50 Years of Text Games book parses the rich history of a foundational genre: Zork and MUD? Sure. But also Universal Paperclips, AI Dungeon, The Oregon Trail, and Lifeline
Reed's book—which has over 620 pages of analysis, code samples, photographs, maps, flowcharts, footnotes, asides, cross-references, and other details—thoroughly backs up this claim. Text games, in both their earliest parser form and in more modern incarnations, are a fascinating space in which people have pulled off amazing feats, and innovations continue today. Many of the...
