Colossal Cave Adventure
| Colossal Cave Adventure | ||
|---|---|---|
| No Screenshot Available | ||
| First release | 1976 | |
| Also known as | Adventure, ADVENT (350 points) Colossal Adventure Adventure II (440 points) Adventure 3 / 550 (550 points) Adventure 4 (660 points) Adventure 5 (501 points) Adventure 6 (551 points) 370 Point Adventure (370 points) | |
| Developed by | Will Crowther, Don Woods Level 9 Computing (Colossal Adventure) Peter Luckett, Jack Pike (440 points) David Platt (550 points) Mike Arnautov (660 points) David Long (501/551 points) Paul Munoz-Colman (370 points) Mike Goetz (580 points) David Picton (701/701+ points) | |
| Published by | Will Crowther, Don Woods Level 9 Computing (Colossal Adventure) | |
| Distributed by | Will Crowther, Don Woods Level 9 Computing (Colossal Adventure) | |
| Platforms | PDP-10, DOS | |
| Resolution | (unknown) | |
| Engine | Frotz, Glulxe, Hugo, Level9, TADS | |
| Support | Not yet. | |
| Available for Purchase |
Free to download at IF Archive | |
Colossal Cave Adventure is the text adventure that started the adventure game genre. Will Crowther, a rock climber and cave explorer, mapped portions of the colossal cave and bedquilt cave areas of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky in 1972. After his divorce in 1975, he began to write Colossal Cave Adventure to better connect with his daughters. In 1976, Don Woods discovered Colossal Cave Adventure on a computer at Stanford University and received permission from Will Crowther to extend it. The expanded Don Woods version, which awarded players a maximum of 350 points, was then shared on the ARPANET in 1977, a precursor to the internet, and kickstarted the adventure genre.
It was originally written in FORTRAN for PDP-10 mainframe computers. The 1977 350-point version by Crowther and Woods has been ported to many different systems and for many different programming languages, including Glulx, Hugo, TADS, and Z-machine.
It has also been extended multiple times:
- An extended version known as Colossal Adventure was released commercially by Level 9 Computing using their in-house scripting language in 1983.
- A 440 point version, also known as Adventure II, was developed by Peter Luckett and Jack Pike, of Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough, from 1978 to 1981.
- A 430 point version, also known as Adventure 2.5, was developed by Don Woods in 1995.
- A 550 point version, also known as Adventure 3 or Adventure 550, was developed by David Platt in 1978.
- A 660 point version, also known as Adventure 4, was developed by Mike Arnautov in 1995, combining Adventure II and 3 into a single game.
- A 501 point version, also known as Adventure 5, was developed by David Long at the University of Chicago in 1978.
- A 551 point version, also known as Adventure 6, was developed by David Long and an anonymous coder in 1984.
- A 370 point version, also known as 370 Point Adventure, was developed by Paul Munoz-Colman in 1993.
- A 580 point version, also known as 580 Point Adventure, was developed by Mike Goetz in 1993.
- A 701 point version, also known as 701 point Adventure, was developed by David Picton in 2013, combining Adventure 3 and 6 into a single game.
- A version, also known as 701+ point Adventure, was also developed by David Picton based on his 701 point version, with extensions.