i think text adventure games came first only because of the limitations of hardware at the time. i’m not sure about the date of the first infocom game, but i’m sure full color graphics or raster graphics were either not possible on mainstream hardware, or at the least very difficult. or maybe the people that created them were already playing text games and just created their own because that’s all they thought was possible. and this is where i give HUGE credit to Ken, who programmed some of the very first graphical games in history. that is an AMAZING feat, and people should definetly show him the proper respect for that. yes Roberta designed it, but Ken made it work. i think that is why ken was such a good software company ceo, because underneath it all he is a great programmer. during the last 3 years i have been studying low level graphic drawing routines in C and Assembly in hopes to one day write a book on the subject. Believe me, what Ken achieved in the early 80’s is no small feat. everyone considers kings quest 1 and the like to be amazing, but mystery house was no less impressive. those early Sierra games were then just as important and amazing as doom3 and the oblivion are today. Ken and his peers started the video game push to realism that still hasn’t been quite achieved yet today more than 25 years later. i spent all day playing oblivion for the xbox 360 on a 56 inch plasma :), and we are definetly close now though. In my mind, Ken is right up there with Jack Bresenham, John Carmack and the people at Industrial Lights and Magic/Pixar. the people at infocom didn’t really do anything special as far as technical achievments go, in fact their efforts were extremely weak in that area, but they did do innovative things for interactive fiction. Sierra, on the other hand, did pioneer work in the graphics, sound, and story areas of the industry. somebody should write a real history book about computer gaming history(i know there are some, but they dont satisfy me), and Ken’s Sierra should definetly be a whole chapter.
