{{Infobox Defunct Company
| company_name = Adventure International
| company_logo =
| slogan =
| location = ?
| fate = bankrupt
| foundation = 1978
| defunct = 1985
| industry = [[video game]] publishing
| key_people = Scott and Alexis Adams
| products = [[Adventureland (computer game)|Adventureland]]
| subsid = [[Adventure Soft]] UK
}}

'''Adventure International''' was a [[video game]] publishing company that existed from 1978 until 1985, started by Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first implementation of the adventure genre to run on a microcomputer system. The adventure game concept originally came from [[Colossal Cave Adventure]] which ran strictly on large mainframe systems at the time.

==History==
After the success of their first game [[Adventureland (computer game)|Adventureland]], games followed rapidly, with Adventure International (or "AI") releasing about two games a year. Initially the games were drawn from the founders imagination, with themes ranging from [[fantasy]] to [[Horror fiction|horror]] and sometimes [[science fiction]]. Some of the later games were written by Scott Adams and other collaborators. Adventure Internationals' games became known for quality, with a reputation only exceeded in the field at the time by [[Infocom]].

Fourteen games later, Adventure International began to release games drawn from film and fiction. The extremely rare Buckaroo Banzai game, developed with Phillip Case, was based on the film [[The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension]] (1984). Other games came from a more well known source: [[Marvel Comics]]. Adventure International released three [[Questprobe]] games based on the Marvel characters: "The Incredible Hulk", "Spider-Man" and "Torch and the Thing".

By the end of 1982, game tastes were changing. The traditional text-based [[adventure game]] market had moved to graphical based adventures. Games like [[The Hobbit (video game)|The Hobbit]] had increased expectations of such games, and although Adventure International games included graphics of a sort, they were significantly inferior to contemporary offerings at the time and the company was rapidly losing [[market share]]. At its peak in late 1983 to early 1984 Adventure International employed approximately 50 individuals, and published titles from over 300 independent programmer/authors.

Adventure International went [[bankruptcy|bankrupt]] in 1985. The [[copyright]]s for its games reverted to the bank and eventually back to Scott Adams who released them as [[shareware]].

In [[Europe]] the "Adventure International" name was a trading name of [[Adventure Soft]] and other games were released under the name that were not from Adventure International in the [[United States|USA]].

==The games==
Scott Adams's original twelve adventure games were:
*[[Adventureland (computer game)|''Adventureland'' (computer game)]]: Explore a fantasy landscape and collect thirteen treasures.
* ''[[Pirate Adventure]]'' (also called ''Pirate's Cove''): Hunt for lost pirate treasure.
* ''Secret Mission'' (originally called ''Mission Impossible''): Prevent terrorists from destroying a [[nuclear reactor]].
* ''[[Voodoo Castle (computer game)|Voodoo Castle]]'': Free a count from a [[voodoo]] curse.
* ''[[The Count (game)|The Count]]'': Kill [[Count Dracula]].
* ''[[Strange Odyssey]]'': Explore strange planets and collect treasure.
* ''[[Mystery Fun House (game)|Mystery Fun House]]'': Capture secret plans hidden in a fun house.
* ''[[Pyramid of Doom]]'': Plunder an Egyptian pyramid.
* ''Ghost Town'': Search a Western [[ghost town]] for treasure.
* ''Savage Island'' parts I & II: The most challenging adventure games, you are not even aware of the adventure's goal. If you complete part one, you are given the password to play the second part.
* ''The Golden Voyage'': Sail the world and find the [[fountain of youth]].

The games were written using an in-house adventure creator with text compression and a sophisticated command interpreter running on a [[BBC Micro]] and a graphics tool running on an [[Apricot Computers|Apricot F1]]. The two parts were then merged, using a cross-compiler when necessary.

===''Saigon: The Final Days''===

A later Adventure International title, ''Saigon: The Final Days'', had as its very dark scenario the escape of a soldier from [[Vietnam]] at the [[Fall of Saigon|end]] of [[Vietnam war|the war]].

A quirk in this game's [[text parser|input parser]] provided an unintentional surprise bit of morbid gameplay. At one point in the game, the player must figure out how to cross a predator-infested river. Entering the command "''confess to [[war crime]]s''" here would not be rejected as gibberish as one might expect, but would actually kill the player. This turned out to not be a planned feature; the parser was finding the command "swim" embedded in the phrase ("confe'''s'''s to '''w'''ar cr'''im'''es"), and swimming across the river was invariably a fatal move.

The actual solution to the game was no less macabre, involving zipping oneself into a [[body bag]] to be carried out of the country by an [[Operation Frequent Wind|evacuation]] helicopter.

==External links==
* [http://dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/Developers_and_Publishers/A/Adventure_International/ Category at Open Directory]
* [http://www.msadams.com/index.htm Scott Adams official website]
* {{WoS pub|id=^Adventure+International$}}

[[Category:Defunct video game companies]]
[[Category:Home computer software companies]]
[[Category:Companies established in 1978]]
[[Category:1985 disestablishments]]

[[es:Adventure International]]