Inspired by Colossal Cave, Marc Blank and Dave Lebling created what was to become the first Infocom game, Zork, in 1977 at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science.

Whereas most game developers sold their games mainly in software stores, Infocom also distributed their games via bookstores.

Unlike most computer software, Infocom titles were distributed under a no-returns policy, which allowed them to make money from a single game for a longer period of time.

Sometimes, though, Infocom threw in puzzles just for the humor of it — if the user never ran into these, they could still finish the game just fine.

In an attempt to reach out to females, Infocom also produced Plundered Hearts, which required the gamer to take the part of a heroine in a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas, and which required the heroine to use more feminine tactics to win the game, since hacking-and-slashing was not a very ladylike way to behave.

And to compete with the Leisure Suit Larry style games that were also appearing, Infocom also came out with Leather Goddesses of Phobos in 1986, which featured " tame ", " suggestive ", and " lewd " playing modes, and that was notable for including among its " feelies " a " scratch-and-sniff " card with six odors that corresponded to six cues during the game.

Infocom had sunk much of the money from games sales into Cornerstone ; this, in addition to a slump in computer game sales, left the company in a very precarious financial position.

These compilations featured nearly every game produced by Infocom before 1988.

* The Infocom Gallery with photos of all game boxes, feelies, instruction manuals and extra game contents.

* The Infocom Project High-quality scans of game boxes and contents.

* Most of the 1986 Infocom game Leather Goddesses of Phobos occurs ( despite the name ) on Mars.

In addition, Zork was written on the PDP-10, and Infocom used several PDP-10s for game development and testing.

Personal Software published what would become the first part of the trilogy under the name Zork when it was first released in 1980, but Infocom later handled the distribution of that game and their subsequent games.

Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions ( called story files, or Z-code files ), and could therefore port all its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a Z-machine implementation for that platform.

A licensed interactive fiction game based on the script was being developed for Infocom by Bob Bates, but was cancelled when Infocom was shut down by its then-parent company Activision.

Suspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare is an interactive fiction video game written by Michael Berlyn and published by Infocom in 1983.

Still, Suspended was a highly regarded game ; science fiction writer Douglas Adams, an early fan of Infocom games, was particularly taken with it.

* Enchanter ( video game ), a 1983 interactive fiction game by Infocom

A second example of Vogon poetry is found in the Hitchhiker's Guide interactive fiction game that was produced by Infocom.

The Infocom interactive fiction game Trinity begins in the Kensington Gardens.

It was developed by Activision and was the final Zork game to be published under the Infocom label.

It is possible to kill several of the game's civilian non-player characters, whereas in every other Infocom or Zork game, such actions are either impossible to accomplish or immediately punished by death.

Planetfall is a science fiction interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky, and the eighth title published by Infocom in 1983.

Although Planetfall was Meretzky's first title, it proved one of his most popular works and a best-seller for Infocom ; it was one of five top-selling titles to be re-released in Solid Gold versions including in-game hints.

* Planetfall at the unofficial Infocom Homepage

* The Infocom Bugs List entry for Planetfall

The Infocom trademark is currently held by Pete Hottelet's Omni Consumer Products, who registered the name around the same time as Klaeffling in 2007.

is: Infocom

The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games.

* Learning ZIL ( PDF ) is the Infocom ZIL manual, dated 1989.

Unlike earlier text-adventure games by Infocom, violence against innocent bystanders is possible.

Bureaucracy is an interactive fiction computer game released by Infocom in 1987, scripted by popular comic science fiction author Douglas Adams.

A Mind Forever Voyaging ( AMFV ) is an interactive fiction game designed and implemented by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1985.

AMFV is the first Infocom game with the " oops " command — in which a typing error in a previous command could be re-written without re-typing the entire command.

Infocom is mainly focusing on dialup internet services.

P. David Lebling ( born October 30, 1949 ) is an interactive fiction game designer ( implementor ) and programmer who has worked at various companies, including Infocom and Avid.

This latter explanation seems closer to the canon established by the main Infocom game series, since in Spellbreaker, if the player is shapeshifted into a grue and remains in a lit area for too long the light eventually kills him / her ( and it is implied that the amount of light to which he or she is exposed is so faint as to be invisible to human eyes ).

Leather Goddesses of Phobos is an interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1986.

: The large emerald is also one of the Twenty Treasures of Zork from the Infocom text adventure Zork I.

Brian Moriarty ( born 1956 ) is an American video game developer who authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction titles, Wishbringer ( 1985 ), Trinity ( 1986 ) and Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor ( 1987 ).

Wishbringer: The Magick Stone of Dreams is an interactive fiction computer game written by Brian Moriarty and published by Infocom in 1985.

Cornerstone is a relational database for DOS by Infocom in 1985.

The Lost Treasures of Infocom is a collection of 20 computer games from interactive fiction pioneer Infocom, released in 1991.