All,
I just saw this over on dragonflydigest.com:
https://0j2zj3i75g.unbox.ifarchive.org/0j2zj3i75g/Article.html
It's an article from 2007 about the history and genesis of the
Colossal Cave Adventure game - replete with lots of pics. What I
found fascinating was that the game is based on the author's
actual cave explorations vis a vis the real Colossal Cave. Gives
you a whole new appreciation for the game.
My uncle, Richard Zopf, did extensive exploration of Mammoth Cave with Will Crowther. My understanding is that Colossal Cave was truly impressive in its ability to replicate the real situations that the cavers faced, especially given the limitations of the storage and processing abilities of the machines at the time. To my mind this stands well apart from the more rudimentary early computer games which were very math/logic driven vs. the concept of an "open world" exploration.
-Henry