I liked this article a lot. I'm an English-speaker, and certainly
didn't know anything about the history of Italian text adventures. The
chronological approach is a good one for an article like this.
<P>
In terms of the content, I had two major concerns. First, I don't have
a clear picture of what the newsstand games were like,
physically. Were the games all magazines bundled with tapes? Were they
the tapes plus instructions, with no accompanying magazine? Second,
what do you mean by "series"? Is this the same as a magazine, or is it
several connected games (like Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III)? I
couldn't tell from what you wrote.
<P>
Stylistically, your sentences are mostly clear, but often
non-idiomatic. I've taken two different approaches in my comments. For
some paragraphs and sentences, where I had a lot of comments, I
rewrote the paragraph or sentence after your original one to be in
more stylistic English. Those I started with REWRITE: so you can find
them more easily. In others, I wrote my comments directly in the
paragraphs. Take most of my suggestions to be just that --
suggestions, not commands. :) My comments are [in brackets] where
appropriate.
<P>
Also, you need to decide how "Avventura nel Castello" is capitalized.
<P>
----------------
<P>

"The best thing would be a parser with just one word:
>BARMAN
Barman: What?
>BEER
Barman: A beer for you.
>MONEY?
Barman: five bucks.
>PAY
Barman: Thanx.
<P>
So, this series of sentences seems perfect to me, maybe I'll use it 
to write a game."
<P>
The man who speaks is Enrico Colombini, programmer from Brescia 
(northern Italy), the pioneer of adventure games in Italy -- the Don 
Woods of the Mediterrean, to be clear. He has a curious aversion for 
the sophisticated parser invented by Infocom. And that's why he said 
that bizarre thing -- the parser with just one word. Fun, fantasy and 
easy plain work: no complicated sentences and no NPCs to ask, "What's 
wrong." It's provocative, certainly.
<P>
    REWRITE: The man speaking is Enrico Colombini, a programmer from
    Brescia (northern Italy) and the pioneer of adventure games in
    Italy -- the Don Woods of the Mediterranean. He has a curious
    aversion to the sophisticated parser invented by Infocom. And
    that's why he made that bizarre suggestion -- the "parser with
    just one word."  Fun, fantasy and easy work: no complicated
    sentences and no NPCs to ask, "What's wrong?" It's provocative,
    certainly.
<P>
    [I left in the part at the end where you say "and no NPCs to ask,
    "What's wrong?"" But do you mean the NPCs are actually asking that
    question?]
<P>
The first game
It's a boutade of the man who, in 1982, wrote the first text 
adventure of Italian history: "Avventura nel castello".
<P>
    REWRITE: It's a boutade of the man who, in 1982, wrote the first
    Italian text adventure, "Avventura nel Castello."
<P>
"I didn't know Infocom games yet and, certainly, that was a good
thing. Had I played them, I would have tried to emulate their parser
("put the red sheet and the green one in the big drawer, then close it
with the strange key"), things would have gotten really complicated, I
would've lost a lot of time, and maybe I would've given up. At the
time I hadn't yet discovered that easy things are, often, the best way
to succeed.  I needed a lot of years to understand this, but that's
another story."
<P>
Twenty years later, "Avventura nel castello" could still compete 
against most (if not all) Italian adventure games. And at the time, 
without exaggeration, the game - for its quality - would put Scott 
Adams to shame (but Scott Adams wrote a lot of games, and Colombini 
just five or six). "Avventura nel castello" was first released for 
Apple II: at the beginning it was sold only in a shop owned by a 
friend of Enrico, and then it was distributed by the "Jackson" 
editorial group: "The sales were never high, but the satisfaction was 
great because a lot of players wrote to find out more about the game. 
With "Avventura nel Castello" and with the board game "Melopoli" (a 
computer version of Monopoly) I earned, if I remember right, three or 
four million. The same as Scott Adams - but my millions were in lire, 
his in dollars." In 1985 the MS-DOS version of the game was released 
(the last edition is dated 1996). 
<P>
    REWRITE: Twenty years later, "Avventura nel Castello" could still
    compete against most (if not all) Italian adventure games written
    since. And at the time, without exaggeration, the game - for its
    quality - would have put Scott Adams to shame. "Avventura nel
    Castello" was first released for the Apple II, and at the
    beginning it was sold only in a shop owned by a friend of Enrico,
    and then it was distributed by the "Jackson" editorial group. The
    MS-DOS version of the game was released in 1985. According to
    Enrico, "The sales were never high, but the satisfaction was great
    because a lot of players wrote to find out more about the game.
    With "Avventura nel Castello" and with the board game "Melopoli"
    [a computer version of Monopoly] I earned, if I remember right,
    three or four million. The same as Scott Adams - but my millions
    were in lire, his in dollars."
<P>
    [I took out "(but Scott Adams wrote a lot of games, and Colombini
    just five or six)" because it weakens your statement about the
    accomplishments of Colombini for no good reason. In the last
    sentence of your original paragraph, you mention the MS-DOS
    version. Did the MS-DOS version increase the sales noticeably? I
    assumed it didn't, which is why I moved that statement to before
    Enrico's quote. Also, if you're going to mention the date of the
    last edition, you need to talk about how Enrico kept updating the
    game (assuming he did).]
<P>
    [Finally, what's the "Jackson" editorial group? Is that a
    publishing company?]
<P>
Italian parser
<P>
But what is the origin of the bizarre proposal of the "Parser with 
one word"? The origin is the Italian tradition of text adventure, I 
think. Only after the
arrival of Inform in Italy did people release games with a parser 
based on more than a verb/noun pair. Italian players, especially 
those who don't know
English (and there are many), are not used to a complex parser.  It 
sounds bad to their ears. "Avventura nel castello" and Colombini's 
other games  have a verb/noun parser. And the same goes for most of 
the games released in the eighties. "Avventura nel castello" didn't 
have a large distribution because it ran on the Apple and then on 
Ms-Dos, when the most common home computers were Cbm64 and Spectrum. 
A lot of people wanted to play that game but couldn't. There were 
also a lot of people having fun with Infocom games, but the problems 
were the language and the slowness of the Cbm. The most common 
non-Italian games were those of Scott Adams: not much text to 
translate, an easy parser, speed and, in some cases, graphics (and 
graphics, whatever you think, means
audience). These games had a very large distribution (more than 
"Avventura nel Castello") because the software piracy was everywhere: 
at the time I'd seen
an original game only nine or ten times. The rest was a big exchange, 
under the tables but also over the counters of the shops, of tapes 
(or floppy disks) with
cracked games. And in the videogame magazines there appeared the 
first columns with hints for adventurers.  (In the golden age those 
columns became pages.) 
<P>
    REWRITE: But what is the origin of the bizarre proposal of the
    "parser with one word"? It comes from the Italian tradition of
    text adventures, I think. Only after Inform's arrival did people
    release games with a parser able to parse more than a verb/noun
    pair. Italian players, especially those who don't know English
    (and there are many), are not used to a complex parser. It sounds
    bad to their ears. All of Colombini's games have a verb/noun
    parser; the same goes for most of the Italian games released in
    the 1980s. The limited distribution of "Avventura nel castello"
    wasn't because of its parser but because it ran on the Apple II
    and under MS-DOS, when the most common types of home computers
    were Commodore 64 and Spectrum.A lot of people wanted to play
    "Avventura nel castello" but couldn't. There were many people
    enjoying Infocom's games, but the English language and the
    slowness of the Commodore 64. The most common non-Italian games
    were those of Scott Adams: they ran quickly and had little text to
    translate, an easy parser, and, in some cases, graphics (and
    graphics meant a larger audience). These games had a very large
    distribution (more than "Avventura nel Castello") because of
    rampant software piracy: at the time I'd seen an original game
    only nine or ten times. There was a big exchange of tapes and
    floppy disks with the cracked games, both under the table and over
    the counters of shops.
<P>
    [Is "Cbm64" an abbreviation for "Commodore 64"? The common
    US/British abbreviation was "C64," though I've stuck with
    replacing "Cbm64" with "Commodore 64" throughout your essay.]
<P>
    [When, in talking about software piracy, you say "at the time,"
    what time is this? Early 1980s? And do you mean you only saw 9 or
    10 original games, or 9 or 10 *copies* of a few games?]
<P>
    [I left out the very last two sentences that started with "And in
    the videogame magazines there appeared the first columns..." Those
    two sentences were completely unconnected to your paragraph, and
    have nothing to do with the "Italian parser." Either leave them
    out or discuss more fully how other developments showed a growing
    interest in adventures.]
<P>
    [You really need a transition here from "what people played" to
    actual history. You've been discussing what games people were
    playing; now move from that into a historical view of Italian
    adventures. And emphasize that Scott Adams's games further
    cemented the Italian players' taste for bare-bones parsers.]
<P>
The newspaper stands
The adventures were still games for a small audience. Things changed 
when they arrived in the newspaper stands. Yes: the newsstands became 
gold mines for
adventurers. In 1985, the first issue of a monthly publication called 
"Next Strategy" was released: on the tape therewere three graphic 
adventures for Cbm (written by Roberto Tabacco and from the 
no-better-known Hans Piu). If you play them today the only pleasure 
comes from satisfying your nostalgia, for the rest is a frustration: 
it's impossible to say that these games have a parser. The game 
understands only the right sequence of commands that lead to victory: 
nothing out of the scheme, no provision of answers (even silly ones) 
for wrong actions. We are very far from "Avventura nel castello" and 
also from Scott Adams. Regression? Maybe. To win it was not enough to 
solve the puzzles; you had also to guess the exact words in the mind 
of the author -- to the point where there was a game that didn't 
understand the word "follow" but only the word "track". Certainly 
there are reasons for all this. At the time the standard (in other 
countries too) was more or less that one. Nobody dreamed of emulating 
Infocom: the magazine was sold every month, and you could not expect 
that the editor (who wasn't Bill Gates) would hire a team of 
programmers and beta-testers. And everyone was happy with the 
results, because the players were enthusiastic: and that made it 
possible to continue without raising the budget (which was already 
very high for such games). There was also another reason. The 
magazine had a high price: eight or nine thousand lire (roughly four 
or four and a half dollars). Had the games been very easy, the line 
of people requesting a refund would have been longer than the line of 
people ready to buy the next issue with new games and the solutions 
of the old ones. The strategy, instead, was to insert a very 
difficult puzzle in one of the games, so the players had to buy the 
next issue. 
<P>
    REWRITE: The adventures were still games for a small
    audience. Things changed when they became available from the
    newspaper stands. Yes: the newsstands became gold mines for
    adventurers. In 1985, the first issue of a monthly publication
    called "Next Strategy" was released: on a tape included with the
    publication were three graphic adventures for the Commodore 64,
    written by unknown authors Roberto Tabacco and Hans Piu. If you
    play them today the only pleasure is nostalgic, for the games are
    frustrating: it's impossible to say that these games have a
    generic parser. The games understand only the exact sequence of
    commands that lead to victory: nothing out of that sequence is
    recognized, and no specific responses, even silly ones, to wrong
    actions are provided. These games are very far even from
    "Avventura nel Castello" and from Scott Adams' games. Regression?
    Maybe. To win it was not enough to solve the puzzles; you had also
    to guess the exact words the author had in mind -- one game didn't
    understand the word "follow" but did the word "track". Certainly
    there were reasons for this style. At the time, these games were
    the standard (in other countries as well as Italy). Nobody at
    "Next Strategy" dreamed of emulating Infocom: the magazine was
    sold every month, and you could not expect the editor (who wasn't
    Bill Gates) to hire a team of programmers and
    beta-testers. Regardless, everyone was happy with the results: the
    players were enthusiastic, and that allowed the magazine to
    continue without raising the budget (which was already very high
    for such games), making the magazine's staff happy. There was also
    another reason for the games' style. The magazine had a high
    price: eight or nine thousand lire (roughly four or four and a
    half dollars). Had the games been very easy, the line of people
    requesting a refund would have been longer than the line of people
    ready to buy the next issue with new games and the solutions of
    the old ones. The strategy, instead, was to insert a very
    difficult puzzle in at least one of the games, so that the players
    had to buy the next issue.
<P>
More or less at the same level were the games of the "Dream" series 
(Editions Fermont, first issue november 1985, with three Cbm games in 
every issue): they had black and white graphics, retro style, and 
good and onirics plots. In every issue there was a game without 
graphics, to make the most of the memory of the Cbm and offer more 
text and more puzzles.
<P>
    [Introduce this magazine in the same way you did "Next Strategy."
    Maybe you could do something like this: "Similar to "Next
    Strategy" was "Editions Fermont"..."]
<P>
    [How were these games in a "retro style"? Adventures had only been
    around for three years! If they really were retro, what made them
    so?]
<P>
    [What does the word "onirics" mean? I'm unfamiliar with it.]
<P>
The Quill and higher quality
The quality of the games (parser included) got better with 
Bonaventura Di Bello. He, in his twenties, bought by mistake a 
"Adventure: A planet of death" by Artic Computing (while Colombini 
was hypnotized by Crowther and Woods, authors of "Adventure"). A 
little time later Di Bello discovered The Quill (an illegal copy, of 
course, but then he bought an original one from England) and wrote a 
game on his Spectrum. He sent it to a magazine called "Load'n'Run" 
and, in that moment, began his fortune: "I was paid two hundred 
thousand lire (one hundred dollars).  Another two and I would have 
been able to buy a new Spectrum!". The editor, Arscom, launched a new 
series: "Epic 3000", with three games every month. Roberto Tabacco 
was the author of the ones for Cbm, Di Bello wrote the ones for 
Spectrum (with The Quill and The Illustrator). The first issue was 
sold on april 1986. The games, not protected by a antipiracy password 
(though they were in the following issues), were: "Ring", "Duca 
Lynce" and "Il galeone scomparso" (Cbm), "Et in action", "L'occhio 
del condor", "Il triangolo maledetto" (Spectrum). The influence of 
the Level 9 games was clear.
<P>
    The quality of Italian games, including the parser, increased with
    the arrival of Bonaventura Di Bello onto the scene. In his
    twenties, he bought a copy of "Adventure: A planet of death", by
    Artic Computing, by mistake. A little time later Di Bello
    discovered The Quill (an illegal copy, of course, though he later
    bought a legal one from England) and wrote a game on his Spectrum
    using it. He sent the game to a magazine called "Load'n'Run" and,
    in doing so, began his fortune: "I was paid two hundred thousand
    lire [one hundred dollars].  Another two and I would have been
    able to buy a new Spectrum!". The editor, Arscom, launched a new
    series: "Epic 3000", with three games every month. Roberto Tabacco
    was the author of the ones for the Commodore; Di Bello wrote the
    ones for Spectrum (using The Quill and The Illustrator). The first
    issue was sold on April 1986. The games, not protected by a
    antipiracy password (though they were in the following issues),
    were: "Ring", "Duca Lynce" and "Il galeone scomparso" (all for the
    Commodore), and "Et in action", "L'occhio del condor" and "Il
    triangolo maledetto" (for the Spectrum). The influence of the
    Level 9 games was clear.
<P>
    [The bit about "(while Columbini was hypnotized by Crowther and
    Woods..." is unnecessary.]
<P>
    [Did Di Bello *like* the game he bought? Was it a happy mistake
    for him? I assume so, since he wrote adventures later. Also, what
    was "Adventure: A planet of death" like?]
<P>
    [Is the editor "Arscom" a person or a company? You need to explain
    the structure of the magazine's staff, editors, and publishing
    companies more clearly.]
<P>
    [You mention "The games, not protected by a antipiracy
    password (though they were in the following issues)..." Were
    antipiracy passwords common? Why do you mention this right here
    out of the blue? I'd like to see you talk more about antipiracy
    measures, since piracy was so rampant, or omit that part of the
    sentence altogether.]
<P>
    [The influence of the Level 9 games on these games is completely
    *un*clear to me. Please explain the connection explicitly.]
<P>
In december the last issue of the magazine was sold; it  then became 
"Viking" (first issue: january 1987), with a new editor, "Edizioni 
Hobby": Tabacco was no longer working there, and the games (three, 
the same for Commodore and Spectrum) were all written by Di Bello. 
Two months earlier (november 1986) the "Edizioni Hobby" had launched 
the series "Explorer" (three games, the same for Cbm and Msx): here 
Di Bello ported to Commodore the Spectrum games of "Epic 3000". 
Sometimes a game continued in two or more episodes. The total of 
adventures written by Di Bello is 74: he was able to write a game 
every week and was paid five hundred thousand lire (250 dollars) per 
game. "It would have been wonderful to live writing those games; it 
would have been the same as living as a writer, or maybe better, 
because the audience of text games was superb." The first game of Di 
Bello, "Dimensione sconosciuta", is impossible to find: "Today I 
would like to remember it, rewrite it and release it online." Last 
three were never released. "I remember the names, "New Pasqua" and 
"Sorsi di terrore". The third one was a thriller with the PC hiring a 
killer to kill him and let all pass like a suicide. I wasn't the 
author, the author was Marco Gobbi; I tried to contact him again some 
time ago, but he's vanished." Most games, at the time, had graphics, 
and there were people who released "single" games, without thinking 
to launch a series. The stories were always very short and the 
locations never more than ten. The name of the characters, we'll never
understand why, were always anglophone (I don't remember even one 
Italian one): Dust Hanter, Jack Byteson, Jonathan Thompson, Harry 
O'Hara, Alan Simmons.
<P>
    REWRITE: In December the last issue of "Epic 3000" was sold; it
    then became "Viking" (first issue: January 1987), with a new
    editor, "Edizioni Hobby": Tabacco was no longer working there, and
    the games (three, all for both Commodore and Spectrum) were all
    written by Di Bello.  Two months earlier, in November of 1986, the
    "Edizioni Hobby" had launched the series "Explorer", (three games
    an issue), which republished the "Epic 3000" games with new
    Commodore ports by Di Bello.  Sometimes a game continued through
    two or more episodes. Di Bello wrote a total of 74 adventures: he
    was able to write a game every week and was paid five hundred
    thousand lire (250 dollars) per game. "It would have been
    wonderful to live writing those games; it would have been the same
    as living as a writer - or maybe better, because the audience of
    text games was superb." Di Bello's first game, "Dimensione
    sconosciuta", is impossible to find: "Today I would like to
    remember it, rewrite it and release it online." His last three
    were never released. "I remember the names, "New Pasqua" and
    "Sorsi di terrore". The third one was a thriller with the PC
    hiring a killer to kill him and make it look like a suicide. I
    wasn't the author, the author was Marco Gobbi; I tried to contact
    him again some time ago, but he's vanished." Most games of that
    time had graphics, and there were people who released "single"
    games, without thinking to launch a series. The stories were
    always very short and the locations never more than ten. The name
    of the characters, for some unknown reason, were always anglophone
    (I don't remember even one Italian one): Dust Hanter, Jack
    Byteson, Jonathan Thompson, Harry O'Hara, Alan Simmons.
<P>
    [I feel like I'm missing something here. What's the deal with the
    editor's name "Edizioni Hobby"? Is that a pseudonym, like the
    American film industry's "Alan Smithee"? Does it stand for several
    people? Is it one person's actual name?]
<P>
    [Is "Explorer" a series or a magazine? What's the difference. What
    exactly is a "series" in this context?]
<P>
    [I'd like you to talk about the rise of series in here somewhere,
    assuming that a series is different from a magazine.]
<P>
    [I don't understand the part where Di Bello says "...the PC hiring
    a killer to kill him..." The killer is supposed to kill the *PC*?
    If so, that seems like a really easy game. :)]
<P>
    [Now, hang on: you were talking about Di Bello's games, and all of
    a sudden this new guy, Marco Gobbi, shows up. When you said "Last
    three were never released" I assumed you meant of Di Bello's
    games. Did you mean the "Viking" games? And if so, does that mean
    that there were authors other than Di Bello writing for the
    magazine? You need to make this much, much more clear.]
<P>
    [You talk about people who wrote single games and not series. Were
    series games really common? This is why I'd like you to talk about
    the rise of series earlier in your article.]
<P>
    [Why don't we know why the characters' names were English?
    Couldn't you just ask Di Bello and the other authors?]
<P>
Inside and out the system
The parser still was verb/noun. But there were some exceptions, above 
all in the single games or in the short series, like the mystery 
stories edited by
Systems ("Gialli Commodore", just one game per issue). In these 
cases, in fact, there was no hurry to release a lot of games every 
month, the authors were not pros like Di Bello, but people that had 
an idea for a game, released it, and often vanished forever from the 
scene of text adventures (just like Enrico Ragaini, author of "Il 
mistero della piramide" for Cbm). The Systems mystery stories were 
the integration of a series of lessons to write text adventures 
published by the magazine "Personal Computer" and "Commodore Computer 
Club": those lessons were very good and in them appeared, for the 
first time, the concept of library with words about the theory of 
locations, of the inventory and suggestions for an "intelligent" 
parser.
<P>
    REWRITE: The games' parsers were still verb/noun, with some
    exceptions, above all in the single games or in the short series,
    like the mystery stories edited by Systems ("Gialli Commodore",
    just one game per issue). In these cases, in fact, there was no
    hurry to release a lot of games every month: the authors were not
    pros like Di Bello, but people that had an idea for a game, wrote
    it, and released it. Often they vanished forever from the text
    adventure scene. One such person was Enrico Ragaini, author of "Il
    mistero della piramide" for the Commodore. The Systems mystery
    stories were the integration of a series of lessons to write text
    adventures published by the magazines "Personal Computer" and
    "Commodore Computer Club". Those lessons were very good; more
    importantly, they introduced, for the first time, the concept of
    library with words about the theory of locations, of the inventory
    and suggestions for an "intelligent" parser.
<P>
    ["edited by Systems ("Gialli Commodore", just one game per
    issue)." Huh? I didn't follow this sentence at all. Is Systems a
    publishing company? A pseudonym?]
<P>
    [When you say "In these cases," which cases do you mean? In the
    case of the exceptions?]
<P>
    [Why do you use Enrico Ragaini as an example of someone who wrote
    a game and vanished? Why was he notable? Was his game particularly
    good?]
<P>
    [What were the mystery stories integrated into? You don't make
    that clear.]
<P>
    [What kind of library did the games introduce? And when you say
    "words about the theory of locations," that was in the articles,
    not the games? Or were they directly in the games?]
<P>
The mystery stories by Systems were very well written and, among the 
games of the time, are the most similar to modern IF: yes, 
interactive stories. Like "Il mistero di Zambesi Waters", by Sandro 
Certi and Franco Todi.  The location is Africa and in the opening 
screen there is a promise: "this game accepts sentences with one or 
two words, with a maximum of NINE". It's possible to type something 
like "Jump down from the bus". But we are not inside a system: those 
are predefined sentences that are good only for one event, one 
puzzle. If, in another and not predefined situation, you type "Jump 
down", inevitably the game says "I don't understand" (and not "Jump 
down from what?"). We are still far from a sophisticated parser, but 
we have good stories. We don't have a system of verbs, like the ones 
offered by The Quill. It's not strange that the games written by Di 
Bello with The Quill were considered the best ones: if the author has 
a system, a table of verbs or sentences to start with, he can get 
good results with minimal effort.
<P>
    REWRITE: The mystery stories by Systems were very well written
    and, of the games of the time, are the most similar to modern
    IF. Games like "Il mistero di Zambesi Waters", by Sandro Certi and
    Franco Todi, were interactive stories.  The game is set in Africa,
    and the opening screen promises: "this game accepts sentences with
    one or two words, with a maximum of NINE". The game recognizes
    sentences like "Jump down from the bus". But it doesn't use a
    full-fledged parser: those are predefined sentences that are good
    only for one event or puzzle. If, in a different situation, you
    type "Jump down", inevitably the game says "I don't understand"
    (and not "Jump down from what?"). The Systems games lack a
    sophisticated parser, but have good stories. There isn't a library
    of verbs, like the ones offered by The Quill. It's not strange
    that Di Bello's games written using The Quill were considered the
    best ones: if an author has a library of verbs or sentences to
    start with, he can get good results with minimal effort.
<P>
    [Where you've said "system" I've used the term "library," since I
    think that more accurately captures what you're talking
    about. I'll keep using "library" throughout the rest of my
    suggested edits.]
<P>
On the tapes of "Explorer" there was the announcement: "In this 
magazine you'll find a dossier to solve and to learn to write 
adventure games". The editors understood that a lot of people wanted 
to write their own games. To write a good adventure, with an 
elementary parser, is undeniably easier than writing a good shoot 'em 
up. So the market was open to this kind of experiment. And the book 
"Scrivere un gioco di avventura sul personal computer" (1986) by 
Enrico Colombini had great success. With the book was sold a tape 
with some adventure game and the famous "Modulo Base", a system, a 
grill of verbs to enlarge to create your own game using Basic. I 
don't remember brilliant games written using "Modulo Base"; I 
remember the ones of Colombini, among them "L'Anello di Lucrezia 
Borgia", "L'Apprendista Stregone" e "L'astronave condannata". Di 
Bello too used the "Modulo Base" and here his history as an author of 
text adventures meets that of Colombini: "I used Modulo Base to 
realize a sort of The Quill for Msx. I used it to create a dark/light 
routine (with timers for lamps or other light objects), and other 
things offered by The Quill. Then I tried to do the same with Amiga's 
Amos Basic, but it was too late to launch text adventures again and 
the project never took life. But I'm sure Enrico remembers that night 
when I woke him to ask a suggestion-- I hope he forgave me!".
<P>
    REWRITE: On the tapes of "Explorer" there was the announcement:
    "In this magazine you'll find a dossier to solve and to learn to
    write adventure games". The editors understood that a lot of
    people wanted to write their own games. To write a good adventure,
    with an elementary parser, is undeniably easier than writing a
    good shoot 'em up. So the market was open to this kind of
    experiment. And the book "Scrivere un gioco di avventura sul
    personal computer" (1986) by Enrico Colombini was a great
    success. The book included a tape with some adventure game and the
    famous "Modulo Base", a library of verbs in BASIC which you could
    add to in order to create your own game. I don't remember
    brilliant games written using "Modulo Base"; I remember the ones
    of Colombini, among them "L'Anello di Lucrezia Borgia",
    "L'Apprendista Stregone" e "L'astronave condannata". Di Bello too
    used the "Modulo Base", at which point two of the best early
    authors of Italian text adventures were using the same tool. Said
    Di Bello, "I used Modulo Base to realize a sort of The Quill for
    Msx. I used it to create a dark/light routine (with timers for
    lamps or other light objects), and other things offered by The
    Quill. Then I tried to do the same with Amiga's Amos Basic, but it
    was too late to launch text adventures again and the project never
    took life. But I'm sure Enrico remembers that night when I woke
    him to ask a suggestion-- I hope he forgave me!".
<P>
    [Was the announcement spoken directly on the tapes? Or was it in
    the magazine?]
<P>
    [Spell out what Msx stands for.]
<P>
In the meantime, you could find, in newsstands (of course), an 
illegal italian version of The Quill. On the magazines people 
announced "new amateur adventure game", but without Internet the 
distribution was difficult, especially the distribution of Apple 
games, a home computer not much present in italian houses. Only using 
the personal archive of Colombini is it possible today to recall some 
interesting games. Like the good "Catania Gions" (1985), wrote by 
three men from Pisa, Fausto Daluiso and Giuseppe and Gianluca 
Pomponi: it's a sort of Indiana Jones story with graphics similar to 
the one of "Death in the Caribbean". "I knew the three authors -- 
says Enrico -- when they asked me to write a plot for another game 
and I gave them the script of "L'isola del Giaguaro", but today we 
have just some demo pictures, since this game was never completed". 
Blue Bottazzi wrote "Cappuccetto Rosso" (1987), a only text game 
inspired by the famous fable for children. "La rapina di Corsut" has, 
instead, a curious story. Written by Luca Nosotti and Carlo Vellano 
in 1985, it was submitted to a programming competition, but the jury 
didn't accept it because of the presence, in the game, of a group of 
robbers. Maybe it's the only case of censorship in the history of 
adventure games! Another game is "L'uscita" by a little-known Ugo: 
it's a only text adventure with interesting multiple choices (and 
graphical map). Possibly there were some lost games (for Cbm and 
Apple or Spectrum) that were better than the ones sold. But maybe 
we'll never know.
<P>
    REWRITE: In the meantime, you could find, in newsstands (of
    course), an illegal Italian version of The Quill. In the magazines
    people announced "new amateur adventure games", but without the
    Internet the distribution was difficult. This was especially true
    for Apple games, as Apples weren't well-represented in Italian
    houses. Many interesting games are today only to be found in
    Colombini's personal archive. One such game is the good "Catania
    Gions" (1985), written by three men from Pisa, Fausto Daluiso and
    Giuseppe and Gianluca Pomponi. It's a sort of Indiana Jones story
    with graphics similar to the ones in "Death in the
    Caribbean". According to Enrico, "I knew the three authors. They
    asked me to write a plot for another game and I gave them the
    script of "L'isola del Giaguaro", but today we have just some demo
    pictures, since this game was never completed".  Blue Bottazzi
    wrote "Cappuccetto Rosso" (1987), a text-only game inspired by the
    famous fable for children. "La rapina di Corsut" has a curious
    history. Written by Luca Nosotti and Carlo Vellano in 1985, it was
    submitted to a programming competition, but the jury didn't accept
    it because of the presence of a group of robbers in the game. This
    may be the only case of censorship in the history of adventure
    games! Another game is "L'uscita" by the little-known Ugo: it's a
    text-only adventure with interesting multiple choices (and a
    graphical map). Possibly there were some lost games (for the
    Commodore and Apple or Spectrum) that were better than the ones
    sold, but we may never know of them.
<P>
    [When you say "the distribution was difficult," was it really? I
    assume the newsstands were everywhere. Or do you mean the
    *archival* of the games was difficult? I don't understand why
    these games are hard to find but you can find the earlier games.]
<P>
    [What game is "Death in the Caribbean"? You use it in a
    comparison, but I don't know the game you're talking about.]
<P>
    [What famous fable was "Cappuccetto Rosso" inspired by?]
<P>
    [What competition was "La rapina di Corsut" submitted to? Who ran
    it? Was it an ongoing thing? It sounds like the kind of thing
    that'd be important in the history of Italian adventures.]
<P>
    [Is "Ugo" a person? Does he/she have a last name or a first name?]
<P>
The dark age
The age of games sold in newspapers stands arrived at the end with 
the last series: Epyx 3001 (editor "Arscom", first issue january 
1988). Every issue had five or six games only for Cbm, but the sales 
were bad and the series closed after six months. The dark age of text 
adventures occurs at the same time in Italy as in the rest of the 
world. The games written at the end of 80s and the beginning of 90s 
are few, those sold nearly zero. There were some bad attempts to 
realize games using well-known comic characters like Diabolik and 
Dylan Dog, but the result is action adventure with many lows and 
almost no highs. One of the most interesting things happens in 1990, 
when on the review Amiga Byte  appears "Demo Adventure", an adventure 
toolkit (written by Maurizio Giunti) that allows you to create games 
with a good parser ("attack orc with the sword") but, curiously, 
doesn't permit synonyms for the nouns (while it does for verbs). With 
this system, a guy from Imperia (northwestern Italy), Marco 
Vallarino, wrote nearly twenty text adventures: among them is 
"Dracula", notable because offers a lot of locations (84). At the 
time there was also an innovative experiment by Alessandro Uber and 
Fabrizio Venerandi: they created a text adventure for Mud, 
Necronomicom, played via Videotel (a system of connected computers, 
used by pubs and restaurants to attract guests) till 1994, and via 
Telnet since 2001.
<P>
    REWRITE: The age of games sold in newspapers stands ended with the
    last series: Epyx 3001 (editor "Arscom", first issue January
    1988). Every issue had five or six C64-only games, but sales were
    bad and the series ended after six months. The Italian dark age of
    text adventures happened at the same time as in the rest of the
    world. Few games were written during the end of 1980s and the
    beginning of the 1990s; almost none were sold. There were some bad
    games that featured well-known comic characters like Diabolik and
    Dylan Dog, but the results were action-adventure games with many
    lows and few highs. One of the most interesting things happened in
    1990, when the magazine Amiga Byte reviewed "Demo Adventure", an
    adventure toolkit by Maurizio Giunti that allowed you to create
    games with a full-sentence parser ("attack orc with the sword")
    but, curiously, permitted synonyms for verbs but not nouns. Using
    this system, a man from Imperia (northwestern Italy) named Marco
    Vallarinox wrote nearly twenty text adventures: among them is
    "Dracula", notable for its many locations (84). At that time there
    was also an innovative experiment by Alessandro Uber and Fabrizio
    Venerandi: they created a text adventure for Mud, Necronomicom,
    played via Videotel (a system of connected computers, used by pubs
    and restaurants to attract guests) until 1994. Since 2001,
    Necronomicon has been playable via telnet.
<P>
    [Whas "Necronomicon" for a specific MUD, or was it a MUD itself?]
<P>
Revival
Anyway, the revival begins in 1995 when Vallarino reopens the sipario 
with "Sfida all'ignoto" e "Il giardino incantato" and Robero Barabino 
develops a very nice game (underrated): "Alieni per sempre", a text 
adventure with graphics that is a parody of the Tv serial "Star Trek" 
and bears structural similarities to "Wonderland" by post-Magnetic 
Scrolls. A curiosity: the first scene of "Sfida all'ignoto" (a Ms-Dos 
game with an Infocom statusline) is similar to the opening scene of 
"Avventura nel castello": an airplane crash.
<P>
    REWRITE: The revival began in 1995 when Vallarino reopened the
    sipario with "Sfida all'ignoto" (an MS-DOS game with an
    Infocom-like status line) and "Il giardino incantato".  Robero
    Barabino developed a very nice, underrated game: "Alieni per
    sempre", a text adventure with graphics that parodies the TV show
    "Star Trek" and bears structural similarities to "Wonderland" by
    Magnetic Scrolls. One curious coincidence: the first scene of
    "Sfida all'ignoto" is similar to the opening scene of "Avventura
    nel castello": an airplane crash.
<P>
    [What does "sipario" mean?]
<P>
    [I removed "post" from "post-Magnetic Scrolls" because Wonderland
    was an official Magnetic Scrolls game, and involved Anita, Ken,
    and Hugh.]
<P>
But the parser changes with the arrival of Inform (today there don't 
exist games written with Tads or Hugo because of the lack of italian 
libraries). Ilario Nardinocchi finishes the first Inform italian 
libraries, while Luca Melchionna and Barabino write the first Italian 
Inform games: "Zazie" (inspired by the book of Queneau) and "Non sar  
un avventura", a funny game that takes place on a beach full of 
people and girls to catch. The year is 1999. In the meantime, Giovanni 
Riccardi rewrites the Italian libraries, opens an Italian website for 
Inform and translates, for didactical purpouses, "Adventure" and 
"Toyshop". On the scene arrives then Tommaso Caldarola, who writes 
the first game using the libraries of Riccardi: "Uno zombie a 
Deadville", horror splatter winner of the 2001 "Italian adventure of 
the year" (the first edition of the competition, 2000, went to "Non 
sar  un avventura"). A lot of people rediscovered adventures thanks 
to the newsgroup it.comp.giochi.avventure testuali and to the website 
www.ifitalia.cjb.net.
<P>
    REWRITE: The standard parser changed with the arrival of Inform
    (there are no Italian games written with Tads or Hugo because of
    those languages' lack of Italian libraries). Ilario Nardinocchi
    wrote the first Inform Italian libraries, after which Luca
    Melchionna and Barabino wrote the first Italian Inform games:
    "Zazie" (inspired by the book of Queneau) and "Non sar 
    un avventura", a funny game that takes place on a beach full of
    people and girls to catch. Shortly thereafter, Giovanni Riccardi
    rewrote the Italian libraries, opened an Italian website for
    Inform, and translated, for didactical purposes, "Adventure" and
    "Toyshop". Tommaso Caldarola then wrote the first game using
    Riccardi's libraries: "Uno zombie a Deadville", a splatter-horror
    game which won the 2001 "Italian adventure of the year" (the first
    edition of the competition, 2000, went to "Non sar 
    un avventura"). A lot of people rediscovered adventures thanks to
    the newsgroup it.comp.giochi.avventure.testuali and to the website
    www.ifitalia.cjb.net.
<P>
    [When did Ilario write the libraries? What year? Was it in 1999?
    If so, that's where you should mention 1999, not with "The year is
    1999" in the middle of the paragraph.]
<P>
    [Move the first mention of the competition (the 2000 one) up to
    where you first talk about Non sar  un avventura. When you talk
    about that game, mention that it won the first "Italian adventure
    of the year," in 2000, and then mention that "Uno zombie a
    Deadvile" won in 2001.]
<P>
But the parser old style does not vanish forever (and maybe this is a 
good thing, who knows?). Not all Italian authors know english, the 
first hurdle to learning Inform. So other games are released with the 
verb/noun system: the series by Jois (finally a female author!) and 
"Enigma" by Marco Vallarino, both for Ms-Dos. With the revival there 
is, also, an operation nostalgia: "Progetto Lazzaro" 
(www.progettolazzaro.org), a website that hosts the old adventures 
sold in the newsstand, with documentation and news.
<P>
    REWRITE: But the old-style parser hasn't vanished forever - and
    maybe this is a good thing. Not all Italian authors know English,
    the first hurdle to learning Inform. New games using a verb/noun
    parser have been released: the series by Jois (finally a female
    author!) and "Enigma" by Marco Vallarino, both for MS-DOS. With
    the revival there has come an exercise in nostalgia: "Progetto
    Lazzaro" (www.progettolazzaro.org), a website that hosts the old
    newsstand adventures, along with documentation and news.
<P>
    [What's the name of the series by Jois?]
<P>
    [Is the news at Progetto Lazzaro only about newsstand games, or
    about Italian adventures in general?]
<P>
The attraction for the puzzles
Since 1982 authors, parser, and systems have changed, but not 
puzzles, and maybe they'll never change. Italians love puzzles, all 
the Italian adventures are puzzle-oriented and, in the reviews, the 
presence of the puzzles is important to get a high valutation. 
Italians don't have games like Photopia: the idea is that adventures 
are games and games need to be challenging. With or without the 
avveniristic one word parser launched by Enrico Colombini.
<P>
    REWRITE: Since 1982 authors, parsers, and systems have changed,
    but not puzzles. Maybe they'll never change. Italians love
    puzzles: all the Italian adventures are puzzle-oriented and, in
    the reviews, the presence of the puzzles is important to get a
    high valutation.  No Italian has written a game like Photopia: the
    idea is that adventures are games and games need to be
    challenging, with or without the avveniristic one word parser
    launched by Enrico Colombini.
<P>
    [What does "avveniristic" mean?]
<P>
    [The ending is a little abrupt. I'd like a more gentle ending.]
<P>
Francesco Cordella, january/february 2002
(thanks to Enrico Colombini, Bonaventura Di Bello, Marco Vallarino,
Paolo Vece).