure, but it’s from 1994 and not Japanese, so I’m not sure if that’s what…

ugh, why must boats be impossible to talk about in parser games?!? this one wants HEAD in order to set…

“big-lipped alligator house party”?

Tom Bombadil was a bone of contention between me and my uncle who desperately tried to pass on his love…

Boom sticks are sharp shark repellents!

In Epic Hero 3 the time is 2023 and Earth is colonising her sister planets. Dig that 80s extreme optimism…

if nothing else, Adventure in Hakata is probably worth a look for being Rika Suzuki’s first game

Huh, that’s a “my brain is conspiring” type typo. Or maybe my spell checker being “helpful” the wrong direction.

“It’s fine as long as you are holding the “sharp repellent”, and I’m not sure what to visualize that as.”…

The “shark repellent” was almost certainly inspired by the “shark repellent bar-spray” from the 1966 Batman movie with Adam West,…

Hmm, interesting question. Well, a few Japanese menu-driven adventures with some movement/exploration via overhead map started appearing in the mid…

[…] for Colour Genie. The three for TRS-80 eventually ended up published by Molimerx (prior background here), and Harding’s spiel…

[…] gone through before how the Video Genie was a clone from EACA of the TRS-80; in Germany, the Video…

one extra question: one game I do consider an adventure is The Old Village Story (Enix, PC-88/98). It’s top down…

“xtal” is how I’ve seen diodes indicated in really old radio wiring diagrams.

Stumbling at random until finding a landmark, mostly. Given I already had an uphill battle with weird gameplay and a…

If I remember correctly, it generates a password at random and POKEs it into memory at a specific place, then…

Generally speaking, any RPGs stay in RPG-land (I have excluded Eamon, for instance, even though they are wholly “text adventure”…

Japan actually likes their games to be weird and impenetrable, at least they did in the early-to-mid 80’s, so it’s…

I wonder why the password it gave you is different from the one I got? My password for Part-II was…

It’s amazing that this super-weird and impenetrable game started a company instead of ending any attempts immediately.

I guess the idea is that the X in Xtal is pronounced as in Xmas for Christmas? (Apologies if that…

If there is I certainly never found it! It’s just a blind guess as far as I can tell.

Instant death to avoid drawing another room is very relatable.

oh! that’s handy (well, it would be handy if I hadn’t finished the ADV part) was there any way to…

Just so you know, the HELP messages change depending on what the prompt is asking for. If it’s asking for…

From everything I’ve seen, Grand Cross is played through all the same way, rather than in alternating sections like Cosmo.…

I forgot the link: https://archive.org/details/99er8305/page/n42/mode/1up

While browsing another magazine dedicated to the TI-99, I found an advertisement for Beanstalk Adventure, which I believe is the…

[…] (Continued from my previous post.) […]

Do either of you know what the “deal” is in Grand Cross? (is it alternating ADV/RPG, some more integrated type…

As far as I know, neither “Cross” game is available through Project EGG. There were a number of other original…

I’ve completed the game and I never ran into any invisible enemies. I think you snagged some misinformation or more…

Alright. This morning I have managed to solve my problems with the dungeon cell, the torture chamber, and the dance…

I love the sound of Puzzle Adventure’s teleport exits, how did you find navigating those?

*I have been able to open the barrel tap at the Hall of the Mountain Kin and drink the liquid…

Alright, just an assemblage of notes of things I’ve found. I’ve basically seen everywhere Jason got. This is gonna be…

I’ll be honest, I want this winning message to appear in a modern game after building up to some epic…

Tee hee hee.