POG · Category / 06

Adventure & RPG Games

Adventure design often works by planting a locked answer early and letting the player carry the question around for hours before the right item or clue appears. The history behind the category adds another layer: MUD1, developed in the late 1970s, combined a shared online world with text adventure and role-playing ideas long before 'MMO' became everyday vocabulary. Fast travel is proof that heroes become much less enthusiastic about scenery after seeing it twelve times.

Quests & stories
World exploration
Character growth

Curiosity break

Dungeons & Dragons was first published in 1974 and helped establish the language of character levels, classes, hit points and experience that later computer RPGs borrowed and transformed. Another rabbit hole starts here: Colossal Cave Adventure, created in the 1970s, helped define text adventures. Players explored by typing commands, proving that a world could feel enormous even when the screen showed no graphics at all.