Pirate Adventure

Scott Adams' Pirate Adventure, released in 1978 for the Apple II, stands as one of the earliest text adventure games. Originally created for the TRS-80 and later ported to the Apple II, this game was the second entry in Adams' Adventure International series of text adventures.

In Pirate Adventure, players take on the role of a character seeking buried treasure. The game begins in a London flat and eventually leads players through a series of pirate-themed locations. Using simple two-word commands like "GO NORTH" or "GET BOTTLE," players must solve puzzles, collect items, and navigate through various locations to complete their quest.

The game runs entirely through text descriptions, with no graphics. Each location presents players with a brief description of their surroundings and the objects they can interact with. The challenge comes from figuring out the correct sequence of commands to progress through the story and solve puzzles.

The program was written in BASIC and used a simple but effective parser system that could understand basic verb-noun combinations. This system, while limited by today's standards, was quite advanced for its time and influenced many later adventure games. The game needed to fit within the Apple II's 48K memory limit, requiring efficient programming to store all the text and game logic.

Players must manage an inventory of items, each serving specific purposes in puzzle solutions. Key objects include a parrot, magical items, and pirate treasure. The game's difficulty comes from determining which items to use where and when, along with figuring out the exact wording needed to interact with the game world.

Pirate Adventure helped establish many conventions of the adventure game genre, including inventory management, environmental puzzles, and the need to map locations on paper. Its success contributed to the growth of Adventure International as a major software publisher in the early 1980s and influenced countless text adventures that followed.

The game remains notable for introducing many players to interactive fiction and demonstrating that compelling storytelling could exist within the technical limitations of early personal computers.