It's full of ad popups, even clicking the scroll bars. Also you can support the interactive fiction community (including the classic text adventures authors) if you go directly to the interactive fiction database http://ifdb.tads.org/, you can find there how to play the games and how to play it in the browser too.
I definitely agree but where I see difficulty is our lack of patience not being compatible with these and older style games. I used to love text based and prompt based adventures, like the old Sierra games, but with recent replays I become impatient and not able to follow through.
I blame being an adult with less free time but also the more modern modes of play such as battle royales. Games like PubG/Fortnite are addicting, fast paced, and have enough complexity to make each run seem unique. But the problem is I played both so much I hardly remember those unique, glorious moments when my team does well. What also contributes to the addiction is the team aspect where I'd have a group asking be to play Fortnite and another to play PubG. It's hard to turn down these interactions as well since the friends on the other side are hard to get ahold of in real life.
There's also an over abundance of games so you have to pick and choose which to spend your time on. I sometimes long for the day where income and game availability limited my range as I was able to concentrate on what I had rather than quickly finishing a game and moving on to the next or being trapped in a battle royale.
Still, there are great gems being pumped out by AAA and indie. All genres, including IF, are being filled because the tools to make games are so easily accessible. I feel we live in a great time considering the trend of games is moving toward multiplatform and affordability. We, or at least I, just need to find the patience to not hurry through and fully enjoy the medium.
It is kind of like a MUD, but all the MUDs I've seen are terminal based (think telnet) and this is web based with lots of artwork. It is pretty darn similar though.
Lot of really useful links in here. I built my own interactive fiction[1], but half-way through, the mixture of building the tools to present the narrative, and writing the story itself got pretty conflated.
Afterwards, I was recommended some pre-existing tools[2] for a similar endeavour. (still, rolling my own system for telling a story with code was pretty satisfying.)
There are still a bunch of old MUDs (which are like multi-player text adventures) online.[1] A good list of the top 10 or 20 MUDs can be found here: [2], and a much bigger list can be found here: [3]
If the web is an unnecessary part of the text adventure experience, then other options include frotz, a simple command-line adventure interpreter, and Son of Hunky Punk, a nice android app that includes some of the classics.
I once enjoyed a much better spinoff called something like "Pick Up The Pumpkin And Die" by one of the more prolific IF authors wherein you do just that, but become the headless horseman and run around terrorizing a highschool.
I assume this site is being hammered, because it would otherwise be the worst UX ever. I chose Zork - a classic. The loading icon spins....and spins and spins and spins. Each line of text is actually a POST to the server, and the response is taking upwards of 80 seconds.
This is a time where a SPA would have been the perfect choice.
For those interested, I cannot recommend enough the Infocom collection on the iPad, if I remember correctly for less than 10 bucks you get 30+ adventures, including manuals, all conveniently packaged and accessible.
I'm not a huge fan of the web interface, but I do like the ability to pick up where you left off even when I leave the page and come back. Offering optional save states might be nice too.
I recommend Zork on that list. Recently played it for the first time and it's a great experience. Your mind fills in so much more than virtual images or sounds could create.
