Release Date: 30th of July, 1952
Platform: Ferranti Mark 1
Genre: Board Game, Strategy
Developer(s): Christopher Strachey
Publisher(s):
Time for the first revisit in this reboot series. Although this is slightly different, being that I've now split my articles in two. We're also playing a bit of catch-up here, as I did the video version of this Let's Play two weeks ago (at the time of writing.) But, no matter. The playthrough is still fresh in my mind for... several reasons, which I will now explain.
And yes, I did say playthrough. Last time I covered this game, I was completely unaware that it was possible to play Draughts. Turns out I was wrong, and I'm quite happy to be wrong when it comes to finding out that lost games aren't actually as lost as I first assumed. There exists a Ferranti Mark 1 simulator - part of the SimH cpanel suite of computer simulators that attempt to recreate the experience of using ancient computing technology.
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| Welcome to the Ferranti Mark 1 simulator. |
...and that "recreating" of ancient computers includes all the trappings of outdated technology.
The Ferranti Mark 1, while bearing some minor resemblance to a modern computer, is a very different beast compared to said computers. For one, there isn't a keyboard. Computers just didn't work like that back in the 1950s. Instead, we've got an array of switches, knobs, and levers - many of which with seemingly random sequences of letters attached to them. Figuring out what any of these things do is beyond the scope of my purposes.
Mind you, just figuring out what I needed to do to get a game of Draughts going might as well have been enough to award me an honorary PhD in Computer Science. First off, there's hardly any documentation around explaining how to play Draughts. There's one online source I could find, and it's not exactly the clearest, and the operation of the simulator both automates and contradicts some of the steps outlined within. It's from an online publication called "RESURRECTION," the "Bulletin of the Computer Preservation Society." The article in question is from Issue No. 60, from Winter. 2012/13, entitled "Programming ENTER: Christopher Strachey's Draughts Program", by David Link.
When opening up the game, both the GUI and a command line interface open. The CLI replaces the teletype printer that would print out information regarding the game state on - yes, printed out on actual paper. Who needs text on the screen, anyway? To get a game of Draughts going (once the lengthy process of loading the game was completed), you are first prompted to read the "instruction card" for the game, then pull the switch labelled "KAC". We don't have this lying around anymore, so the simulator just automates this process.
Secondly, the game asks you to do a coin toss. It assumes you have a real coin lying around. The computer will call, and then ask you if it won or not. Obviously, there is no way for the clanker to check if you're lying. This is where things get really hazy concerning Link's instructions. It says - and I quote - that,
"The user let the program know via a switch and KAC if it had won or not to determine who had the right to start the game."
That's great... but what switch??? There's only about 60 of them on the machine... I got stuck here for a long time. I thought that maybe the simulator would just let me hit KAC to indicate that I won, and I could continue with a game.
But, no. Doing that causes the game to freeze. Reload the entire program. This happened over and over again. I kid you not, I tried just about every switch and button the simulator would let me press to see if that was the one that would get me pass the bloody coin toss of all things.
The odd thing was, that sometimes the game would start, but I couldn't figure out why. I probably played around with his, banging my head against the wall, for a good hour before I stumbled across the solution to get the game progressing.
The solution? Nothing. You do... absolutely nothing. And the game just... goes by itself.
Visually, we have an array of CRTs - six in total. Two of these are used by Draughts to display the game board. The right CRT (circled blue in the below image) is the one you want to pay attention to, as that displays the current state of the board, and previews what your selected next move will look like. The left (circled red) CRT displays the state of the board from the previous move. According to Link's article, you can apparently cancel your selected move with a specific sequence. I wasn't aware of this during my playthrough, though I doubt I would've been brave enough to try it. The game is already fragile enough.
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| Encircled CRTs are the game displays. Microscope sold separately. |
Speaking of... once I actually got the game to go, there was an overwhelming sense of treading through a minefield pervading my entire playthrough. Previous attempts at playing the game, once I got pass coin-toss jail, were all promptly ended by some various glitch or other occurrence that the computer didn't like. If you don't input your move correctly, the game crashes. If you pull any switches during the computer's thinking phase, the game crashes. If you wait too long to make a move, or make too many mistakes the game gets progressively more and more annoyed at you until it quite literally gives up and tells you to go away. And the game crashes itself. It says, "I REFUSE TO WASTE ANY MORE TIME. GO AND PLAY WITH A HUMAN BEING." Savage. Absolutely savage.
I think playing a human being would be more of a challenge, though. Mercifully, I was able to beat Draughts on my first successful full game. The competency of the computer is roughly equivalent to the Checkers game I played prior to the reboot, but perhaps slightly better - more adept at wasting time, at least. I say "mercifully" because the full game took over an hour to complete. It takes so long simply because the computer has a lot of thinking to do. By my measure, it takes the computer between 10 - 30 seconds to ponder and select its next move. It goes quicker than that when it has the opportunity to capture a piece.
Now, how does the player move his pieces in this game? You'll see on the simulated machine two rows of colourful switches - only the top row of the two is used for Draughts. This also caught me out in figuring out the game, as Link's article does provide a useful visual reference for the controls, but it's not explained terribly well. I initially thought that both rows of switches were used, but this is not the case - it's only the top row.
I'll try to provide as simple an explanation as I can, with Link's visual references, and screenshots from my video.
As is standard in real Checkers, each of the playable squares has a number assigned to it. In Strachey's Draughts, the top-leftmost square is assigned 0, and increased moving left-to-right, top-to-bottom, so that the final square in the bottom left is assigned 31.
The switches are used to select the numerical position of the squares the player wants to move a piece from, to, and capture. The left-most switches (yellow) represent the tens column from left to right (0 1 2 3 - since we only go up to 3, the last yellow switch is ignored.)
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The next ten (red and cyan) are used for the ones column (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9).
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To make a basic move such as 21-17, for example (my first move in the video), you must flip the 2 tens switch and the 1 ones switch, then flip KAC. You then reset the switches, and select the second number in like fashion, and flip KAC again. Then reset the switches, and press KAC a third time for the game to preview your move, updating the right screen. Flip KAC a fourth time to confirm the move, and the screen will change to a garbled-looking mess while the computer decides its move.
Once you start wanting to capture pieces is where things get a little bit more complicated. The same control scheme applies, but the sequencing changes. You still select the piece you want to move first, but the second number you select must be the space your piece will land on after it captures. You then have to input a third number, which is the space you are capturing. Then you can reset the switches, and confirm your move. The same applies for double and triple captures - but you have to input each piece being captured before fully confirming the move. You can see a successful triple capture in my video.
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| These are the inputs to make a move of 23-14(18) |
Once you've got all that down... hey presto! You can now play a game of Draughts.
Actually, there is one more thing... this game does have some glitches. As if it couldn't get any worse. I encountered a bug where the game gave me more pieces on field after inputting a move. At least it helps me? I don't know what caused this bug, as it occurred during the course of normal gameplay, but the command prompt suggested that the game read that glitched move as 63-63.
So, there we go. Laborious gameplay, instability and glitches. I bet this will go down well in the scores...
Scores
Difficulty: 3 (Easy)
The real challenge of Draughts is figuring out how to actually play the damn game. The AI itself was not to hard to beat, but wasted my time considerably during the endgame phase.
Gameplay: 3
By it's very nature, Checkers is a more interesting game than, say, Nim. So Draughts, by default, gets a higher gameplay score than Nimrod simply because the core game has much more depth in it.
That's not to say anything of the actual experience of playing Strachey's Draughts, which is quite miserable. That'll be reflected in the other, experiential scores.
Controls: 2
Ugh... the controls were a real nightmare to learn. It doesn't help that the available literature is somewhat vague in describing the control scheme, and it took me over an hour to discover exactly how the game was meant to play. Setting up moves is quite an arduous task, and an incorrect input can cause the game to either skip your move, or will crash the game entirely.
Sound: N/A
Visual: 2
It's got real computer graphics! It's just a grid of green noughts and crosses, but that counts for something. The display itself is very small on the simulator, however. Actually seeing what I was doing wasn't the easiest.
Story: N/A
Functionality: 2
There are a few issues with Draughts' functionality - most surround how precise you need to be with your inputs. Do one thing out of order, and the game breaks. But, even if you do things right, the game still might do something unexpected... like give the player extra pieces. The game is playable, but there's a sense of walking on eggshells throughout.
Accessibility: 1
This seems like a given to me. Antiquated, temperamental hardware, vague documentation and cumbersome controls make for a game that is highly inaccessible. At least most of us know how to play Checkers.
Fun Factor: 1
Ugh... this was a mighty slog of a game to play. My recorded playthrough was about an hour long, and at least half of that time was spent between fiddling with the temperamental controls, and waiting for the game to decided its move. I do enjoy Checkers itself as a board game, and Strachey's Draughts at least retains some of that strategic enjoyment for me, but there's just too much effort required to play this game.
Overall: 11/80 (Weighted 13.75)
I was not expecting a score this bad for Draughts coming into experiencing this game. But, between the absolute awfulness of getting the game to run, figuring out how to play it, and the snail's pace gameplay, a score of 11 (weighted to 13.75) checks out. Obviously, this puts Draughts on the bottom of the tier list - and I don't anticipate playing a game as bad as this for a while (but I could always be surprised...) So it might be stuck there for some time.
In hindsight, I may have been right to split these articles in two. According to Obsidian, I've written over 2,100 words for Draughts' gameplay alone. I've written university papers shorter than that.
Finally, I'll be leaving the video Let's Play at the bottom of the page for these articles going forward, in case you'd like to see the molasses nightmare that is playing Draughts. Remember earlier how I said that this game took over an hour to complete? Look at the timestamp. Roughly half of that footage was either myself or the computer thinking, which was edited out for your convenience. If, however, you are a glutton for punishment, I will be putting the full, uncut edition up on Patreon for supporters there.
(If you're wondering why there's a numbering discrepancy, it's because Bertie the Brain did not receive a Let's Play video.)
Next up: Bouncing Ball