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I have a hard time dealing with parser games,
although it seems like I can solve 50% of the parser games,
the 50% I have been solving are actually made by new game creators with easier difficulty
Now, what haunts are me are the other 50% of the parser games that I have never been able to solve
The House on Highfield Lane by The Pixie
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/idu7hlna7k2h24ib4ymmrg/the-house-on-highfield-lane
Marooned (Two Men And A Cat) by The Drummerman
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/twd9Ls-jLkuhHKeCWMUMfQ/marooned-two-men-and-a-cat
Renegade Brainwave by J. J. Guest
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/5l0mgwt5fkky-hkdm6piew/renegade-brainwave
Xanadu - The World's Only Hope by XanMag
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/sihv9g3rdki50mt9_1v4bq/xanadu-the-worlds-only-hope
The Mouse Who Woke Up For Christmas by NecroDeath
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/dwh6ap1wbkqtujkhgxzrog/the-mouse-who-woke-up-for-christmas
Marooned by Father
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/0u-07lkbp0umpueo0oyutw/marooned
Well, for me, there is no discussion, I can't solve them, so they are "bad"
but if so, then why do I keep thinking about them?
Parser games that I have solved
The Test is Now READY by Jim Warrenfeltz
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/tasncqqsuuyrmln94ojphg/the-test-is-now-ready
Professor Greene by deadvermin97
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/7xhhj4ex-eahycjnmdqpfw/professor-greene
The Bunker of Burrowout by roscob
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/3xofc2aa10iiwkh_jvbdda/the-bunker-of-burrowout
To Hell in a Hamper by J. J. Guest
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/szaztnsjcuircrt9qzig_q/to-hell-in-a-hamper
ChristmaKwanzakkah by Steve Lingle
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/-k3ee-qnm0miy16w-bpy8a/christmakwanzakkah
Bandit Train by mboelens37
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/5-0mnpcyu0kuly5329iitw/bandit-train
Golem by pisapisa
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/KeKHg10rrU6_fEbgHt5wnQ/golem
Escaping the Forgotten by Clifford Cheefoon
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/VHceg-jfwU6xW9FhxxQkwg/escaping-the-forgotten
Trouble Found Me by Gooseface8D
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/t-e1P62PtUGsUb8T3Z9xZQ/trouble-found-me
And probably a lot more, but since they are too easy or too short of a game, I am skipping them
But because I have completed them, I became forgetful of their existence and never tried them again,
is this the effect that difficult parser game creators are trying to do?
Making an unbelievably difficult parser game, so people would keep retrying again,
deepening the memory connection and familiarity with it to psycho the mind to like the game's world building?
How many % of parser games have you guys solved?
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Hello.
It's supposed to take you a very long time to beat an old-school parser game.
It's supposed to make you frustrated once in a while. You're supposed to get stuck for days to months, until, one day, after not playing the game for quite a while, you wake up knowing exactly what you've overlooked.
Sometimes you miss the opportunity to win and the game will go on forever with no end without you knowing.
Sometimes Douglas Adams kills you randomly sometimes for no good reason when you are inside your own brain.
(It's less forgiving than a good NES game.)
I have completed all the games on that first list except for two I never heard of: Marooned (Two Men and a Cat) and Renegade.
You have to think outside the box a few times in The House on Highfield Lane. Once you figure everything out, you'll wonder why you didn't see what to do the whole time. (You know it was good stuff when that happens.)
Xanadu games have parts that left me stumped for weeks, thinking maybe dude had errors in the game, but eventually I figured everything out. It did take a while to beat that one, though.
If you enter the command HINT in The Mouse Who Woke Up For Christmas, it should provide an email. The author would take great pleasure in providing small hints to help you along your way through any of his games.
Thanks for letting me know you completed all those games,
I thought something was wrong with me, or the game wasn't completable,
I surely didn't expect to need days to months to finish up the game
Yeah, I clearly remember being completely stuck for quite a while during The House on Highfield Lane.
And I got stuck quite a few times during Xanadu.
Everything was right in front of me, though, in retrospect.
The guys who wrote those are familiar with the old classic Infocom games, and those classic Infocom games were notoriously ruthless.
If you've never played the true Infocom version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I recommend it. Just don't expect to complete it quickly. I mean, once you know the game, it can be completed in 20 minutes. It took me years (off and on) to finally get through to end, though. I probably got over 1,000 laughs out of that game, though.
Also, if you're interested in the classic parser games by Infocom, check this out: https://textadventures.co.uk/forum/design/topic/1fpfsggahe67c9eapnsbvq/infocom-source-code-and-a-compiler-available-online
The first link in that first post leads to a legit site where you can download every Infocom game ever made. Most of the time, it has the source code as well as the compiled game (which can be played in Frotz).
Every game written by Steve Meretzky is worth a play, even if you were to just fool about for a short while.
The third post has a link to all the game manuals.
You should also give Zork a shot. Play the one you find via that link, though. (The version of Zork on this site doesn't save the game correctly.)
When playing an Infocom game, the best games' final releases have intricate built-in hint systems, and most of the games have Invisiclues that you can easily find online.
It takes a while to get the hang of a parser. Most of the Infocom games are designed to have the same commands and such, so it gets where you kinda know how to get stuff going on after some good old trial and error.
Thanks for sharing, even though I can't complete old-school parser games,
they have been quite the inspiration, and so I will continue to play them,
I am pretty dum as well, so thanks for showing the 'how to use' guide
english is not my main language, are game manuals answer sheets?
that is basically what I have been searching,
I have always wanted to find out what I am missing,
why am I not hitting all the correct parser commands
When the old Infocom games have the built-in hint system, those will give you a first hint when you select a help topic, then you can keep getting to show one more hint until it eventually just tells you exactly what to do.
The Invisiclues books (now online for free download in PDF) worked the same way, but the individual hints were printed with ink that only appeared after you rubbed that area on the page with a special marker. The PDF version just show you all the hints, because someone had to use the marker to make all the text appear before scanning.
I also remember a game that you had to have the provided instruction booklet and manual to even start the first act. You had to read the stories in a few games instruction booklets to have any clue what to do at certain points, too.
Those games were designed before the NES by and for computer nerds. They were all about big mazes, intricate puzzles, and huge maps. Most players had their printer pumping out the transcript as they played, and they were drawing maps to keep up with where they and all the in-game objects were located. It's supposed to be really difficult in places and take you a long, long time to complete.
....but yeah... That post I linked has a link to all the game manuals and all the games.
Have you ever played this version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
It's more like a Quest game than a parser.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-game-30th-anniversary-edition
That reminds me of this particular game:
To Hell in a Hamper by J. J. Guest
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/szaztnsjcuircrt9qzig_q/to-hell-in-a-hamper
This game does exactly what you said, I keep on pressing til I get all hints,
but if my memory serves me right, the hints are in random order,
so you are not being spoon fed, you still need to think a bit more,
kinda challenging for a parser newbie, but when finished, I gained a lot of confidence
Thats interesting history
To tell you the truth, I have never played The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I am getting the following error
Error: Could not fetch storyfile, got 500
Yes, I am referring to the game at front page of the website
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/3cbedqimquselmanehhzxg/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy
So your 30th Anniversary Edition is definitely a life saviour, and it looked even cooler than I had imagined
I am getting the following error
Error: Could not fetch storyfile, got 500
That version of the game sucks, anyway. You are better off. Same goes for the Zork on this site.
The best way to play it is to install Frotz and play the Z5 game file one your desktop.
https://github.com/DavidKinder/Windows-Frotz/releases
To play online without downloading or installing anything, you can:
Open this page: https://iplayif.com/
Then copy this link (from the page I linked to earlier, with all the Infocom games) into where it says "Enter a URL or a story file": https://eblong.com/infocom/gamefiles/hitchhiker-invclues-r31-s871119.z5
Or click this link to skip those steps and have it load the game all in one URL:
https://iplayif.com/?story=https%3A%2F%2Feblong.com%2Finfocom%2Fgamefiles%2Fhitchhiker-invclues-r31-s871119.z5
Note that that game is designed to frustrate you to no end.
Good luck getting out of the bed when play begins!
(Enter "HELP" to get to the hints menu. You have to enter it twice the first time, because you lose points when you use it.)
You know what? In retrospect, it was uncool of me to send you to play Hitchhiker's. It is fun, but it is notoriously ruthless. You constantly die or end up in non-winnable game states without knowing it. It does provide a good laugh at every turn, even when it kills you, but most people aren't sick like me and don't enjoy such things.
You should totally try the real version of Zork, though. That is the number one Infocom favorite, and Infocom games are the gold standard in most IF communities to this very day.
The game file, which can be downloaded and played with Frotz:
https://eblong.com/infocom/gamefiles/zork1-invclues-r52-s871125.z5
Or to play online:
https://iplayif.com/?story=https%3A%2F%2Feblong.com%2Finfocom%2Fgamefiles%2Fzork1-invclues-r52-s871125.z5
It has the built-in Invisiclues menu, plus it is the most popular parser of all time (probably) so it is easy to search for things when you need a little help.
Oh, and here is a link to the PDF of the Zork manual:
https://infodoc.plover.net/manuals/zork1.pdf