letters, no space invaders, no canary cries or ping-pong pings. Only words.
Entrance to Cave
You are standing outside a dark and gloomy cave.
There is a gold key here.
>
I had made a world. Not a large world, not even, from any reasonable point of view, an interesting world, but a world nonetheless. Compared with the work of getting the program to run, the adventure of Adventure was absurdly simple. You typed,
>take key
and took the key; you went into the gloomy cave and crossed the subterranean river at the ford, you found the sword, surprised the troll and navigated the maze where all the rooms looked exactly alike. You entered the castle, you read the note, you opened the secret door and found the locked treasure chest. Did you have the gold key? You did, you did! The castle, the maze, the troll, the river and the cave were the whole of my kingdom, but they were, to my mind, like one of the holograms pressed into a tiny button or pin, where, as you turn it in your hands, a three-dimensional pattern seems to repeat itself in infinite space. I saw not what was there but what could be there, if only I had written it, a world of rooms where I would be free to wander as I pleased. It was as though the gray box had been working in secret to fulfill my oldest dream about its powers, although, like many dreams, the coming true bore only a metaphorical or tangential relation to the dream itself. Yes, I could know all, do all, create and destroy at my whim, I could make subways and strand my enemies within them, yes, everything, yes, only I would have to do it in the gray box. It was enough.
It was too much to take in. After I had unlocked the treasure chest and won the game twice, I needed to tell someone what I had done. I found Kerem with Shelley and Eric at the gas station.
“My game works!” I said.
“Oh?” Kerem frowned at me, as though he’d expected me to say something completely different. “Yeah, OK, that’s great. Good work.”
“We have to play,” I said, “before the power goes out.”
“Play what?” Shelley asked.
“This game I wrote on the computer,” I said.
“You wrote a computer game? Wow!” Shelley put her head very close to mine and whispered, “We’re a little stoned.”
I nodded gravely, as though Shelley had told me that the three of them had contracted an incurable disease. Their lives had become more serious, suddenly, and also more exciting. They would probably die. But secretly, if their being stoned meant that I got to have Shelley’s breath in my ear, I was all for it. Eric was hopping in tiny circles around the air pump.
“Are you ready?” Shelley asked Kerem.
“Shelley’s brother is having a party,” Kerem said. He must have felt bad that he hadn’t appreciated my game, because he added, “Want to come?”
“We’re going to have a great time,” Shelley said.
“OK,” I said. Consequences were whirling around me in a cloud of great seriousness. If, and if, else if, else. Then. Then. Then.
ADVENTURE
You are standing at the entrance to a dark and gloomy cave. Ahead of you, in the darkness, there is music.
“You’re OK?” Kerem asks. “Just be cool, and if anything happens that you don’t like, come find me. OK?”
Say OK.
“Let’s go-oo,” Shelley moans.
You follow Kerem and Shelley and Eric into the cave.
You’re in Shelley’s brother’s apartment, on the second floor of an apartment complex at the far end of Thebes, by the storage facility and the graveyard. There are many people here, and you don’t know any of them, although some of their faces are familiar from town. There’s the guy who works at the grocery store, and there’s one of the guys from the ski shop. You associate them so closely with those places that seeing them here is like being in a dream, where heads are pasted on new bodies and one city borrows the name of another. What’s more, everyone in the room is twice your size. Shelley has gone
Entrance to Cave
You are standing outside a dark and gloomy cave.
There is a gold key here.
>
I had made a world. Not a large world, not even, from any reasonable point of view, an interesting world, but a world nonetheless. Compared with the work of getting the program to run, the adventure of Adventure was absurdly simple. You typed,
>take key
and took the key; you went into the gloomy cave and crossed the subterranean river at the ford, you found the sword, surprised the troll and navigated the maze where all the rooms looked exactly alike. You entered the castle, you read the note, you opened the secret door and found the locked treasure chest. Did you have the gold key? You did, you did! The castle, the maze, the troll, the river and the cave were the whole of my kingdom, but they were, to my mind, like one of the holograms pressed into a tiny button or pin, where, as you turn it in your hands, a three-dimensional pattern seems to repeat itself in infinite space. I saw not what was there but what could be there, if only I had written it, a world of rooms where I would be free to wander as I pleased. It was as though the gray box had been working in secret to fulfill my oldest dream about its powers, although, like many dreams, the coming true bore only a metaphorical or tangential relation to the dream itself. Yes, I could know all, do all, create and destroy at my whim, I could make subways and strand my enemies within them, yes, everything, yes, only I would have to do it in the gray box. It was enough.
It was too much to take in. After I had unlocked the treasure chest and won the game twice, I needed to tell someone what I had done. I found Kerem with Shelley and Eric at the gas station.
“My game works!” I said.
“Oh?” Kerem frowned at me, as though he’d expected me to say something completely different. “Yeah, OK, that’s great. Good work.”
“We have to play,” I said, “before the power goes out.”
“Play what?” Shelley asked.
“This game I wrote on the computer,” I said.
“You wrote a computer game? Wow!” Shelley put her head very close to mine and whispered, “We’re a little stoned.”
I nodded gravely, as though Shelley had told me that the three of them had contracted an incurable disease. Their lives had become more serious, suddenly, and also more exciting. They would probably die. But secretly, if their being stoned meant that I got to have Shelley’s breath in my ear, I was all for it. Eric was hopping in tiny circles around the air pump.
“Are you ready?” Shelley asked Kerem.
“Shelley’s brother is having a party,” Kerem said. He must have felt bad that he hadn’t appreciated my game, because he added, “Want to come?”
“We’re going to have a great time,” Shelley said.
“OK,” I said. Consequences were whirling around me in a cloud of great seriousness. If, and if, else if, else. Then. Then. Then.
ADVENTURE
You are standing at the entrance to a dark and gloomy cave. Ahead of you, in the darkness, there is music.
“You’re OK?” Kerem asks. “Just be cool, and if anything happens that you don’t like, come find me. OK?”
Say OK.
“Let’s go-oo,” Shelley moans.
You follow Kerem and Shelley and Eric into the cave.
You’re in Shelley’s brother’s apartment, on the second floor of an apartment complex at the far end of Thebes, by the storage facility and the graveyard. There are many people here, and you don’t know any of them, although some of their faces are familiar from town. There’s the guy who works at the grocery store, and there’s one of the guys from the ski shop. You associate them so closely with those places that seeing them here is like being in a dream, where heads are pasted on new bodies and one city borrows the name of another. What’s more, everyone in the room is twice your size. Shelley has gone
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