After listening to the Retroist’s recent podcast featuring Zork, my friend Robb Sherwin reminded me that he recently released his own text adventure, Cryptozookeeper.
In the game, players must collect various bits of DNA and combine them to create “cryptids” (think Bigfoot, Chupacabras, and Mothman), which will eventually be put to the test by fighting other fantastic creatures in cage-style fights in the back of a dingy bar. You’ll also spend time wandering around the future wastelands of New Mexico with ex-college classmates, running into drunkards, aliens, and cloned, evil versions of you and your friends.
Unlike most original 8-bit text adventures, Cryptozookeeper features graphics and music. It also contains some pretty adult language, so … minors beware.
Cryptozookeeper can be downloaded for free from archive.org for free. A 2-DVD set containing all the game’s music, source code, and lots of additional extras is available from Robb’s website for $15 plus shipping.
This looks right up my alley. I am downloading it now.
It has somewhat of a steep learning curve, but I enjoyed playing through it. It’s amazing (a) how far text adventures/interactive fiction has come, and (b) that people are still creating them.
This game sounds right up my alley, Flack. Thank you very much for the heads up on it! :)