Colossal Cave Adventure
Somewhere nearby is Colossal Cave, where others have found fortunes in treasure and gold, though it is rumored that some who enter are never seen again. Magic is said to work in the cave.
430 point version of the classic text-based game that started it all.
While this was not the first text-based computer game, it broke new ground and inspired generations of gamers and programmers alike.
Just a few of the memorable lines from the game to jog your memory and pique your interest.
- You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
- "MAGIC WORD XYZZY"
- A hollow voice says "PLUGH".
- A little dwarf just walked around a corner, saw you, threw a little axe at you which missed, cursed, and ran away.
- FEE FIE FOE FOO
- Rubbing the electric lamp is not particularly rewarding. Anyway, nothing exciting happens.
- A huge green fierce snake bars the way!
This implementation is a translation of Don Woods 430 point extension to William Crowther's original Colossal Cave Adventure. At this point, it pretty much stays true to the original.
Screen Appearance------------------------------------
You can change the font size of the text displayed on the screen. Use the preferences to choose between small, medium (default), large, and extra-large.
Text to Speech------------------------------------
You can have the game read aloud provided you have a Text to Speech library installed (Android 1.6+) and at least one English speaking locale. I don't know how useful this will be, but I'm enjoying it.
Also, it will warn you when you start the application if you have it turned on, just in case you are in a "quiet" area (meeting at work, library, etc.).
The Preferences menu item will allow you to turn on/off the feature as well as choose the locale you wish to speak.
This feature is not required to play the game, it is just a fun addition that I wanted to offer.
Voice Recognition------------------------------------
If your device supports voice recognition, you can now speak your commands to the game.
When you speak your command, the voice recognition engine will show you a list of words that it understood you to say, allowing you to choose the correct one from that list.
You can customize the behavior of this as follows using the Preferences menu option:
- Turn on/off the voice recognition capability.
- Direct it to take the best match to your spoken command and automatically use it.
- Direct it to show you up to 5 matches to your spoken command.
- Direct it to show you up to 10 matches to your spoken command.
It does take a little time learning how to speak to it so that it will understand, but as the voice recognition technology continues to improve, so should your experience here.
Also, you won't be able to use voice recognition for everything. The magic words, for example, aren't exactly something you can speak.
Finally, for those words that don't distinguish themselves from others in the first 5 characters, I've built a translator to help. For example, you speak "Northeast" and select it, the game will translate that to "ne" which it will understand. If you encounter any of these that I've missed, contact me and I will add them.
I don't know how useful this will be, but I'm enjoying it.
Walk-through------------------------------------
There are a couple on the developer's web site as well as some short ones to help you out if you need it.
Support------------------------------------
There is now a menu option that will make it easier to contact the developer with any issues you may have.
History------------------------------------
This game has a lot of history behind it. Check out the developer's web site for more information.
Category : Adventure
Reviews (28)
This game takes me back. Awesome. It was 1979 on a mainframe at the college. Few new ADVENT was in the system. Love reading reviews by people that just don't get what a ground breaking experience this was. Thanks for the memories.
The app unfortunately had a pretty significant bug on my device. It was impossible to wander around to find things, because once you entered the forest, it was impossible to get back.
Pretty well done. The developer made some neat features and it's awesome they brought this old-school game back for the modern age. So why 4 stars and not 5? The game is also old-school hard and hasn't aged well in that regard. So, if this is your type of thing, I very much say go for it. It's just not casual enough for everyone.
What nonsense is this game! If I move in a certain direction and then come back, I'm not in the same place? How? Explain me the science behind it. And how do you even pick up the items around you? The game never explains that. Either this game was actually this bad or the developers of this platform have ruined it. The GUI was also tried to be made to look more modern, but it ended up looking boring instead. It's simply lazy development and I won't recommend anyone to play this horrible trash.
Exactly as advertised. This is a port of the original Colossal Cave Adventure. The original has some really weird features, but all of these are included.
This game has wonderful balance, player desperation playing a fair part... Still have most of the map etched into my memory. Thanks! FWIW I back-ported the PDP-11 version to the DEC-10 (5 letter words ;-) and even added a whole new section back in the early 80s...
Great mobile version of the absolute classic. I appreciate how the developers kept the original simplicity of its design. Works perfectly.
Downloaded and played with my two boys under 10 years old, they were hooked. And me! Game plays great, thanks for making it available 👍
Great original game. What gaming was before graphics. Uses your imagination like reading a book instead of listening to it or watching a movie. Good exercise.
I have fallen head over hills for this game. It has everything I love, excitement, mystery, surprises, imagination and fun. I could go on and on. There is however one thing that makes me sad 😔 I can't find anymore games the same /similar to this one. Do you guys know of any? I would be grateful if you could let me know. Xxxxx
I know this game is all about reading, but no need to force potential players to agree to terms for a game that is potentially older than themselves. Never have I ever had to agree to terms to play Colossal Cave Adventure on any system before and I am not going to start now. Thank you, but no thank you.
Game needs more recognition than this. One of those kind of legendary games that requires a good amount of thinking. Keep up the good work!!
Thank you for bringing up this fabulous classic, there are many references online for interactive fiction, one should get to read about it before judging to fast. When are you doing Zork ?
no instructions can't figure out how to play the game at all. You might want to put a help file in the game because it's not very clear and it's not working correctly.
Nicely implemented trip down memory lane. Takes me back to long nights playing CC in the computer lab when I should have been writing up my PhD!
I'd love to have more games like this on the market, I love the control style.
good job. i ported this from pdp-11 in 1980 using first Disk ][. thank you for doing this.
I remember this one. I use to play this college during the 80s on a PDP-11/44
Thank you for this blast from the past!
Hmm this is very challenging
I love this game ❤️
I'm still playing..it's become personal! 😬😬 UPDATE: refuse the walk thru.2/3/22. started over. One of the highlights of our miserable COVID time. Stay Healthy friends!! Can't TY enough for the years of fun this game has given us. Rock On..
Played The Original on an IBM 360 circa 1981. Anyone else from 120 Broadway?
The game NEVER tells you what direction things are in relation to you. Just there's a building or a steam or a chasm or whatever. It never tells you what direction these things are, so you basically never know where you are. Therefore it's extremely easy to get lost. In fact you will probably spend most of your time lost. After wandering aimlessly, the game then wants to charge you points to get you unlost, which still doesn't help BECAUSE THERE IS NO DESCRIPTION OF WHERE ANYTHING IS SO YOU IMMEDIATELY GET LOST AGAIN.
Wonderful to find this again. First played over a dial-up line to MIT in the 70s, then found it on the mainframe and spent many hours scribbling maps on line-printer paper during long shifts in the machine room! Never got max points... now I can try again! Thank you 😊😊
This is really good and brings back memory's of sleepless night trying to get all the loot. The biggest bug I have with it is that I can't find find a way to get a clear list of word commands this version uses. This makes the programme handerling of commands I used on the Amiga version seem inadequate making for many frustrating moments trying to get the game do things. I think a command like "list" to list the words used world be good. Also please include the command "get all" to get all items in one room.
Early 80s, my brother worked in computing at a huge state univ. Sometimes my sister & I went with & he let us play games on his monochrome mainframe terminal while he ran tape backups. This was one of the games, ASCII Star Trek on the IBM mainframe was another. We *loved* Adventure! We never "won" but man, we played our hearts out! This version is exactly as I remember it, but with compass & TTS & NO PERMISSIONS! How awesome! Thanks, dev!
A million stars! I started playing this game on a teletype in junior high around 1980. Flipping loved it them, and was continually driven insane by trying to navigate... It is very exciting to have this on my phone now. To be able to be frustrated by this game anywhere at anytime is a reality that never would have occurred to me back in the day.