The Retro Adventurers

Miss Congeniality and Miss Clairol are in the news this month as we recap the results in the unofficial Neo-Retro Division of this year's IFComp, share the developing story of putting a "beauty computer" to its best use as a text adventure platform, and much more. Jason, Nick, and Tim are on the mic in a busier-than-usual month for our ever-changing genre. (And don't let Rockbox purge Frotz!)
Retro Adventurers on Discord
Visible Zorker project
IFComp 2026 results
Carl Muckenhoupt's remarks
ECTOCOMP 2026
PAW for Dragon
Plague on the Discovery
River Software
David Bitton's Apple II collection
David Bitton episode (French w/English subtitles)
Futuria (Forbidden Planet Part II) for Apple IIGS
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (IFDB)
The Mystery of Silver Mountain
StoryTllr engine
Colossal Cave Adventure for Pascal
HOME.BASE
Z6 support for Agon Light
Clarion/Clairol Computer research
Bex's call for other Aegis Visionary users
Shadowgate Commodore 64
STAG adventure creator for Spectrum
A Ceia Inesperada (STAG example game)
Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island CPC Disk fix
Textadventures.co.uk content policy
Text Adventure 2600
Rockbox RFC Frotz removal (!)
Andrew Plotkin's Roguelike Celebration presentation
The Problems of Dreaming lost edition found
Magic Mushroom ZX Spectrum
DAAD Builder
Intro to DAAD Builder
Another DAAD Builder demo video
Mark Hardisty's blog (DAAD tutorials)
DAAD Sam Coupe support
Call for testers on rebuilt Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina
Flathead Electric Cooperative
Graeme Cree's Flathead discovery
Cover photo by Bex

Fourteen (!) capsule reviews of games submitted to this year's Interactive Fiction Competition (IFComp 2026), all with at least one claim to neo-retro status. Joining regulars Jason, Tim, and Nick are three guests from past episodes: Robin Raymond, Christian Neuhaus, and Dudley of Yesterzine. Some of this year's entries can be played in ancient languages (Hittite!) and on ancient devices (Atari 2600!)
Let us know what you think of this experiment and if you'd like to see adjustments made if there is a next-time!
Games covered:
Copper Tavern (Tavern Heist)The RatDemonstrationRuined TempleBob the BarbarianForensic Necromancy9:00 AM TrainGambler’s QuestMeet the TimesheetWait-Our-Way TowerḪattušumna Laḫḫa (Hittite Adventure)The Count and the CommunistThe Two Seasons: Encounter With a VampireLogic Land

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:
Rozpuštěný a vypuštěný (https://www.oneplay.cz/film/1102-rozpusteny-a-vypusteny)
Vážení přátelé, ano (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vážení_přátelé,_ano)
any Cimrman movies (https://www.themoviedb.org/collection/134221-divadlo-jary-cimrmana-kolekce)

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)