What it plays

Infocom's text adventures, modern interactive fiction, and Scott Adams' originals.

The Golden Lanthorn plays parser games: the kind of interactive fiction, or text adventure, where you type what you want to do (open the mailbox, go north) and the game answers. It reads the game file itself and works out what kind it is, so you just add your games to the library and open them. The full app includes no games, and the free demo comes with Zork I. Here is where to find more.

Game formats

Z-machine: Versions 1 to 8: every Infocom game, and the thousands of later games written with Inform 6, Inform 7, PunyInform, Dialog or ZIL. Files ending in .z3, .z5, .z8, .zblorb or Infocom's own .dat.
Glulx: The larger format most Inform 7 games use today, with pictures, sound and several windows. Files ending in .ulx or .gblorb.
Blorb: The package that bundles a Z-machine or Glulx game with its cover, pictures and sounds.
Scott Adams: The classic Adventure International games in their .dat form, and the S.A.G.A. graphic releases with their pictures.

It doesn't play TADS, Hugo, ADRIFT or AGT games, or choice-based games made with Twine or Ink.

The Infocom classics

Infocom made the best-known text adventures of the 1980s, and all of them run on the Z-machine. Some that players most often look for:

Zork I: The Great Underground Empire 1980
Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz 1981
Zork III: The Dungeon Master 1982
Enchanter 1983
Planetfall 1983
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 1984, with Douglas Adams
A Mind Forever Voyaging 1985
Trinity 1986
Beyond Zork 1987, with its on-screen map and character
The Lurking Horror 1987
Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels 1987
Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz 1988
Shogun 1989
Journey 1989
Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur 1989

The graphical games

Infocom's last games, Zork Zero, Shogun, Journey and Arthur, used version 6 of the Z-machine, with pictures, menus and screens laid out by the game. The Golden Lanthorn draws them properly: in Hybrid, the original art around crisp modern text; in Raster, pixel-true, in the typeface the original machine used.

The sound

The Lurking Horror and Sherlock shipped sampled sound effects on their original release disks, in a format of their own. The Golden Lanthorn plays them as they were meant to be heard.

In Sherlock you play Watson, who does the work while Holmes takes the credit. I solved the case in an afternoon. I am still waiting for the credit.

The original disks

Kept a floppy image of the game you played as a child? Open it directly. The Golden Lanthorn reads the disk, finds the game and everything shipped with it, and plays it as that machine did, with its artwork, sound, palette and status line.

Machine	Disk images
Amiga	`.adf`
Macintosh	`.image`, `.dc42` (DiskCopy 4.2)
Apple II	`.dsk`, `.po`, `.2mg`
Atari ST	`.st`
Commodore 64 and 128	`.d64`, `.g64`
IBM PC and MS-DOS	`.img`, `.ima`

Where a release shipped art for more than one machine, such as Arthur's CGA, EGA, MCGA and Amiga pictures, you choose which one to see.

Scott Adams adventures

Scott Adams' Adventure International games were among the first adventures for home computers. The Golden Lanthorn plays them, from Adventureland and Pirate Adventure (both 1978) onward, including the illustrated S.A.G.A. releases, with the same map and library as every other game.

Modern interactive fiction

People have kept writing parser games ever since Infocom, and many of the best are free. A few favourites it plays:

Lost Pig Admiral Jota, 2007
Counterfeit Monkey Emily Short, 2012
Anchorhead Michael Gentry, 1998
Photopia Adam Cadre, 1998
Spider and Web Andrew Plotkin, 1998
Galatea Emily Short, 2000
Blue Lacuna Aaron Reed, 2008
Coloratura Lynnea Glasser, 2013
Kerkerkruip Victor Gijsbers, 2011
Junior Arithmancer Mike Spivey, 2018

Games written with Inform, the most widely used tool for parser fiction, come out as Z-machine or Glulx files, so nearly everything on IFDB and the IF Archive made with it will play. See where to find games.

While you play

Whatever the game, you get the same help:

a map that draws itself as you explore, and a search over every room and item you've seen;
an inventory that remembers where you left everything you aren't carrying;
hints (a game's own hint menus and InvisiClues-style hint files) in a side panel, and the game's manuals, feelies, solutions and maps from IFDB in the Documents tab;
a command tray of the words the game knows, and the Guiding Light's suggestions when it doesn't understand a word;
your choice of font and size, for the prose and for fixed-width text;
saves and a turn-by-turn history you can rewind, shared with the free Lanthorn TUI;
each game's own period look and colours.