Colossal Cave Adventure
An early text game that dropped D&D combat to focus on storytelling.
Where Colossal Cave Adventure comes up1 episode or test
- 1Start with D&DCombat and storytelling together
- 2Strip out combatRemove a core system
- 3Focus on storyColossal Cave Adventure
- 4Adventure genre emergesHelped launch Sierra and Infocom
From Game Maker's Toolkit, Dragon Quest episode
What was said about Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure dropped D&D combat and kept the storytelling. The early text game removed combat from Dungeons & Dragons and focused on story. That narrowing shaped the whole adventure game genre and helped launch companies like Sierra and Infocom.
The Game Maker's Toolkit episode on Dragon Quest frames it this way: "Colossal Cave Adventure stripped out combat and focused on D&D's story-telling". The lesson it draws is to strip out a core system of an existing format to find a new genre.
The Birth of the Japanese RPG | Design Icons
Removing combat shaped the adventure game genre and helped launch companies like Sierra and Infocom.
Colossal Cave Adventure dropped D&D combat and kept the storytelling. The early text game removed combat from Dungeons & Dragons and focused on story. That narrowing shaped the whole adventure game genre and helped launch companies like Sierra and Infocom.
The Game Maker's Toolkit episode on Dragon Quest frames it this way: "Colossal Cave Adventure stripped out combat and focused on D&D's story-telling". The lesson it draws is to strip out a core system of an existing format to find a new genre.
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