Do any of you dinosaurs remember the Infocom series of games?

To me they still are a monumental achievement combining books with technology. They stimulated the imagination and built worlds in one's mind, just as books do, they were educational and extremely satisfying when you solved one of the many, many puzzles thrown in.
Not to mention the genius packaging of the games (yes, physical boxes filled with all sorts of goodies that pertained to each game/book).

Sadly because of a long series of residence changes all my copies have been lost.

InvisiClues.org

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The complete archive of Infocom game artifacts and history, including game information, Invisiclues, historical articles, and more! All presented in an entertaining, nostalgic way.

Yes, I remember playing ID games Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake etc. for hours on Linux. Yes it was possible at around 2005 or so to download an inofficial executable, if you had the game for Windows. Was good fun, nowadays I don't play anymore. I prefer to do outdoors whenever possible.

Edited July 25Jul 25 by Mike44

You may be thinking of Wolfenstein 3D (the game that came before Doom). Return to Castle Wolfenstein was developed by Gray Matter Studios using the Quake 3 Arena graphics engine, and was released in 2001. It was a great game in its day.

Edited July 25Jul 25 by Christopher Low

I was never attracted to PC games, or actually games of any sorts.... The first time I saw a game running in a "pc" was in a Spectrum, then in an Amiga belonging to a friend where he was running one of the very first versions of BAO's flight simulator :-)

Some years later already at the University a teacher who had also been a private pilot and knew I loved aviation called me to show, again, MSFS v3 running in a MAC. WOW!

After finishing the university I was called for the military service for 2 years, serving with Portuguese Airforce, Those were good times because I was based at PAF Airbase 1 - Sintra BA1 - and I had the chance to jumpseat in various PAF aircraft BUT! also the chance to taste some other PC games, played at the unit I was assigned to, by fellow IT chaps... These included car racing games (Grand Prix EGA), and I did play it a lot ! But it was only more than 5 years after that that I purchased my first home desktop... selling my cathadioptric telescope ( B&L Criterium 8000 ) to build that desktop AND use it to run FS4, then FS5.... and many other fligthsims....

Some years ago there was an oportunity to travel to England and rent a car there, but I felt rather uneasy with driving as they do there :-) so I asked a friend for good car driving games that could help me getting more familiarized with it, even bought a cheap driving wheel, and used it for... a couple of days 🤣 - It's still available from my Steam account, but I never use it...

Very recently I purchased a few games for my two nephews to play when they visit us. Two are car driving games, including Truck Simulator and a Rally game, the other is a strategic game. They play it, using Steam, I never load any of it when they're not there :-)

For me, it is really only flightsims... Well, for me, pretty much since I awake in the morning till I go to bed... I daydream of civil aviation, and the perfect flightsim, or the chance to become an airline pilot in my next return to Earth 😁 after getting uninstalled and getting a fresh reinstall 🤣

Edited July 25Jul 25 by jcomm

At 92 I've given up my flight simulator but I still play card games like solitaire, hearts and free cell to keep my mind sharp. Also play Chess and Scrabble on my computer.

Noel

5 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

You may be thinking of Wolfenstein 3D (the game that came before Doom). Return to Castle Wolfenstein was developed by Gray Matter Studios using the Quake 3 Arena graphics engine, and was released in 2001. It was a great game in its day.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein was great even better than later Wolfensteins. 2002.. how time passes. Quake 4, Doom3 I've played a lot. Nowadays, like jcomm, only flightsims.

"Zee enemy is veakened!"

"Need a Medic!"

"We need an engineer!"

Good times :)

2 hours ago, Mike44 said:

Return to Castle Wolfenstein was great even better than later Wolfensteins. 2002.. how time passes. Quake 4, Doom3 I've played a lot. Nowadays, like jcomm, only flightsims.

I only played a few levels of one of the later Wolfenstein games, and it was nowhere near as good as Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Too much "on rails" gameplay for my liking. What I have seen of subsequent games does not change my opinion.

Ten years into retirement flight simming has been an important part of my life. But I noticed the older I get time seems to be passing at an accelerating rate with a decreasing expected life line ahead. Nothing causes time to pass quicker than being on the computer. I retrospectively feel humbled somewhat by people I know who have spent the past retirement years in more physically active pursuits. I know a fellow 92 years old, retired 30 year Air Force veteran who still works for the Security and Exchange Commission going around gathering data on retail prices. LOL by no means does he need the money.

Another good friend is 77 with a plethora of health issues is single handed building an addition to his home. Almost single handed, his semi invalid wife gives him a hand sometimes and his son in law has done some of the roof work. After about two years he is getting close to accomplished.

Another guy is 85. About three years ago he lost his wife to MS after caring for her during a decline that lasted over three decades. He is a Ham radio enthusiast and travels to conventions, gatherings of his Irish clan, and once a year takes solo camping trips out west from South Carolina. Several other seniors I know are far more resourceful than I at doing their own repair work on things like home and appliances.

I fear if my obsession with flight simming is leading to a more introverted mind set as I age. I suppose personality may have something to do with this.

In chess, the cat can only move one square every 5th turn. Until the Bishop rings the dinner bell. Then the cat moves 3 squares every time.

On 7/24/2026 at 11:05 AM, HiFlyer said:

Something I think about from time to time.

I've noticed many here mentioning over the years that the only "game" on thier systems is flightsim, while others will (very-occasionally) mention games they play.

My own (living) family members are very into gaming, probably helped by my lifelong habit of giving away computers, gaming systems, vr headsets etc......

Yet as we all grow older, questions arise more and more about whether "gaming" is still appropriate, or whether people should "Act thier age" and whether people like Skyrim Grandma are role-models or head shaking anamolies.

Hmmmmm..... Guess I'm on my way to becoming a head-shaking anomaly.....

You better have something as you get older because women, clubs, and booze are a thing of the past. That's the trouble with people as they get older. Some feel they should fit into a box of what they should be. Do what you love because that's all you have on a day-to-day bases when decide to shut off the news and you phone. As long as the hobbies are constructive, care less what others think. Now that I'm off from work, I'm off to fly that new 'Commander 114' I just bought...😁

On 7/24/2026 at 8:58 PM, Christopher Low said:

Another point about "gaming" (and this includes flight simulation) as I get older is that I am getting more and more fussy. I stopped playing most first person shooters because that is effectively all that they are. Shooters. I got bored of having to shoot everything in sight years ago. That is why Deus Ex is my favourite game of all time. It is also why those "blurred areas" of scenery in the Bing maps (or the mismatch of adjacent tiles when two different photo sets are being used) annoy the hell out of me.

As an example of the latter, I was thinking about purchasing LFRK Caen Carpiquet on ORBx Central. Both options (Supersonic and France VFR) are relatively inexpensive (around £8). However, I decided to check out the area first......and what did I find? Mismatched base images right in front of the runway 31 approach. In fact, there seems to be a different set of base images for the city of Caen itself when compared to the surrounding countryside, which makes it stand out like a sore thumb to me. Why can't they keep images consistent in a given area? There are even more of these "small mismatched areas" just to the north of the airport (along the coast). Massive immersion breakers in a flight simulator. The same is true just west of EGSU Duxford (which also has an even worse area at the edge of the mismatched base images), and north of EGSS Stansted.

Incredibly frustrating, and something that Jorg mentioned AGES ago. Nothing seems to have been done about them, and I am not optimistic that anything ever will be done.

I actually have Deus Ex "Hong Kong" theme as my phone ringtone.