Comments on: The Short, Happy Life of Infocom

The Short, Happy Life of Infocom

ewagoner — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:55:09 -0800

Remember Infocom? What makes a small, beloved, and wildly successful developer of interactive fiction decide to sideline the games and venture into building database software instead? While the knowledge that they were bought out and shuttered is pretty common, it isn't until relatively recently that all the details have come to light.

By: ewagoner

ewagoner — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:56:21 -0800

As someone who spent far too much time playing Infocom games back in the day, I found this post very interesting, and thus rescued it from deletion.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:57:08 -0800

Thanks, ewagoner.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:58:49 -0800

Yeah, I'll resurrect my comment too: I love this kind of case study story. Thanks!

By: das_2099

das_2099 — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:59:05 -0800

yeah, it was a pretty awesome post, even if it was a (2d) example of blatant self-linking

By: timory

timory — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:16:01 -0800

if you feel like you're missing some of your favorite games (nord and bert! bureaucracy!) not listed in that online archive, try going to home of the underdogs. they really have everything, even links to all of the manuals and package contents. plus, you know, free.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 09:00:50 -0800

Thanks for that link, Timory. Brings back memories of struggling to get a babblefish or the surprise twist in A Mind Forever Voyaging on my old C64.

By: influx

influx — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 10:59:16 -0800

Good god the Escapist needs to redesign their articles. How is anybody supposed to read that? I can't even bump the font size up, because the navbar floats over the text. The only way I can read anything is by disabling CSS, which has the handy side-effect of making the article navigation (as everything is inexplicably split over several pages) practically invisible. Sorry for the (minor?) derail, but their site irks me no end. The writing is really good, and I'd happily be a regular visitor - if I could read the sodding thing.

By: Pendragon

Pendragon — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:31:34 -0800

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by Metafilter.

By: GreenTentacle

GreenTentacle — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:49:27 -0800

InfoCom databases: your data is likely to be eaten by a Grue.

By: hades

hades — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 12:08:39 -0800

I'm sure I've mentioned this before in one of the other Infocom threads, but Underdogs has an old link to the package scans. The current (CoralCDN) location of the Infocom package gallery is here. (Self-links are ok in comments, right?)

By: fleacircus

fleacircus — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 12:44:38 -0800

The gamer in me wants to scoff at them for putting business ahead of games in their hearts. But I think they had the timing right to get out. And yes the Escapist layout is fucking annoying.

By: Twang

Twang — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:36:12 -0800

The story here is readable without flipping thru countless webpages with 'helpful' graphics.

By: LeeJay

LeeJay — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:46:39 -0800

They had to go and include the Floyd excerpt and start me blubbering...

By: minimal

minimal — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:27:46 -0800

Interesting read. Is it just me, or did anyone else get an apple-ish feeling from their old ads?

By: joeblough

joeblough — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:18:18 -0800

about a year ago, i got a treo 650, and i started looking for alternatives to versamail (the built-in email program.) i was very surprised to find that marc blank is now self-employed and writing the email client called 'chatter' for the treo. of course being a zork fan from way back in the day i had to buy chatter. hes a pretty nice guy and answers everyone's technical questions personally on his forum.

By: davros42

davros42 — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:51:01 -0800

See that toolbar down near the bottom of The Escapist? See that magic word "text"? Click on that to get a much more readable version of the article. Because yes, the Escapist's magazine style layout sucks, but they have provided an alternative.

By: EatenByAGrue

EatenByAGrue — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 12:23:04 -0800

I hated it when Infocom went dark.

By: davcoo

davcoo — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 17:51:24 -0800

The first game I ever bought was an Infocom text adventure game for the Osborne I (tan case). (I guess "Osborne I" and "text" are redundant, huh?)

By: fleacircus

fleacircus — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:19:26 -0800

See that toolbar down near the bottom of The Escapist? See that magic word "text"? Click on that to get a much more readable version of the article. Oh, one of those greyed-out looking hard to read things off screen down and to the right? Yeah, except I want the art; I just don't want the layout.