Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of literary genres. Many adventure games (text and graphic) are designed for a single player, since this emphasis on story and character makes multi-player design difficult. "Colossal Cave Adventure" is identified as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include "Zork", "King's Quest", "The Secret of Monkey Island", and "Myst".
History of role-playing games
The first commercially available role-playing game, "Dungeons & Dragons" ("D&D"), was published in 1974 by Gygax's TSR. TSR marketed the game as a niche product. Gygax expected to sell about 50,000 copies. After establishing itself in boutique stores it developed a cult following among college students and SF fandom. The game's growing success spawned cottage industries and a variety of peripheral products. In a few years other fantasy games appeared, some of which blatantly copied the look and feel of the original game. One of the earliest competitors was "Tunnels and Trolls" (1975).