Colossal Cave Adventure

Colossal Cave Adventure is a 1976 text-based adventure game by Will Crowther, based on his own spelunking experience, and expanded in 1977 by Don Woods. In it, the player explores a vast cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold, by typing one- or two-word commands. These 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 version by Woods expanded the game in size and increased the amount of fantasy elements present in it, such as a dragon and magic spells. Both versions were spread around the nascent ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, and were very popular in the computer community. Noted as one of the most influential video games, it was in 2019 inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. (Full article...)