Crowther’s and Woods’ Adventure maps, side by side
The upcoming 50 Years of Text Games book will hopefully* include this set of two-page spreads with maps of two versions of the classic parser game Adventure, which both popularized and named the text adventure and adventure game genres. Famously, the game was originally created but abandoned by caver/coder Will Crowther, then found a year later and significantly expanded by grad student Don Woods.
(* My take on the map is based on an uncredited vintage plotter print; I’ve redone the labelling, normalized and corrected many small details, and did some serious alternations to reconstruct the Crowther version. The asterisk is because I haven’t yet been able to track down the original creator of this map: if you know who made it, please get in touch!)
The extent of Woods’ contributions is hard to appreciate in the abstract. Here’s the two maps side by side, a fascinating look at how the game evolved when it passed into new hands:
In the book, these will be on two adjacent pages, with rooms lining up; you’ll be able to flip back and forth to see exactly how Woods extended the game’s geography and tweaked what was already there.
This is still a work-in-progress: note that some duplicate connections & exact maze details are omitted. If you see any errors otherwise please let me know!
If you’re interested in computer gaming history, check out my new book 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon which has tons more great content like this!
(Addendum: Jason Dyer has noted that the original version of this map was based on a slightly different version of the game, known as Adventure 375: GIBI0375 in the Adventure Family Tree. I believe all the differences between that version and the canonical 350-point version have been corrected in Photoshop for this presentation.)
