In 1984, David Braben and Ian Bell created Elite. Jordan Mechner created Karateka. Matthew Smith wrote Jet Set Willy, Mark Cerny developed Marble Madness, and Mike Singleton crafted Lords of Midnight.

Microsoft's Open Source Program Office (OSPO), in collaboration with Xbox and Activision, has open-sourced the historical text adventure games Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III under the MIT license. This ...