From Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon: 50 Years of Text Games! by Aaron Reed 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the original text-only Oregon Trail, which debuted in a Minnesota classroom in December 1971. Since then games made with words have been everything from the industry-leading bestsellers to underground avant-garde. In 2021, I began a weekly blog series choosing one text game from each of the past 50 years to analyze in depth, a grand tour through a surprisingly broad range of games: from text adventures to BBS door games to hacking simulators to MUDs to audio games to browser-based idle games and more. In this talk I’ll share some favorite anecdotes my research has uncovered, fascinating glimpses at people from all kinds of backgrounds across half a century of computing history, pouring their hearts and souls into making interactive stories built with words. Aaron is a writer and game designer, and game historian focused on helping gamemakers and players tell stories together. He is a multi-time IndieCade and IGF finalist, and has spoken about digital storytelling at venues as diverse as Google, PAX, GaymerX, and WorldCon.