Infocom

One of the seminal IF companies of the 1980s, which was also responsible for the Z-machine, Infocom was formed by ten members of MIT's Dynamic Modelling group in 1979. Best known for a number of games including Zork and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the company merged with another game company, Activision, in 1986. In 1989 Activision effectively dissolved what was left of Infocom.

The Imps

Authors of games at Infocom were called Implementors, or Imps.

• Dave Anderson
• Michael Berlyn
• Marc Blank
• Amy Briggs
• Liz Cyr-Jones
• Stu Galley
• Dave Lebling
• Steve Meretzky
• Brian Moriarty
• Jeff O'Neill

Additionally, there are authors and collaborators who may or may not have been called Imps but who contributed to the writing of Infocom products:

• Douglas Adams
• Bob Bates
• Jim Lawrence

Links

General Info

• Infocom: The Master Storytellers - Extensive material on Infocom.
• Infocom Fact Sheet - History, list of all game versions etc.
• The Infocom Documentation Project.
• Down From the Top of Its Game - The Story of Infocom, Inc.  A detailed report by Hector Briceño, Wesley Chao, Andrew Glenn, Stanley Hu, Ashwin Krishnamurthy, and Bruce Tsuchida.
• Infocom games on Baf's Guide
• The Infocom Bugs List by Graeme Cree.
• The Infocom bugs which are not yet on Graeme Cree's list by Nathan Simpson.
• Infocom index at MobyGames - MobyGames is a computer games documentation and review site.
• Infocom at Wikipedia.
• The (All-New) Infocom Gallery - Now updated by CJE Culver.

Discussion

• Infocom Trivia Quiz by Graeme Cree. From XYZZYnews #5.
• You Know You've Played Too Much Infocom When... by Doug Atkinson. From XYZZYnews #6.
• GeekList: Fond memories of nights spent typing (a look at Infocom's games) - at BoardGameGeek.
• Discussions about Infocom and its history on the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup.