It all started with a mailbox, a white house, and an invitation to commit burglary.
Like this post, just words on a screen. But those words and an interactive command parser let me escape into the sprawling underground empire of “Zork.” From that day forward, I was hooked on computer adventures and roleplaying games, from Scott Adams’s “Adventureland” to Lord British’s “Ultima IV.”
When I learned that I could make my own text adventure games, I started tinkering with tools like Inform and the Adventure Game Toolkit. In 1998, with the Internet going freshly mainstream, I launched a collaborative real-time interactive fiction project called “OtherSpace.” That game turned 16 last month.
My calling’s always been to tell stories, one way or another. I’ve bounced between two careers since I graduated college: journalism and computer-game design. For more than a decade, I reported news for The St. Petersburg Times. In 2006, I joined Colin and the rest of the Icarus Studios crew to develop content – background lore, towns, dungeons, characters, missions, and more – for the post-apocalyptic MMORPG “Fallen Earth.” In 2012, I jumped back to journalism at The Herald-Sun in Durham.
And then Colin asked me for a new story. So, here we are, together again. We’re working on a project that I hope will resonate with players the way that old-school adventures did for me, whether it was my sorrow over Floyd’s demise in “Planetfall” or savoring a quiet moment between puzzles taking in the atmosphere of the island in “Myst.”
Next stop, Cypress Knee.
Wes, very much in anticipation of Knee Deep. Always hearing new teasers from your better half 😉
Would love to help in any way.