Let's Play (012): Dartmouth Championship Football: Text-Based Touchdown

Release Date: Spring, 1965

Platform: GE-325, PDP-10

Genre: Sports

Developer(s): John G. Kemeny

Publisher(s): DECUS

Continuing our venture into the early days of BASIC games, we now return to a familiar old friend: 101 BASIC Computer Games. Since this is the first appearance of the book post-reboot, it warrants an introduction for those unfamiliar.

101 BASIC Computer Games is a compilation of type-in BASIC games and software, originally collated by David H. Ahl and his colleagues in at Digital Equipment Corporation, makers of the PDP line of computer systems. These programs were a mixture of titles written/edited by Ahl and others at DEC, and user-submitted programs. The original edition was published first in 1973 - a time prior to the microcomputer revolution, meaning that access to these games remained rather limited. After said revolution began circa 1977, Ahl, now leading his own organisation, Creative Computing, decided to update the book (he bought the rights to the book after leaving DEC) for the versions of BASIC native to home computers such as the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore PET. Not every program from the former version of the book survived the update - some were replaced with newer games released in the intervening years. This "microcomputer edition" of the book is the most well-known version of 101 BASIC Computer Games. Ahl would follow it up with sequels, like More BASIC Computer Games and Big Computer Games.

Hello, old friend.

All of these books' programs were included in "type-in" format. That means that you got the pleasure of painstakingly typing in every line of the program into your own computer (or likely one of your school's) - without making any mistakes, of course. Fortunately, I don't have to do this (mostly - more on that later), as there exists a convenient package of these games, downloadable free of charge. The Vintage BASIC software compilation contains all programs from the Microcomputer edition of 101 BASIC Computer Games as executable files, and is completely free to download.

Alternatively, these games also exist in browser-based form on the Internet Archive. I recall that as being my method of playing Dartmouth Championship Football in former times. The Archive's port includes a "modern" version that reformats the entire game and adds colour. Being obsessed with authenticity, I'm not particularly interested in novel updates like that. The main trouble with the Archive version is that you can't scroll up the screen to review events, making Vintage BASIC the best way to play Dartmouth Championship Football.

Observant readers will notice that I'm pulling from the microcomputer edition of 101 BASIC Computer Games for Dartmouth Championship Football. That's simply because it isn't in the original edition of the book. Sure, it has two football games in it, but neither of them are John Kemeny's first ever American Football game - yes, BASIC creator John G. Kemeny also programmed this game, on top of already doing PDP-10 World Series which we looked at last time. Kemeny's game replaces a DEC football game in the microcomputer edition of the book.

Bring on the Showdown.

In a spot of good news, Dartmouth Championship Football is significantly more interactive than Kemeny's previous effort. Enough for me to actually classify this as a game! Immediately, the scene is set with you being given charge of quarterbacking Dartmouth. I assume that's the same thing as captaincy in any other sport? I confess to being rather ignorant of American Football parlance.

You are set against an opposition of your choosing. I chose to go with an opponent that hits a little closer to home. South Australia has a major football rivalry in our national code between Port Adelaide and the Adelaide Crows, colloquially referred to as the "Showdown." I'm on the Port Adelaide side of this rivalry, and as such my opponent here shall be the Crows.

Once your opponent is selected, the coin toss takes place to determine who kicks first. The game then automatically plays out the sequence of events that follows until your team has the ball. You are only ever in control of the offense in this game, and you have a selection of seven plays to choose from: simple run, tricky run, short pass, long pass, punt, quick kick and place kick.

Routine gameplay.

That seems like a decent choice of strategies to choose from - but, hold on - it's not that simple. Let's break it down a little. Firstly, place kick is functionally useless for distance gain, but it can be very useful in what feels rather exploitative. If you're on your last down, you can go for a place kick to reset your downs. I discovered that it can be blocked, however, so that use appears to have been accounted for. The other kicks generally provide no benefit to the player - usually handing the ball over to the opposition doesn't work in your favour to begin with.

That leaves us with four options - the two passes and two kicks. And... how they work is anyone's guess. MobyGames' page on the game suggests that outcomes are based entirely on random chance. I believe it. Having tested the game plenty, I've come to the conclusion that it makes no material difference what play you choose - the only seemingly strategic decision of value is place kicking on down 4 to reset the counter.

Hey, look - something happened!

As for my showdown against the Crows... I lost. But, not by much. In fact, I was in front for much of the game, scores at 7-6 after my team's touchdown and successful conversion. Unfortunately, we got pipped right at the post, with the Crows scoring an untimely safety, resulting in Dartmouth losing 7-8. I'm not overly fussed about trying to get a win - it's not exactly up to my brilliant strategising to engineer a win, is it?

We're the pride of South Australia~

A final point worth mentioning is the possibility of this game containing the very first "Easter Egg" in video game history - depending on your definition of the term, of course. There's a low chance, during the course of the game, that a line of text will appear, reading,

"GAME DELAYED. DOG ON FIELD."

It adds absolutely zero to the gameplay, but adds absolutely everything to the experience.

A furry easter egg.

Scores

Time Played: 15 minutes

Difficulty: 0 (RNG)

Gameplay: 2
While there is some semblance of gameplay here, it's ultimately an "illusion of choice." Get ready to hear that phrase a lot more going forward, as several more upcoming games suffer from it. It does generate some interest in what's happening on screen, combined with the variance possible in the random outcomes. More than can be said for something like OXO. Like has been said before, the only genuine strategic decision is to place kick on the last down for a chance at resetting the counter. For everything else, you might as well be playing the lottery.

Controls: 5
Very standard and simple for an early text-based game.

Sound: N/A

Visual: 1
Words on a screen. Not formatted in any ingenious manner, either.

Story: N/A

Functionality: 5
Everything appears to work as intended, free points.

Accessibility: 3
Giving my standard score here. It would be lower if an understanding of the real sport was actually necessary, but that turns out to be completely irrelevant.

Fun Factor: 2
There's something life-draining about knowing that you cannot influence the outcome of the game, no matter what choices you make. There is still, at least, a tiny drip of excitement to be found in observing the outcome of a game, and at least being able to make choices.

Overall: 18
All this earns Dartmouth Championship Football a weighted score of 22.5, and a low finish on the ladder, in the E tier. While it's avoided joining the leagues of the basement dwellers, it will not be progressing to the playoffs, unfortunately.

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Up Next: Bingo

Let's Play (011) - The PDP-10 Timesharing World Series: BASIC Baseball Beginnings

Release Date: 1965 (Revised January 13 and June 30, 1965)

Platform: PDP-10

Genre: Sports

Developer(s): John G. Kemeny, Keith Bellairs

Publisher(s):

Try saying that title five times quickly.

This is likely to be another shorter article, as the "game" being played has little of value to discuss - there's more to be said for what it represents. I put the word "game" in quotation marks, as The PDP-10 Timesharing World Series (henceforth to be referred to as PDP World Series) is, in fact, not a game.

Oh - they're letting me "throw the first ball." How generous.

What it is can only be described as a "seed generator." What I mean is that, PDP World Series implores you to choose a number between 1 and 1,000. This number is the seed that the program will then use to print out a simulated game of baseball between the Dodgers and Yankees. The game any given number spits out is exactly the same every single time, hence the use of the term "seed."

And that's essentially it as far as PDP World Series goes as a program. The seed input is literally the only input the user has - you then merely sit back and watch as the game unfolds. Ergo, not a game. Some potential amusement can be generated with some of the absurd situations the program could spit out - apparently seed 234 is a good one.

A couple of adventurous innings here. Cricket's still better.

On that note, one thing that has some draw to me, however, is doing a full statistical analysis of all 1,000 seeds. Probably only something that would appeal to my obsessive tendencies, but I'm likely to undertake such a pointless task anyway. All in the name of content.

By way of a friendly PSA - if for some unknown reason you want to try out this program - it runs via DOSbox, and you'll need to adjust the cycle settings to make the game run at a legible speed. On default settings, the print out of the game will whizz by you before you've blinked, so dropping the cycle speed to about 50-60 will see the program run at a digestible speed.

The single biggest innings I saw from the first 10 seeds.

Worth far more consideration is what PDP World Series represents moving forward in the gaming timeline. This is one of the first - potentially the first - "game" program written with the BASIC programming language. BASIC is a seminal programming language that henceforth will open the floodgates of video game development, especially come the microcomputer revolution of the late 1970s.

Of course, we've seen more than a glimpse of the floodwaters pre-reboot with both David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games books, and the People's Computer Company magazine both offering a wide variety of games & software written in BASIC to both play and learn programming through. And yes, I do intend to go back through every single one again.

I do intend to do a full research article on the creation of BASIC, so I'll withhold from further discussion of it and its creators here. It's safe to say, though, that advancement in game design will happen very quickly from here.

Seeing as this isn't a game, there will be no scores given.

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Up Next: Dartmouth Championship Football