Colossal Cave (was Ken & Roberta Game Announcement)

[Rath Darkblade]

Hrm - Odd -

Adventure Game Hotspot
Who else has finished CC with a full score?
LetsPlay SierraGames
Not yet. I have it and have played some - but saving the exploring too much - because I wanna do it for my channel.
Adventure Game Hotspot
Battle a dragon using only your bare hands?
Roberta Williams (Actually Ken Williams)
I have NOT finished with a full score. Did you see the ending scene? I'm surprised no one has noticed the music at the end? It's the theme to another show. I thought people might recognize

Yeah, it's from Monty Python's Flying Circus. But it plays whether you get the full points or not.

Also (and more accurately known as) Sousa's Liberty Bell March!



Stop that! Stop that! It's far too silly! No more crunchy frogs or deceased birds!

(But seriously, the cowbells and triangles add quite a bit of nice little touches to the drums and brass instruments).

*inserts raspberry, Bronx cheer, or whatever it's called*

[Tawmis]

https://www.kensblog.com/sun-and-fun-cr ... june-2023/



Greetings! You are receiving this email because you requested info about Roberta’s and my game, Colossal Cave.

In addition to making videogames Roberta and I have a life as world cruisers on a small boat. I publish a blog talking about our boating adventures. If you think you might find it interesting, check it out!

I will not normally email my boat blog to this Colossal Cave mailing list. This is just to let all of you know that it exists. If you like the boating blog, you can register to receive it via the www.kensblog.com website.

Speaking of Colossal Cave, a LOT is happening.

I’ve been playing the iPhone/iPad version. It turned out to be one of the best versions of the game, and a lot of fun to play. I had doubts it was even possible, but we nailed it. My guess is that it will release sometime in the next month.

Our Xbox version of the game is finally through Microsoft’s certification. It will release sometime this month. Meanwhile, we’re in the final stages on our PSVR2 version of the game and the PS4 version.

The biggest news is that we have a huge upgrade coming for the PC, Mac and SteamVR versions of the game. We have spent the last few months enhancing the graphics and will be offering the upgraded version free to existing players of the game on Steam.

Soon, it will be time to start thinking about “What comes next?” We’ve spent two years building Colossal Cave and have forced ourselves not to think beyond it. As the Colossal Cave project winds down we’ll start thinking about what to work on next. Realistically, nothing will be happening soon. I remember starting Colossal Cave and thinking, “This will be a 30 day, to maybe three months, project.” It turned out to be a much larger effort than expected, but was well worth it.

Best wishes, and thank you!

Ken Williams
Cygnus Entertainment

[Rath Darkblade]

Congrats to Ken and Roberta!

(And yes, I read Ken's entire blog post. Cruising down the west coast of the USA looks like fun. "Pixelated") *groan*

[notbobsmith]

Upgrading the graphics will be a welcome addition. By being so faithful to the original, it doesn't leave much to offer in terms of gameplay. Making it visually impressive is pretty much the only way to go. Sort of like how they rerelease Myst every few years with updated graphics.

[Tawmis]

Greetings, Everyone!
Roberta and I are on our boat now, cruising in Canada. We are enjoying our time on the boat, but we're also still hard at work on our Colossal Cave game.

Roberta is a perfectionist. I remember thinking last summer that we were almost finished with the game, but Roberta has continued pushing us. If someone on the team, or some reviewer, or some game player, sees something in the game that could be improved, Roberta insists that we "fix it." She wants the game to be perfect before we move on to whatever comes next.

We have a system that tracks each change we make to the game. Engineers, artists, musicians, "check in '' their changes each time they make some change to the game. I just checked and there have been 1,805 "changesets" (check ins) since we initially released the game in January. Some of those changes are associated with converting the game to run on mobile and console devices but a significant percentage of them are improvements to the game.

If you already own the game, you should have already seen several updates come through. The biggest update of all will be coming in the next week or so. This update includes a huge upgrade to the graphics for desktop computers and some higher-powered consoles. We're also working on bringing enhanced graphics to some of the VR platforms. And speaking of VR, this release adds vignetting, giving additional comfort for players. There are also enhancements that apply to all platforms. We added auto-save, footstep sounds everywhere, additional sound effects, and even some fun surprises (easter eggs).

With each improvement to the game, I ask Roberta, "Are we there yet?" Is this the final release?" She's tough to pin down on that topic. The existing Colossal Cave text game has been around for fifty years. She wants our version to be good enough that people will still be playing it fifty years from now. That's a high bar, but Roberta can be very forceful when she wants something.

Meanwhile, we have great internet on the boat, and whereas the weather is miserably hot for many of you, it is perfect for boating in the Pacific NW.

Best wishes to all and enjoy the game!



Just Launched!

Xbox One and Series X|S

Colossal Cave has just launched on both the Xbox One, as well as the Xbox Series X|S. For the first time ever, Xbox users can embark on a journey that marries retro-cool with magical adventure, exploring the enigmatic and fantastical world of Colossal Cave, brimming with secret treasures, mystical creatures, and riddles to confound even the wisest sage.

In honor of the game's launch, we’re offering a special launch promotion, available for a limited time only. The company invites all adventurers to dust off your home-crafted, vintage Colossal Cave maps and descend into the adventure of a lifetime, on Xbox!

Meta Quest 2: Creature Comforts

In a forever effort to enhance the gameplay and enjoyment of Colossal Cave’s mammoth, subterranean world, we’ve ventured back into the Meta Quest 2. This time? We’ve added "vignetting", allowing people who too easily experience the queasies, to enter our magical cave for longer stretches, and greater labyrinthine runs. Many other updates in our fourth big update to that version, including footsteps and a remote control!

earn More --> https://www.oculus.com/experiences/ques ... 612241340/

New Website: A Magic, Mischievous Cave
Colossal Cave is filled with dwarves, bats, rats, treasures, and a noticeably absent giant. However, when you ask Roberta Williams who the main character is, who the villain is, or what puzzles need solving, her eye twinkles, then she simply says, “The Cave. It’s a magic cave! A mischievous cave, but the answer is ‘The Cave!’”.

How best to represent a deep, mystical, mammoth, Machiavellian cave full of intertwined corridors, creatures, and riddles? Through our deep, stunning new website!



Jump in and get scrolling! --> www.ColossalCave3D.com


Coming Soon!
The Enchanted Version will launch on Steam, very soon. This will be accompanied with a fun, fully enchanted demo. From there, it will be propagated to GOG.com, Epic Games, and other stores where PC is available. We are also researching which of these new updates will fit within some of the other platforms. It’s a huge change and will have a colossal impact, in addition to lots of little ones.



iOS
We’ve had countless requests for the game on tablets. Ask, and ye shall receive! Colossal Cave will be launching on iPhones and iPads very soon. This has required quite a bit of thought and experimentation, including figuring out how to take a game built from pure text in the 70’s, transform it through a modern 3D reimagining, and then wrap it within a fully immersive experience, driven by the guidance of a single finger.

No small task, but we did it.

Coming very soon.

And more!
While the Enchanted and iOS versions will be released within the next week or two, shortly thereafter will be a release of the game on the PlayStation 4, an update to PlayStation 5, and a brand new release to the PlayStation VR 2 (bundled with PS5).

As if that’s not enough, the game will also be launching soon on PicoVR!

Then, we’re investigating an Android version of the game, a version for the Rift, and another for PlayStation VR 1.

And then, there’s more!
Finally, we just zipped up the game, plus oodles of bonus surprises, and sent them to Limited Run Games. A Collector’s Edition Box is not far away, followed by boxed versions for the PS4, PS5, and the Nintendo Switch.

A living game. And, when you play the Enchanted Version, you’ll really start to see just how true that is!

[Tawmis]

Greetings everyone!

OUR 2.0 UPGRADE
=================

Roberta and I are STILL working every day on Colossal Cave. We will soon be starting to think about what we’ll do next, but before moving on we want to make Colossal Cave as good as it possibly can be.

We have been working on version 2.0 of the game, and there have been a lot of updates.

A YouTube influencer (@MetalJesusRocks) recently released a video comparing our release 2.0 to the game we released in January. His video can be found here:



If you'd just like a quick summary of what’s new:
Enhanced graphics
Enhanced soundtrack
Easter eggs
Key remapping
VR versions with new locomotion and vignetting
Video tutorial
Bug fixes
And more!
We’ll make a much bigger splash regarding Colossal Cave 2.0: The Enchanted Version in the coming weeks, with deeper insight, discounts and some really fun surprises.

For now, for those who have already purchased the game through Steam, Epic Games, or GOG.com have likely already seen the update come through.

Coming in the following 2 weeks will be an enchanted SteamVR, as well as PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR2. But! That’s another story for another day.

Today, the big story is Apple, Colossal Cave, and a stealth launch on iOS!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/colossal- ... 6443992938

Do you have an iPhone or iPad? Can you do us a favor?
==========================================

We never planned on putting the game on mobile devices. It seemed obvious to me that there were several challenges that would make it impossible. Would the game be fun on a tiny screen? How could the game be played with a touch interface? And the biggest of all: Our game needs a fairly beefy computer to play. Would a phone ever be able to run it?

One of our top engineers, Dan Thompson, thought he could get the game to run. To my complete surprise, he made an awesome version of the game.

If you have a recent iPhone or iPad, and have the time, install the game from the app store. It’s 100% free for the first three levels. We need some app store reviews. If you agree with me that the game turned out amazingly well on your iPhone or iPad, give us a great review. We just released it and want to get some momentum going for the mobile version.

Here's a fun little promo video we threw together for social media:




This is the link to the game on the app store:

Download from App Store
https://apps.apple.com/app/colossal-cav ... 6443992938


Lastly, my #1 hint about playing Colossal Cave:
=======================================

This may be the strangest hint you've ever gotten about a game, but my best recommendation in playing the game is: "Take all the hints you can get." Feel free to google online. Feel free to call our hint line:

206-207-9017

Colossal Cave is a very non-traditional adventure game, which is strange to say, because it is The Original Adventure game. That said, knowing how to play the game, and how to solve the puzzles, doesn't help as much as you might think. We've created a large world with plenty to do and see.

One very unusual feature of this game is that completing the game the first time just starts the fun. Most players will complete the game with 100 points out of the possible 350 or find themselves unable to continue because the batteries in their lamp die.

For example, if you want "just one more video", here's a team of three, who in addition to taking hints are on their sixth live video feed trying to get a perfect score.




You'll note that they finished it (in a previous episode), then returned to complete a full 350-point run. They then returned a third time to collect every last achievement. Their effort is a bit off-color, but their interaction with each other and the game is priceless.

Keep having fun!

Ken and Roberta Williams

[notbobsmith]

The graphics do look greatly improved. I think it's one thing the game really needs. I can overlook graphics if the game is really good, but by being faithful to the original, it's stuck with some outdated puzzles. The only real remedy is to have it look great.

[Tawmis]

The graphics do look greatly improved. I think it's one thing the game really needs. I can overlook graphics if the game is really good, but by being faithful to the original, it's stuck with some outdated puzzles. The only real remedy is to have it look great.

Not going to lie, I think a lot of people don't/won't have the patience like they used to. Everything has changed and become more convenient and easier.

Case and point, I began playing the beautiful remake of the original Wizardry (viewtopic.php?p=97093#p97093) - and the game is EVERY BIT AS BRUTAL AND UNFORGIVING to the player as the original was. You could be wandering the halls - and your party of six could suddenly encounter 12 Rogues, who all have critical strikes and can kill your party quickly. As long as one survives, usually not a problem - but to get their bodies back if the entire party dies - is you need to create another group and go get their bodies from where they died. (So naturally the deeper in the dungeon the more dangerous!) And you only have 6 slots for a party - so if all 6 people die - you need to create a party and have slots open to add them. So for example, if all six died, you might make a new party of 5 and go down and recover one body at a time.

Again, the deeper the dungeon, the more dangerous. So it's almost good to have TWO parties you play. In the event of that.

Now the kicker. If you die, you can get dragged to the temple.

They can TRY to resurrect you. If it fails (and it costs gold!), your body turns to ash. You can try to resurrect from ash (costs WAY more gold) - if that fails your character is gone.

Completely.

No way to get them back.

Zero chance.

JUST. GONE.

That's how the original was too. And I remember playing it for MONTHS with my friend Shawn. And mapping it all out and enjoying it.

When my Level 5 Priestess got ashed, then failed from there.

I was torqued. lol

Beautiful graphics won't be enough for these older, more difficult games. lol

[notbobsmith]

Did one of Rath's posts get deleted again? I saw it this morning asking about what made the puzzles outdated.

Anyway, I guess one could say that Colossal Cave doesn't really have puzzles in the Sierra-adventure-game-sense. The challenge in the original came from navigating the caves without an automap feature. The remake has an automap, which can be turned off if you want the original experience. After that, the goal is to collect all of the treasures within the time limit, which basically means planning and being as efficient as possible. One nuisance is the dwarf attacks. They appear out of nowhere and attack you before you get a chance to respond. I read somewhere that they have a 10% chance of killing you. So as you explore the cave you can just randomly die. One of the "puzzles" is how to deal with the dragon. I was thinking you had to find something, like one might expect in a Sierra game. Nope. You just attack him. Click on him twice and he goes down. There's also the end of the game. You have to drop a magazine in part of the maze. That's it. There's really no indication that this is something you need to do. It's really just a factor of people trying to figure out what games could be and what made them fun.

The graphics do look greatly improved. I think it's one thing the game really needs. I can overlook graphics if the game is really good, but by being faithful to the original, it's stuck with some outdated puzzles. The only real remedy is to have it look great.

Not going to lie, I think a lot of people don't/won't have the patience like they used to. Everything has changed and become more convenient and easier.

Case and point, I began playing the beautiful remake of the original Wizardry (viewtopic.php?p=97093#p97093) - and the game is EVERY BIT AS BRUTAL AND UNFORGIVING to the player as the original was. You could be wandering the halls - and your party of six could suddenly encounter 12 Rogues, who all have critical strikes and can kill your party quickly. As long as one survives, usually not a problem - but to get their bodies back if the entire party dies - is you need to create another group and go get their bodies from where they died. (So naturally the deeper in the dungeon the more dangerous!) And you only have 6 slots for a party - so if all 6 people die - you need to create a party and have slots open to add them. So for example, if all six died, you might make a new party of 5 and go down and recover one body at a time.

Again, the deeper the dungeon, the more dangerous. So it's almost good to have TWO parties you play. In the event of that.

Now the kicker. If you die, you can get dragged to the temple.

They can TRY to resurrect you. If it fails (and it costs gold!), your body turns to ash. You can try to resurrect from ash (costs WAY more gold) - if that fails your character is gone.

Completely.

No way to get them back.

Zero chance.

JUST. GONE.

That's how the original was too. And I remember playing it for MONTHS with my friend Shawn. And mapping it all out and enjoying it.

When my Level 5 Priestess got ashed, then failed from there.

I was torqued. lol

Beautiful graphics won't be enough for these older, more difficult games. lol

I think all games of that era were almost impossible. Fewer games and ability to spend months trying to finish it. And it's not just RPGs. The Contra Code for the NES? You needed a cheat to be able to finish it.

I'm actually replaying Starflight right now without the aid of the hintbook. I know what I have to do, but I have to go through the legwork of getting all the clues. I'm not sure how you are supposed to finish it without a hintbook.

[Tawmis]

Did one of Rath's posts get deleted again? I saw it this morning asking about what made the puzzles outdated.

That's wild. I am not sure. I never saw it and I was on the forum off and on again all day today.
So it's good to know Rath isn't on pain meds, hallucinating about posting if you saw it too and it's gone.
Admin portal shows nothing. His posts are literally vanishing into the nether.

[goatmeal]

Did one of Rath's posts get deleted again? I saw it this morning asking about what made the puzzles outdated.

That's wild. I am not sure. I never saw it and I was on the forum off and on again all day today.

I, too, saw Rath's post asking what about the puzzles in CC made them outdated... now it's gone.

[Tawmis]

Did one of Rath's posts get deleted again? I saw it this morning asking about what made the puzzles outdated.

That's wild. I am not sure. I never saw it and I was on the forum off and on again all day today.

I, too, saw Rath's post asking what about the puzzles in CC made them outdated... now it's gone.

Yeah. It's wild. Nothing in the User Logs, Moderator Logs, or Admin logs that show the post (or even this thread) was tampered with in any way.

[Rath Darkblade]

Did one of Rath's posts get deleted again? I saw it this morning asking about what made the puzzles outdated.

That's wild. I am not sure. I never saw it and I was on the forum off and on again all day today.
So it's good to know Rath isn't on pain meds, hallucinating about posting if you saw it too and it's gone.
Admin portal shows nothing. His posts are literally vanishing into the nether.

How weird! Yes, I did ask what made some of the puzzles outdated. I thought it might've been some topical references or something.

IIRC, I was quoting NBS's post about the puzzles being outdated, and I was posting it about 9 pm, my time (which would be about 2 am, Los Angeles time).

So, now I'm re-posting it. It's 11:30 am, my time (i.e. 4:30 pm, LA time). I'll post this again in a new, non-quote post (just in case the "quote" marks are what's triggering this).

And yes, I took a painkiller tablet about 3 hours ago. (Just the one). It certainly doesn't cause hallucinations. Peter Parker picked a pack of pickled peppers. A pack of pickled peppers Peter Parker damn well picked.

[Rath Darkblade]

Just re-posting my post from above (without the quote marks):

How weird! Yes, I did ask what made some of the puzzles outdated. I thought it might've been some topical references or something.

IIRC, I was quoting NBS's post about the puzzles being outdated, and I was posting it about 9 pm, my time (which would be about 2 am, Los Angeles time).

So, now I'm re-posting it. It's 11:30 am, my time (i.e. 4:30 pm, LA time). I'll post this again in a new, non-quote post (just in case the "quote" marks are what's triggering this).

And yes, I took a painkiller tablet about 3 hours ago. (Just the one). It certainly doesn't cause hallucinations. Peter Parker picked a pack of pickled peppers. A pack of pickled peppers Peter Parker damn well picked.

I just checked, and both posts went through just fine. Of course, if both posts also stay posted, please feel free to delete this one.

[Tawmis]

We shall see if either vanish. This time I am able to see them both.

Also Peter Parker would not have picked them. He would have used his webs.