Game

No one ever remembers the other text adventures from the early 80s. Zork came out and was a smash. Now, a few years later, more people are trying to take that same model and twist it. It’s evolved since then, with the Sierra graphical adventures, which were text adventures that also had pictures to show where you are. People remember those less, but at least they’re remembered. And then there’s this, the kind of game that was inspired by that.

Game

In 1981 (or maybe 1983 I’m getting conflicting reports), Brian Fargo made The Demon’s Forge. There IS a Wikipedia article but I can’t find much about it. And in the reviews section, there’s one review with someone saying they emphatically recommend anyone play it… but the person who said that was a co-developer of the game, so I dunno how well it did. Also the wikipedia article really reads like the dev himself wrote this.

In this game, you’re a mercenary exploring a dungeon. You need to go deeper in the dungeon and defeat the demonic presence deep within. To get there you need to solve puzzles. None of them are particularly memorable or interesting.

Game

The art is kind of a step up from the Sierra adventures of the day, I will admit. Unless we get to humanoid figures, but that’s fine. Early Apple art was very much weird geometric shapes and ugly blocks, but at least we get some cool skull bridges here.

This game is fine, but I can’t imagine people coming back to it years later, unless they’re some freak like me.