+therealbountybob Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Most worthwhile text adventure games were on floppy, can't think of any on cart and generally the tape-based ones were simplistic though I think Scott Adams Adventures were available on tape. If you're into adventures then the Infocom and Scott Adams ones are probably the best to go for. What?!! Haven't you heard of Level 9 The Price of Magic is superb. Had great fun playing and completing it eventually - [the bug is you can use GET wheel and have to use TAKE wheel if i remember correctly] I also found this on Level 9 http://l9memorial.if-legends.org/html/l9facts.html If anyone has the Level 9 hint sheets for their games would be great if they could be uploaded here - they were very amusing in themselves Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20ohm20 Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 I have a soft spot for the Scott Adams adventure games as they were the first ones I ever played (on a VIC-20). I haven't touched them in a while, but my favorites were always The Count and Adventureland. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 (edited) The ftp.pigwa.net has Infocom .atrs (ZORK I, II, III, Enchanter A,B, Sorcerer and Spellbreaker.) I appreciate you might like to have legitimate copies of games, but that is a lot harder than pigwa. I believe Infocom games weren't copy protected, so the .ATRs and pigwa are like originals. If you wanted to play infocom on real hardware, you could make floppy disks out of the .atrs, or use APE/SIO2PC interface to your PC. I think the magazine games were probably easier to solve than Infocom games. I'm not a text adventure enthusiast, so somebody else could give you better advice. Grievous omission. ASPEQT is fully functional instead of $50 APE software and is free. APE trial is free. Edited August 12, 2014 by russg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Grievous omission. ASPEQT is fully functional instead of $50 APE software and is free. APE trial is free. To be fair, there's stuff APE can do that you can't (yet, hopefully!) do with AspeQt, like a network interface for TELNET BBS's and such. For OS X, the paid alternative is SIO2OSX ($25); it's even more limited than the free trial version of APE though - it's fully functional but for only 5 minutes at a time until you buy it. APE also comes with ProSystem software which lets you connect an Atari drive directly to your modern computer and read/write actual floppy disks, provided your interface hardware can handle that functionality (mine can). So far there's no free/open-source or Mac-friendly software that can do that (I use ProSystem running under Win7 in VIrutalBox on my Mac to do it). That said, I generally use AspeQt myself whenever possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanmercer Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 If you've never experienced Strong Bad then this might not make much sense. Basically it is a lovingly done text adventure parody. There are two sequels to this game as well. Da email da email whut whut da email. "Hi my name is Trevor, I am a vampire and" Haha I have the first 200 or 250 on DVD, I'm going to have to watch some later heh. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanmercer Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 (edited) You don't need a maxflash cart to use any game. The APE/SIO2PC interface with a USB plug will connect your SIO cable to the PC. Then you need APE software to run the 'disk drive emulator'. APE software comes in a somewhat crippled version for free. The maxflash cart is to put games on a cart. I'm not sure how you burn a game on a maxflash cart. Probably you have to have the cart connected in a real A8 and use the APE interface and SIO cable and Maxflash Studio PC software to burn it. If you're going to have to have APE interface and APE software to burn the flash cart, you'd already have what you need to run 99% of .ROM and .XEX/COM/EXE files without the need for the flash cart. There are 16 meg game collection ATR that have 100s of games on them. Yeah I don't want tethered to a computer though. From my understanding I need Maxflash USB Cartridge Programmer Kit to be able to load games via cart, the Kit comes with: Atarimax Maxflash USB Cartridge Programmer and a flash cartridge, then the USB Interface w/ SIO JACK I think I just wanted for tinkering on down the line. Edited August 12, 2014 by ryanmercer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ripdubski Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Cuthroats Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelmischief Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Zork Hitchiker's And then, not strictly text only... Asylum Amazon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylev Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Ryanmercer, Technically, you don't need anything other than your Atari computer to load and run real cartrige games. Just plug them into the cartridge slot and boot. The MaxFlash is used to make your own carts from images you find in the wild. In answer to your original question, I concur with the opinion that you can't go wrong with the Infocom stuff. Unfortunately, a number of them are documentation protected. You need pieces of the documentation that came with the game to get anywhere with them. Buying original, be sure that it comes complete. Not just a bare disk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanmercer Posted August 13, 2014 Author Share Posted August 13, 2014 (edited) Ryanmercer, Technically, you don't need anything other than your Atari computer to load and run real cartrige games. Just plug them into the cartridge slot and boot. Yes, but they suggested some of these will be hard to find, so while I track down reasonably priced carts I can make my own via images, that's why I mentioned the maxflash. I also wouldn't mind having it to check out homebrew stuff. Edited August 13, 2014 by ryanmercer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Star Trek. Played it for the first time in 1976 on the school's new Altair 8800a with a teletype. Awsome. Or at least until Star Raiders came along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 In answer to your original question, I concur with the opinion that you can't go wrong with the Infocom stuff. Unfortunately, a number of them are documentation protected. You need pieces of the documentation that came with the game to get anywhere with them. Buying original, be sure that it comes complete. Not just a bare disk. Most of that stuff has long-since been converted to digital in some form or other ... Search the web. Don't let "documentation protection" prevent you from enjoying the classics the way they were first released! As a slight aside, Activision has released "Lost Treasures of Infocom" - the app itself is free and comes with Zork I. Additional in-app purchases let you buy bundles of the old games and documentation for a few dollars each, or the whole collection for $10. Well worth it, it seems to me. I know it's available for iOS, don't know about other platforms. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Yeah I don't want tethered to a computer though. From my understanding I need Maxflash USB Cartridge Programmer Kit to be able to load games via cart, the Kit comes with: Atarimax Maxflash USB Cartridge Programmer and a flash cartridge, then the USB Interface w/ SIO JACK I think I just wanted for tinkering on down the line. I think all you need to put ROM/EXE/COM/XEX files on a maxflash 1 or 8 megabit cart is 'Maxflash Cartridge Studio' software. You use MFCS to create an .ATR that will then, when loaded with the maxflash cart inserted in the A8, put your programs on the cart. You'd need the APE / SIO2PC interface and ASPEQT or APE software to run the ATR. I'm not familiar with the USB cartridge programmer kit, I guess it has a socket to put the maxflash cart in and you program it from the PC. I'm not real sure aspeqt will work to run the atr created with MFCS. (getting late, am tired). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanmercer Posted August 13, 2014 Author Share Posted August 13, 2014 The maxflash cart and programmer look like a headache and the forums are so so so inactive, I think I'll just dedicate the netbook to playing carts/disks I can't track down and go to the sio2pc route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yautja Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 I like this: http://atariteca.blogspot.com/2010/03/softporn-adventure.html 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Suspended, PlanetFall and Stationfall by Infocom. Although I'm not sure if Stationfall came out for the Atari 8-bits or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 If it's Z3 there's probably a way to cajole it onto the system. xD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Another vote for Level 9 adventures, there are 2 box sets you can find that sometimes appear on Ebay, "Jewels of Darkness" and "Silicon Dreams" both are really good, you should also be able to pick up some more of their adventures on Ebay-best of the bunch being-Red Moon and The Price of Magik. There is a game in the Silicon Dreams box set called-"Return to Eden", there is a name for anyone who claims they finished it without a hintsheet-"Lying Bastard". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 What?!! Haven't you heard of Level 9 [/b] Not in the USA they would'nt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Although I'm not sure if Stationfall came out for the Atari 8-bits or not. It did. http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-stationfall_5052.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RodLightning Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Suspended, PlanetFall and Stationfall by Infocom. Although I'm not sure if Stationfall came out for the Atari 8-bits or not. Planetfall was my favorite Infocom game on Atari 8bit. I remember being excited about the sequel, Stationfall being released. The copy protection in Stationfall involved looking up coordinates from sheets of paper inside the game box. If you didn't have the correct code to enter, you ended up marooned in outer space and never made it to the space station where the game takes place. Collecting Infocom was especially fun because of extra items included in the game boxes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanmercer Posted August 13, 2014 Author Share Posted August 13, 2014 Wow, you guys are making so many recommendations. I've got to get finished sorting this 500lbs of Lego and bagging it for sale the next week or two then I'll be diving into these titles! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoSch Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 I really liked Star Fleet I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Android8675 Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 I like this: http://atariteca.blogspot.com/2010/03/softporn-adventure.html Is that Roberta on the right? That woman still gets my motor running. Grrrrr... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 basicly you are talking about text adventures we called them in Europe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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