The Retro Adventurers

It's our 50th episode! Jason, Nick, and Tim make it a working holiday with news on the peak of competition season (Ectocomp! Introcomp! Iron ChIF! And of course IFComp!), news on developments for Z-Machine developers and Å-Machine players, five new Fairlight releases on C64, and, yes, reverb Ramsberg.

Iron ChIF Adventuron wrapup: https://intfiction.org/t/iron-chif-season-one-episode-3-flacrabbit-vs-dee-cooke-using-adventuron/81129/138

Iron ChIF TADS sought: https://intfiction.org/t/iron-chef-looking-for-tads-challengers/75758/36

Introcomp: https://introcomp.org/

ECTOCOMP 2026: https://itch.io/jam/ectocomp-2026

ReZet80: https://rezet80.blogspot.com/p/rezet80-sentinel.html

Tiny Text Adventure Engine: https://rezet80.blogspot.com/2026/02/tiny-text-adventure-engine.html

Haunted House: https://rezet80.blogspot.com/2023/09/haunted-house.html

Adventure Family Tree: https://www.ifwiki.org/Adventure_Family_Tree

Adventure Family Tree discussion: https://intfiction.org/t/adventure-family-tree-using-ifwiki-to-record-and-display-information/77211/2

ZigZag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigZag_(software)

Lantern: https://textadventure.net

Swiss Family Robinson/FLT: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=263890

FairLight TV 159 (Synapse cracks): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2x1xYSHCFQ

The Demon Jar: https://qladventures.itch.io/the-demon-jar

AGI-64/AGI-ANTIC: https://meanhamster.com/games/agi-64

Vanyar: https://johanberntsson.itch.io/vanyar

I'm Still a Cannibal For the FBI: https://cannibalforthef.bi/

Dialog interpreter for Apple II: https://intfiction.org/t/help-dialog-choose-a-commodore-64-color-palette/81746/9

SCUMMVM MADS support: https://www.scummvm.org/news/20260826/

Fish on Apple platforms?!: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2026/09/fish

Magnetic Scrolls' Upon Westminster Bridge: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2026/09/upon-westminster-bridge/

DAAD tutorials: https://markhardisty.wordpress.com/

The Greedy Dwarf: https://mjhardisty.itch.io/the-greedy-dwarf/devlog/1674561/the-greedy-dwarf-now-available

Adjunct of Computing #1: https://youtu.be/tojYY6hdnNY

Plague On the Discovery testers wanted: https://intfiction.org/t/testers-needed-for-new-bdb-project-s-game-plague-on-the-discovery-morgan-tyler-series-3/82097

Dracula Spectrum Next: https://giadacu.itch.io/dracula-english-zx-spectrum-next-illustrated-edition

A Spy's Heist: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=au4s1nyuqonq10fw

PARANOID blog: https://play-paranoid.online/blog/best-mystery-text-adventure-games

Legends: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=3xgiq6kxz60zvff2

It's Infocom and Iron Curtain classic text adventures from the final years of the Cold War!

With special guest Ana Meisel (ana.help), Nick and Jason take on two entertaining political-statement classics of the 1980s. First up is PRESTAVBA, aka PERESTROIKA, a once-anonymous satire set in the Prague Spring of 1968 and published (very carefully and also anonymously) in the former Czechoslovakia for ZX Spectrum. Then it's a not-so-distant flash-forward to Rockvil in the year 2031 for A Mind Forever Voyaging, Steve Meretzky's immersive statement on Reagan-era socioeconomic policies in the United States.

Does Perry Simm have free will? Is a Soviet lighter reliable in a pinch?  It's the first (and last?) time both our games are the standout selections of Aaron Reed's 50 Years of Text Games project: are they worthy? Join us and find out!

A Mind Forever Voyaging (IFDB)

A Mind Forever Voyaging docs (code table for Simulation Mode on p31)

A Mind Forever Voyaging (playable online)

Přestavba, original Czech and English translation downloads (ZXArt)

Prestavba (IFDB)

50 Years of Text Games (features both games as the standout of 1985 and 1988, respectively)

Gaming the Iron Curtain

London Permacomputing Club

Our Friend the Computer podcast

Bonus - 1980s Czech film recommendations from Ana:

Contest deadlines, international reviews, and some Ramsberg groveling lead our news coverage for text adventure enthusiasts this month. Tim, Jason, and Nick bring you the latest for one of the oldest gaming disciplines... aside from that one story we accidentally repeated from last month.

Nick's a little heavy on the reverb filter in this one, let us know if you get seasick.

Spanish discussion of RetroAdv:

https://mastodon.social/@DekaBlack/117166787290154461

https://mastodon.social/@textualizame/117166805431903978

Madman, port of 1983 VIC-20 game by the dread Ramsberg:

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=6ymufgd24jnxg256

Wyrmward, Z6 PunyInform title:

https://johanberntsson.itch.io/wyrmward

Darkwood V: The Lost God found and preserved: https://csdb.dk/release/index.php?id=263342

https://www.facebook.com/groups/EightBitAdventures/posts/28558175203785812/

Inform 6 DM4:

https://inform-fiction.org/manual/about_dm4.html

Inform 6 Programmer's Guide: https://jxself.org/inform-guide/

OS9 Infocom interpreter: https://github.com/rlucente-retro/infocom-os9-port/releases/tag/v1.0.0 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164528820297641/

Raaka-Tu: https://github.com/DrPitre/raakatu 

CoCo Nation Podcast Episode 474: 

Galaxy's Edge, BBC Micro title by Graham Nelson:

https://ahopeful.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/galaxys-edge-1984-by-graham-nelson/

Oo-Topos C64 cracked:

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=263365

FairLight TV #156: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ewUo92awZ0

Z-Machine BBS details: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1814239092232631

David Youd hacks Secrets of the Pyramid (duplicate, oops): https://youtu.be/OiUZ7qtRHB4

Inform Trail Camera: https://www.twitch.tv/informtrailcamera

Zork NES:

https://github.com/lupinthird/zorknes

AGI-64:

https://meanhamster.com/games/agi-64 

Beatle Quest Python runner: https://www.amigaretro.com/projects/blakes-7-beatle-quest/

Blake's 7 for Oric:

https://defenceforce.itch.io/blakes-7 

Wander System for Ubuntu Touch:

https://mastodont.cat/@cibersheep/117151878472175318

Clash of the Type-Ins returns:

https://rcveeder.net/clash/ 

The Hobbit for TI-99 4/A:

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/392212-the-hobbit-for-ti994a 

Classic Infocom playable library:

https://jamiedurrant.com/infocom/

Iron ChIF Adventuron battle:

https://intfiction.org/t/iron-chif-season-one-episode-3-flacrabbit-vs-dee-cooke-using-adventuron/81129

Out of Luck: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=n1y41pmdrk8ikk26

A Bonded Harvester: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=mbsybax9swkzp81o

Adventurer's Rest channel: https://youtu.be/fgg_-9Rb2zY

PARANOID game: https://www.play-paranoid.online

Astaria MUD: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=6x86ablx3lg3u2y2

Pack your phrasebook and get ready to defend democracy as Ben and Jason take on a pair of quirky early 1980s adventures. For an appetizer, we order Infocom legend Brian Moriarty's early effort, a type-in published in ANALOG Computing Magazine no less:  the Nicolas Cage-coded Adventure In the Fifth Dimension.

The feature game is Invincible Island by Pete Cooke... that's Cooke with an e, sadly, although Ben and Jason do find time for a little Derek & Clive discourse which steers clear of the need to flag this episode for adult content. Both games have mindbending maps, but do they have anything else in common?

Also, there's quite a bit of listener mail and news... from the summer of 2025, which is how long this episode has been waiting for publication! Thanks to Nick for breathing life into this one. If nothing else, let it serve as a reminder why we've created the monthly >OPEN MAILBOX series!

Invincible Island (IFDB)

Invincible Island (playable online, ZX Spectrum)

Adventure In the Fifth Dimension (IFDB)

Adventure in the Fifth Dimension (playable online, Atari 8-bit)

The Guild of Thieves, Hit It With a Hammer! playthrough (YouTube)

Encounter HD

Asimov's The Black Widowers

No rest for retro adventuring news this summer as Tim and Jason bring you lots of news: contest developments (don't delay, some deadlines are very very very soon!), Visible Zorker updates which aren't as stark as they seem, lost games and a lost development environment unearthed, and really quite a bit more.

Special thanks to Andrew Johnson for permission to use ZorkPBX demo audio.

ParserComp 2026 voting closes soon

https://itch.io/jam/parsercomp-2026

IFComp entries accepted (closing very soon!)

https://blog.ifcomp.org/post/821438949798084608/ifcomp-2026-now-accepting-intents-entries

Visible Starcross

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/07/visible-starcross

Arcturus Z-Machine compiler

https://github.com/ByteProject/Arcturus/tree/main

https://intfiction.org/t/arcturus-a-new-programming-language-compiler-for-the-z-machine/81091

pdp10 issues in Z1/Z2 Zork

https://intfiction.org/t/frotz-and-bocfel-cant-parse-pdp10-in-v1-v2-zork-a-shift-lock-z-machine-spec-3-7-1-easter-egg/81002

Game console Linux ports

https://github.com/LinuxMD/linuxmd

https://cakehonolulu.github.io/linux-for-jaguar/

Zork-PET / BitShifter interpreter work resumes

https://codeberg.org/root42/zork-pet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wznA6SHQnMQ

https://youtube.com/live/IvGJ7XQSHcc?feature=share https://youtube.com/live/Ywp51hY5GDo?feature=share

https://github.com/Edilbert/BSA

R.A.I.L. language unearthed

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2026/07/r-a-i-l/

Iron ChIF Adventuron

https://intfiction.org/t/iron-chif-season-one-episode-3-flacrabbit-vs-dee-cooke-using-adventuron/81129

https://intfiction.org/t/volunteer-to-beta-test-flacrabbits-game-in-iron-chif-s1e3-aug-23-27/81255

Catacombs and Goblin Towers for Commodore PET recovered

https://www.commodoregames.net/catacombs.asp 

ZorkPBX

https://github.com/aejx00/zorkpbx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvIENNmuUlY

Babelmap interpreter

https://intfiction.org/t/babelmap-rust-z-machine-glulx-scott-tui-w-graphics-and-sound-linux-macos-windows/81213

https://github.com/sharkusk/babelmap

Review-a-Thon

https://intfiction.org/t/review-a-thon-2026/80860

Never Gives Up Her Dead on Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4815350/Never_Gives_Up_Her_Dead/

Mega Adventure Creator

https://theoasisbbs.com/mega-adventure-creator-adds-new-menu-system-and-status-bar/ 

https://github.com/lipi650/MAC

Multiple Choice Adventure Engine

https://solhsa.com/mucho/mucho.html 

https://github.com/jarikomppa/speccy/tree/master/mucho 

Adventure Coder Magazine

https://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherhester/albums/page2

https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Chris+Hester%22

The Fool and His Money recovered

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/07/the-fool-and-his-money-returns

David Youd Enhances Secrets of the Pyramid of Light

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiUZ7qtRHB4

Atari games optioned by major film studio -- what about Infocom?

https://bsky.app/profile/neilpolowin.bsky.social/post/3mre5rfptgk2x

Interactive Fiction Discord Server (visit #retro-adventurers-podcast !)

https://discord.com/invite/8jrbVptACc

TREK37 on IFDB

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=a026gnl4v2aclec2

Skull Island on IFDB

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=jrvu7excy55dtjuu

"I don't want to suggest this is a more obviously American game than some others, but I will say you do solve one problem by shooting a tree." - Dudley of Yesterzine

Jason and special guest player Dudley from the Yesterzine YouTube channel take on two curiosities from the early 1980s. First up is a Spectrum-exclusive adventure with few champions but a lot of rooms: Steve Silver Adventure #1 by Colin Webb and Jim Bennett.

The main course is Sirius Software's Gruds In Space by Chuck Sommerville and Joseph Dudar. It's one of many Sirius titles featuring the gremlin alien Gruds, a graphic/text puzzler with many similarities to the later Tracer Sanction as covered on Episode 4 of The Retro Adventurers.

Gruds In Space (IFDB)

Softalk November 1983 review of Gruds In Space

Steve Silver Adventure #1 (IFDB)

Your Computer September 1983 review of Steve Silver #1

Atari ST on Yesterzine

Amiga Batman Pack on Yesterzine

Classic text adventure news so late-breaking that we have to interrupt our news to bring you new news about that news! Presented again this month by Retro Adventurers Nick, Tim, and Jason.

University of Winchester alumnus

https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/26175575.university-winchester-alumnus-won-award-game/

ABP: Help preserve Amstrad Infocom interpreter source code!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CwYXQ6FiV/

Oo-Topos Commodore 64 copy protection

https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=89439

SchoolAdventure, adapted to Inform

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=6duybkh9bo1oq5s4 

NAIL: Not An Inform Library

https://github.com/fredrikr/nail

Iron ChIF ZIL contest entries

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=v2b896mwtwf5mhwt

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=b3vcdy1s1ukd5xcw

PunyInform 6.7

https://github.com/johanberntsson/PunyInform/releases/tag/v6_7

Puny BuildTools

https://github.com/ByteProject/Puny-BuildTools#build-targets

Eclipse (Bonaventura Di Bello Project)

https://bdb-project.itch.io/eclipse

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=03enp9z2oszblv5h

Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2026 Results

https://itch.io/jam/talp2026/results

IntroComp

https://introcomp.org/

Strange Stories RPG

https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/ed994b09-71cf-4128-88bc-e45f89cf7d1b/landing

Zork Zero for Mac VoiceOver users

https://intfiction.org/t/looking-for-mac-voiceover-users-to-test-zork-zero-in-spatterlight/80791

Mysterious eyeglasses-cleaning game (?!)

https://bsky.app/profile/retroadventurers.bsky.social/post/3mnryqxe5k22e

Interactive Fiction Discord Server (visit #retro-adventurers-podcast !)

https://discord.com/invite/8jrbVptACc

Unofficially official text adventure sequels to beloved media properties both published in 1984. That's what these two have in common.

Laugh While You Can, Monkey Boy! because this John Lithgow Appreciation Podcast features Nick and Jason playing the Adventure International-published unofficial sequel Buckaroo Banzai before marching into the world of post-war New York City as imagined in the world of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, published by Telarium/Trillium.

Fahrenheit 451 (IFDB)

Fahrenheit 451 in-game music (DeepSID)

Buckaroo Banzai (IFDB)

Your monthly classic text adventuring news update delivered this month by Jason, Nick, and Tim. The top stories are  game contests still open for players votes at time of publication! Don't delay, listen and click today!

Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2026

https://itch.io/jam/talp2026

https://gameobserver.com/6th-annual-game-jam-inspires-next-generation-of-developers-to-keep-text-adventures-alive/

Iron CHiF Season One Episode Two: ZIL

https://intfiction.org/t/iron-chif-season-one-episode-2-lancelot-vs-someone2-using-zil/79983

Inform 6 benchmarking

https://discord.com/channels/830344544679493644/830344548315037739/1501871149288525844

PunyInform v6.6

https://github.com/johanberntsson/PunyInform/releases/tag/v6_6

Visible Zorker update: Deadline for backers, Zork III goes public

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/05/visible-zork-3

https://archive.org/details/Suspended_Map_Recreation

https://archive.org/details/Infocom_Starcross_Chart_Recreation

Dialog 1b/01

https://intfiction.org/t/dialog-1b-01-library-1-2-0-a-machine-1-0-0-is-released/80151

https://github.com/Dialog-IF/dialog/releases/tag/release-1b01-1.2.0

War of the Worlds for Commodore 64

https://michel-molenaar.itch.io/war-of-the-worlds-c64

Modern PAW environment

https://www.reddit.com/r/interactivefiction/comments/1tgyyj2/show_if_a_modern_jsonbased_paws_engine/ 

https://carlosparamio.itch.io/paws-ai

Text Adventure Studio (formerly Apple II Adventure Studio)

https://www.reddit.com/r/textadventures/comments/1t3yypi/apple_ii_adventure_studio_is_now_officially_text/

https://textadventurestudio.com/ 

The Forgotten Nightmare release

https://intfiction.org/t/the-forgotten-nightmare-series-platform-expansion-release/80323/5

Voyage of the Beano for Spectrum Next

https://qladventures.itch.io/the-voyage-of-the-beano

Spring Thing 2026 recognizes C64 Latinorum, other neo-retro titles

https://www.springthing.net/2026/play.html

2026 IntroComp kickoff

https://mastodon.social/@Feneric/116636591715718306

It's an Infocom antiheroic classic and a throwback Infocom parody this time out as modern IF legend Andrew Plotkin (Zarf) joins Jason and Nick for two perilous adventures.

Lurking Horror sendup The Smirking Horror by Jason Davis leads off, a reasonably faithful re-interpretation of The Lurking Horror from Infocom. It's the first Amstrad CPC exclusive on the show and makes surprisingly minimal use of the graphics available in Graphic Adventure Creator.

For the main course we take on Infocom's Infidel, memorably parodied by Zarf himself (Episode 27's Inhumane) and created by Michael Berlyn and Patricia Fogleman. Legendary for its surly protagonist and shock ending, does it hold up to modern scrutiny?

Infidel (IFDB)

Infidel packaging (gray box)

Infidel packaging (folio)

The Smirking Horror (CPCWiki)

The Smirking Horror (playable online)