Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as Adventure or ADVENT) is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game’s natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player’s location and the results of the player’s attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake.
The original game, written in 1975 and 1976, was based on Crowther’s maps and experiences caving in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the longest cave system in the world; further, it was intended, in part, to be accessible to non-technical players, such as his two daughters. Woods’s version expanded the game in size and increased the number of fantasy elements present in it, such as a dragon and magic spells. Both versions, typically played over teleprinters connected to mainframe computers, were spread around the nascent ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, which Crowther was involved in developing.
Colossal Cave Adventure was one of the first teletype games and was massively popular in the computer community of the late 1970s, with numerous ports and modified versions being created based on Woods’s source code. It directly inspired the creation of numerous games, including Zork (1977), Adventureland (1978), Mystery House (1980), Rogue (1980), and Adventure (1980), which went on to be the foundations of the interactive fiction, adventure, roguelike, and action-adventure genres. It also influenced the creation of the MUD and computer role-playing game genres. It has been noted as one of the most influential video games, and in 2019 was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame by The Strong and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.
Release Date:Â Colossal Cave Adventure was first released in 1976 for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was later ported to a variety of other platforms, including the Apple II, the Atari 8-bit family, and the Commodore 64.
Console Availability:Â Colossal Cave Adventure has been released on a wide variety of consoles over the years, including:
- PDP-10
- Apple II
- Atari 8-bit family
- Commodore 64
- IBM PC
- Amiga
- Macintosh
- iOS
- Android
Developer:Â Colossal Cave Adventure was developed by William Crowther and Don Woods.
Milestones:Â Colossal Cave Adventure is considered to be one of the first and most influential text-based adventure games. It helped to popularize the genre and inspired many other games, such as Zork and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Some of the most notable milestones in the history of Colossal Cave Adventure include:
- The game was created by a group of computer scientists at the University of Utah.
- It was one of the first games to use a natural language parser, which allowed players to type in commands in plain English.
- The game was released as freeware, which helped to make it widely available.
- Colossal Cave Adventure has been translated into over 20 languages.
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