A Brief History of Hangman

Going to try something new here. Typically, when the first video game comes out based on a real-world game or concept, I would include a short history of that game/concept within the same article. Here, I'd like to try something different and separate the history of the source from the digital interpretation.

With the Game of Hangman article having just released, the traditional pen-and-paper game of Hangman is a perfectly suitable choice to begin this little foray into the broader world of games. I'll keep the format quite simple on these: origins of the game, the earliest video game attempts, and the state of the game in current day.

Here's one I prepared earlier.

The History of Hand-Drawn Executions

While Hangman is a now-ubiquitous little game played by likely every child who ever attended school over the past 100-120 years, there's no concrete answer on where exactly the game came from. Ah, the historian's worst nightmare: obscure and uncertain origins.

#041: Game of Hangman - Educational Electronic Executions (and A Short Update)

Release Date: July 1973

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)

Genre: Puzzle

Developer(s): Kenneth Aupperle, David H. Ahl

Publisher(s): Digital Equipment Corporation

Out of the gate, this is a somewhat interesting title, as I originally had Game of Hangman slated as a 1970 game. I had mistaken it for another Hangman game on account of the online information being somewhat unclear in distinguishing between the two games. So this article's been hanging in limbo for something like a year, although I've chosen to completely re-write it anyway.

Update: Blog Return and A New Roadmap

It's finally time.

The blog is ready to return in full. The itch to get writing again is getting too strong for me to put it off any longer. Also, seeing that this past month has been the best ever for the blog in terms of views (somehow, despite my absence) also encourages me significantly. While this is still just a hobby for me, I love doing it and combining my love of history and video games together. Seeing even the smallest bit of growth is both validating and gives me the continued motivation to push on.

I've been doing a fair bit of thinking and planning over the last week or so in preparation for my return, and there's going to be a few changes coming in terms of what my content is going to look like going forward.

Major Update: Development on Previously "Lost" Games + Looking to the Future of OGC

I've got some very good news for you all.

During this week off, I started to develop the desire to get back into the blog. I have some new ideas that I want to try out, which you'll see once I release the Game of Hangman article. During the process of working out one of these new ideas, I had a breakthrough. I'd been messing around with a PDP-10 emulator, seeing if I could get an old BASIC game to work, and I was able to get it working after a few hours of working my way through incredibly obscure and opaque information and online forums. Nobody's made any clear documentation about getting these old games to work, which is mightily frustrating. There was a lot of junk to sift through to get the gold nuggets of information I needed. I had looked into old computer emulators a long time ago, but the lack of clear, non-technical documentation kind of scared me off, if I'm being completely honest.

So what? I got an emulator working and played a game on it. Who hasn't? 

#040: Fur Trader - The Ontario Trail

Release Date: July 1973

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)

Genre(s): Management Simulation

Developer(s): Dan G. Bachor

Publisher(s): Digital Equipment Corporation

This week's game is quite a fascinating one. Fur Trader is a historical-educational game of several firsts: the first Canadian-made video game, the first business simulation game... there's also some adventure game characteristics, and aspects reminiscent of The Oregon Trail, which Fur Trader also happens to have an interesting connection to... come join the fur trading expedition!