With no visuals, you are left to your own accord to draw up a map, and discover which directions you’ve traveled.Ītari Adventure begins in a very similar fashion, you start off in a cave and once again you aren’t given much background information. The mechanics here are essential to that feeling of wonder. You have an inventory with a limited number of slots for items, and later on you learn magic spells to teleport you around (adding to the maze like nature of the CCA).

To move our adventurer you simply type where to go and which objects to interact with. If the game had laid out precisely what to do or had some sort of fairy guide character I think the effect would be ruined. The lack of tutorial I think is key here. Mechanics play a strong role towards that feeling of being lost, Colossal Cave Adventure throws you into a forest beside a house with no map and only vaguely tells you how to begin your quest. Rather than being disparate elements, they’re all working together in harmony to evoke that mysterious feeling-to get sucked into the Unknown. The Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics all work together to create that feeling of losing yourself to an environment–of walking into another world. Going through these narratives (especially Colossal Cave Adventure) I found myself experiencing a feeling I haven’t felt in a video game since Earthbound-the feeling of being lost, and of not knowing how to proceed… and it was beautiful. To play games like Colossal Cave Adventure and its companion piece Atari Adventure is in many ways entering the Unknown-with only text as our guide in the former, and with extremely rudimentary graphics in the latter, we are left to ourselves to find the adventure, create the characters, and the motivations. “Somewhere lost in the clouded annals of history lies a place that few have seen-a mysterious place called the Unknown, where long forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the wood” – Over the Garden Wall

Colossal cave adventure map