Editing William Crowther (programmer) (section)

=== Adventure ===
Following his divorce from his wife, Crowther used his spare time to develop a text-based adventure game in [[Fortran]] on BBN's [[PDP-10]].  He created it as a diversion his daughters Sandy and Laura could enjoy when they came to visit.<ref name="Montfort2005-8597">{{cite book|author=Nick Montfort|title=Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiJFORKEm0oC|year=2005|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-63318-5|pages=85–97}}</ref>

Crowther wrote:<ref name="Peterson1983">{{cite book|author=Dale Peterson|title=Genesis II, Creation and Recreation with Computers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DL1YAAAAMAAJ|year=1983|publisher=Reston Publishing Company|isbn=978-0-8359-2434-4|pages=187–188}}</ref>
{{quote|text=I had been involved in a non-computer role-playing game called [[Dungeons & Dragons|Dungeons and Dragons]] at the time, and also I had been actively exploring in caves - [[Mammoth Cave National Park|Mammoth Cave]] in Kentucky in particular. Suddenly, I got involved in a divorce, and that left me a bit pulled apart in various ways. In particular I was missing my kids. Also the caving had stopped, because that had become awkward, so I decided I would fool around and write a program that was a re-creation in fantasy of my caving, and also would be a game for the kids, and perhaps some aspects of the Dungeons and Dragons that I had been playing. My idea was that it would be a computer game that would not be intimidating to non-computer people, and that was one of the reasons why I made it so that the player directs the game with natural language input, instead of more standardized commands. My kids thought it was a lot of fun.}}

In [[Colossal Cave Adventure|Colossal Cave]], or more simply called [[Colossal Cave Adventure|''Adventure'']], the player moves around an imaginary cave system by entering simple, two-word commands and reading text describing the result.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Evans |first=Claire L. |date=July 15, 2020 |title=This Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World's Longest Cave |url=https://onezero.medium.com/the-woman-who-inspired-one-of-the-first-hit-video-games-by-mapping-the-worlds-longest-cave-ef572ccde6d2 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |website=OneZero |language=en}}</ref>  Crowther used his extensive knowledge of cave exploration as a basis for the gameplay, and there are many similarities between the locations in the game and those in Mammoth Cave, particularly its [[Bedquilt]] section.<ref name="Montfort2005-88">{{cite book|author=Nick Montfort|title=Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiJFORKEm0oC|year=2005|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-63318-5|pages=88}}</ref>  In 1975, Crowther released the game on the early [[ARPAnet]] system, of which BBN was a prime contractor.<ref name="Montfort2005-89">{{cite book|author=Nick Montfort|title=Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiJFORKEm0oC|year=2005|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-63318-5|pages=89}}</ref>

In the spring of 1976, he was contacted by Stanford researcher [[Don Woods (programmer)|Don Woods]], seeking his permission to enhance the game.  Crowther agreed, and Woods developed several enhanced versions on a [[PDP-10]] housed in the [[Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory]] (SAIL) where he worked.<ref name="Montfort2005-89"/> Over the following decade the game gained in popularity, being ported to many [[operating systems]], including personal-computer platform [[CP/M]].

The basic game structure invented by Crowther (and based in part on the example of the [[ELIZA]] text [[parser]]) was carried forward by the designers of later adventure games. [[Marc Blank]] and the team that created the [[Zork]] adventures cite ''Adventure'' as the title that inspired them to create their game.  They later founded [[Infocom]] and published a series of popular text adventures.