RetroAdventurer

PEOPLE who used computer terminals "back in the day", especially for text-based adventures/MUDs: what are some "defining" traits/designs/quirks that you strongly associate with this experience? I am doing designs for https://text-adventure.winsauce.com  and want to make it somewhat authentic

I want to make the experience accessible in a modern sense first and foremost. But, where possible, I'd love to work in references to the ways old systems worked. Messages that would commonly appear, common interaction patterns, secrets, etc.

Certain secret commands / references that were in old games? "Lovable" quirks of certain terminals / systems? Infamous (error) messages? Expected UX (e.g. up/down to go through history)? Old-fashioned design patterns we no longer see? Just wanna tell me about the good old days?

I'll be deep-diving into any insights as I'm a computing history nerd so nothing will be going into the game verbatim / without proper context. Might download some old emulators too and play some old Infocom titles etc for "research"

Text adventures as a genre basically never stopped and the technology backing them has continuously advanced. The winners of the annual IFComp over the past few years is a good place to see "state of the art" for hobby work...