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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Likely To Be Eaten By A Bottomless Pit
Message-ID: <GB9IM3.8GF@world.std.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 10:03:39 GMT
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David Librik <librik@panix.com> wrote:
>I couldn't put my finger on why it was the earlier parts
>of the game that affected me even more than the later fantasy ones.
>The reason is that Will Crowther, the author of the first half of
>Adventure, was the same Will Crowther whose exploits are described
>in _The Longest Cave_ -- and the descriptions he writes for rooms
>are the same kind you read about in real-life caving adventure.
[snip]
>No other game captures this feeling.  Even the Don Woods parts of
>Adventure don't do it; they feel like Tolkien, not spelunking.

Just a quick footnote: I don't believe anybody here has ever
played the Crowther-only version of Adventure, and I don't know
whether we know accurately which parts are Woods' and which are
Crowther's, but we have quotes attributed to Crowther that he
was playing D&D before he wrote Adventure and was trying to
capture the feeling of playing D&D when he wrote it; thus it
seems questionable to attribute the Tolkein to Woods, although
although I do not disagree with your primary point (which was
Zarf's implicit point as well, I think) that the weird twists
and turns of Adventure's caves are realistic and that realism
can be attributed to Crowther's caving experiences.

SeanB
