Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The Real Cave of Zork (Colossal Cave Adventure)

Raph and BoingBoing both point us to the real caves that were the map for the original Adventure aka Colossal Cave Adventure aka Zork. They look scarier in real-life than they do in plain text.

In my continuing coverage of chess maniacs, the Russian serial killer was apparently trying to fill in all the spaces of his chess board with his victims.

Here's Games Day at the Salvation Army.

North Star Games' Wits and Wagers seems to be soaking up the spotlight, getting featured in Time Magazine and now carried at Target stores nationwide.

Jurors waiting for selection at the Northampton County Courthouse in New Jersey will now be offered card and board games while they wait.

You can also get board games on the deck of a Greenland coastal cruise, as well as a Sony Playstation with a widescreen monitor. Which may defeat the point, somewhat.

The Post Standard lists the Go books available at the Syracuse public library, as donated by the local Go club.

Technology Review has a long article marking the tenth anniversary of computers beating Kasparov in Chess, and what it really means for a computer to play Chess.

I've also lots more to say about Web 2.0, but further coverage about this topic will be on my new blog.

Yehuda

4 comments:

Dennis G. Jerz said...

The creators of Zork were inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure, in the sense that they decided to make a similar game. But Adventure and Zork (also known briefly as Dungeon) are completely separate creations.

MaksimSmelchak said...

Hi Yehuda,

Very cool! I loved the Zork series... still do!

Very cool news scoop! Mazel Tov!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Yehuda Berlinger said...

Denis: didn't they use the same basic maps?

Maks: Not my scoop, Maks. Twas Boing Boing and Raph's scoops.

Yehuda

Dennis G. Jerz said...

Adventure started in a forest near a brick building; Zork started in field near a white house. Adventure eventually leads you underground to explore Colossal Cave, and Zork eventually leads you underground to explore the Great Underground Empire. Adventure awards points for putting treasures in the well house, Zork awards points for putting treasures in the trophy case. But for all the surface similarities, they are different games, with Zork set in an imaginary underground world rather than a version of the real Colossal Cave.