One of the most prolific text adventure authors of all time was Bonaventura Di Bello (hereafter referred to as BDB), yet most people from English-speaking countries have never heard of him.
BDB was a machine. He wrote 69 games from May 1986 to December 1987 for the Italian magazines Epic 3000, Explorer, Viking Adventures in Italiano and Load'n'Run. These were written for two, or even three, different computers, so the actual number of games was 160. These games were all written in Italian and have never been translated to English...until now.
In August 2024, I contacted BDB and asked for permission to translate his 37-year-old games to English and bring them up to date for a modern audience. BDB was thrilled to think that people were still interested in his old games and gave me permission to proceed.
I then enlisted the help of Garry Francis and The BDB Project was born. As a team, we have now spent 12 months reverse engineering the games, translating them to English and adapting them to run on a modern platform for a modern audience.
The first three games were quietly released in June 2025 for ParserComp 2025. These were subsequently updated and released with the formal announcement of The BDB Project in October 2025, along with three new games.
The formal announcement can be viewed at intfiction.org: https://intfiction.org/t/announcing-the-bdb-project/77370
The BDB Project aims to adapt all 69 of BDB's original games with an average of one game per month over the next few years. The project's home page is at:
Six games have been published so far. All games can be played online or downloaded to play in your favourite Z-code interpreter. Disk images are also provided to play on selected retro hardware, initially Atari, BBC and Commodore 8-bit and 16-bit systems.
If you have fond memories of text adventures from the golden age of text adventures, or you're curious about the Italian scene in the 1980s or you just want a fun challenge, do yourself a favour and play The BDB Project's adaptations of BDB's classic text adventures.
Bonaventura, Garry, and I hope you enjoy this blast from the past.
Venture into the wild west to rescue your kidnapped wife and daughter from bandits. This is the first entry in the "Kenneth Johnson Trilogy".
Don your marshal's tin star and pursue outlaws through the wild west of Arizona. This is the second game in the "Kenneth Johnson's Trilogy".
Leave your tin star at home and catch outlaws that have crossed the border into Mexico. This is the final game in the "Kenneth Johnson's trilogy".
