#029 - Awari: Mainframe Mancala

Release Date: July 1973

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)

Genre: Board Game

Developer(s): Geoff Wyvill

Publisher(s): Digital Equipment Corporation

Sorry that it's been a while since the last article. I haven't had the best of times since then, and I think I've experienced significant burn-out. I don't want to go into more detail than that, as I prefer to keep personal matters just that - personal. Just know that the blog has still been on my mind, but with all that's happened recently, I just haven't had the energy to work on it until now. I have a couple of weeks off of work, and some of that time and energy I'll direct towards getting back into the blog.

Now, on with the show.

It's fascinating how some of the world's most well-known and popular board games have ancient roots. Chess has been around for centuries, and Backgammon for millennia. Another ancient game still played today is Mancala. It's a board game with many, many regional variations played all across the world. One of the more modern variants is called Kalah. This version was created in the USA back in the 1950s.

If you've ever seen a game board like this, you've played Mancala. Source: https://www.thesprucecrafts.com

The basic objective of Mancala and all its variants is that two players compete on a special board to collect more stones (or seeds) than the other. Each player has six "houses" on their side of the board, which are circular indentations, with two larger elliptical indentations on the edges, called "stores". Players take turns "sowing" their stones into their houses and, based on the variant rules, players can capture their opponents stones. In Kalah specifically, a player can capture the stones in the house immediately opposite if their last stone is sown in an empty house. They also can get an extra move if the last stone lands in their store. The game ends when one player runs out of stones.

Why am I bringing all this up? And why am I talking about Kalah specifically? Well, that's what today's game is about. Awari is a digital, text-based implementation of the Kalah variant of Mancala. It's a bit odd that's it's named Awari, which is an alternative name for Oware, the variant played across Africa and the Caribbean, which has very different rules from Kalah. 101 BASIC Games ('78 edition) even describes Awari as "an ancient African game," despite using the Kalah rules. I did read up on those rules, but I'll be honest in saying that I really don't understand them at all. Oware is far more complex than Kalah. Perhaps just because I'm more of a visual/doing learner, simply reading the rules often doesn't get the point across to me. All that to say that I won't be explaining the rule differences between Kalah and Oware here because I don't understand them.

Technically, this isn't Awari, nor is it ancient (unless you think the 1950s are "ancient.")

Now, Kalah also made its way from the United States over to the United Kingdom, which is important because that's where Awari was created. It's the first British-made game that's appeared for quite some time, too. The most recent one on my Master List prior to Awari is a missing version of Bulls & Cows called Moo, from 1968. The last British game I actually wrote about is the second game ever made - OXO, from 1952! That was in only my second-ever article from March last year!

Awari's location can be further centred, courtesy of the information provided in 101 BASIC Computer Games. Bradford University is Awari's origin point, up north in Yorkshire, England. A single individual authored the game, that being Geoff Wyvill. Awari is the first of his games we've come across; he has a couple more games on my list, and even his brother, Brian, has one. Wyvill's information is surprisingly easy to come across online, as he's currently Professor Emeritus of the University of Otago's (that's in New Zealand, for those who don't know) School of Computing. During his time at Bradford, he earned a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, and also possesses a BA in Physics from Oxford. Wyvill notes on his self-maintained website that he completed his PhD in 1978, and - given his majoring in AI - it's likely that Awari, featuring a computer opponent, was developed as part of his studies.

Wyvill's attempt at explaining the rules, part 1.

I came at this game with a bit of trepidation, as I wasn't fully understanding how the game worked from the explanation given in 101 BASIC Games. Once I played a full round, though, the general game flow began to clear up for me. 

Part 2. I think my explanation is better. But I'm biased, after all.

It goes like this - you have the field set up as standard for Mancala and all its variants: 3 stones (apparently 4 is the standard, according to Wikipedia) in each of the 6 pits for each player. Each turn, the player will select which pit they want to sow from. The stones from that pit will then be sown, one stone per pit, in a counter-clockwise direction from the selected pit. The selected pit is left empty, a stone is not sown in it. If the last stone sown lands in the player's store (in-game called "home"), then they get another turn.

For taking stones, the way that works is that, if the last stone is sown in an empty pit, then it and all the stones from the pit opposite it are taken an placed in the player's home. Once a stone is in the player's home, it cannot be removed. This loop continues until one player has no more stones on their side of the board, and whoever has the most stones in their home at that stage wins. Part of the reason I write out an explanation is to try and explain the game to myself in a way that makes sense to me. Hopefully it also makes sense to you.

As for how you select a pit in game, this is rather simple. Each pit on your side is numbered from 1-6, in that order, just like on your keyboard. That actually makes it really easy to remember which pit is which.

No instructions. Figure it out yourself. Ouch.

I didn't record my first attempt at Awari, as I just wanted to get to grips with the rules before I had a proper go at it. Wyvill was quite merciless to the new player, bucking the usual trend and providing no in-game instructions. For a game like this, it could really use them, too. Somehow, despite having no idea what I was doing, I won this first attempt, 15-14. The only strategic idea I had was to get two moves at the start, and then I just winged it after that.

My thoughts regarding strategy after that were that it seemed to make sense to try and keep my number of stones per pit low, and to sow the pits closer to my home first, giving me options to take stones and react to whatever the computer does. I know there's a "mathematical best" way to win, like with Nim variants, but I preferred to remain unspoiled on that for now. I think it's more rewarding in most cases to figure out strategies on my own. Also like Nim, the player going first is at an advantage, and can be unbeatable if they know what they're doing.

Action shot. It's hard to do play-by-play commentary for Awari.

The second game was far more enjoying and satisfying, having had more clarity around my strategy. I found a useful ploy to build up to 3 stones in pit 5, all of which could be claimed in one turn thanks to how the game rules work. I used that several times through the game, and ended up winning the round 19-15, after several sharp swings and lead changes.

Victory. You can also sort-of-see my pit 5 strategy at work.

Apparently, according to Wyvill, the computer is designed to learn to play better as you go on. This does appear to be the case, as I played several games in a row to test, and that ended up with a 2-2 draw, with the computer beating me by 1 point, then soundly by 9, only for me to learn and come back to throttle him by 10 in the last game. All that's included in the video up top. I think near the end I realised that it's important to not only count your own moves, but what your opponent might do in response. Focusing on getting double moves and blocking let me have such a strong win in that last game.

And with that, let's move onto the scores.

Time Played: 20 minutes

Difficulty: 4 (Mild)

This is one of the simpler variants of Mancala, after all. The computer also evidently isn't too hard to beat, as I beat him having no earthly idea what I was doing. The computer does learn and get more difficult to beat with each passing game, though in my experience it didn't become overbearingly challenging.

Gameplay: 5

Awari is decent in the sense that it retains all the distinctives of Kalah. I wouldn't say it's a terribly in-depth game, but there's a small amount of strategic depth available. One has to consider not only their own moves, but their opponent's, and there's also limited opportunities to work both offensively and defensively, with the extra move being an incentive and a tool for further strategic play.

Controls: 6

It's set up quite nicely, having the pits' numbers lined up the same as a regular keyboard. Makes easy remembering which pit is which.

Visual: 2

I'll give Awari a point for having a fairly clear representation of a Mancala game board.

Functionality: 5

I didn't run into any technical issues.

Accessibility: 2

I must confess, I did procrastinate a little on playing Awari, as I felt confused and put off by the written explanations of the game rules. Didn't make a whole lot of sense, and made approaching the game challenging.

Fun Factor: 5

My subjective thoughts don't stray too far from the gameplay score on this one. I feel kind of indifferent about it, despite there being some strategic depth to enjoy. The computer's learning to play better is an incentive to keep trying, but it's limited in its appeal. I think in this case playing the real thing is preferred.

Tallying up the numbers gives Awari a total of 25. It's a higher E-tier finish, which I think is adequately representative of my thoughts. It's a decent go at making a digital version of a classic board game for the time. "For the time" being the key phrase there. It's still very, very primitive and limited in what it can offer. For reference, as of this article Awari is in 19th spot on the Tier List.

Next time we take to the skies and help with the war effort by blowing stuff up. Sounds like good fun!

Question of the day: Here's something fun for this article. Do you have a version of this game where you live? Have you played it? If so, let us know in the comments how it differs from what I played here.

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#028 - Acey Deucy, or Whatever You Want to Call It

Release Date: July 1973

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)

Genre: Card Game

Developer(s): Bill Palmby

Publisher(s): Digital Equipment Corporation

We're back to the simple text games after foraying into some more complex ideas in Drag and Taxman. Also a good way for me to get back into the swing of blog writing.

First thing when dealing with Acey Deucy (also spelled Acey Deucey) is defining which Acey Deucy we're talking about. There's two different games that share the name - one is a variant of the board game Backgammon, the other is a card game. This game is based on the card game, which is also commonly called In-Between. It also has a host of other names, including but not limited to Between the Sheets, Maverick and Red Dog. Why it has so many names - many of which make little sense - is beyond me.

The rules at least make the names In-Between and Between the Sheets self-evident. The dealer will deal players a hand of two cards, left face up. The dealer will then give a third card. Players can choose to place a bet if they believe that the third card will be in between the first two cards. If it's in between, they win. If it isn't, they lose. Simple, eh? However, if the third card is the same as one of the first two, then the player loses double their bet. These are the basic rules - there are others, but I won't go into them now.

The cards are ordered in rank, with 2 being the lowest, and Ace being the highest. This is apparently where the name Acey Deucy comes in, as receiving a hand of A-2 is the best possible hand. The only way to lose with this hand is if the third card is another Ace or 2.

Our computer implementation of Acey Deucy for this article comes from Bill Palmby, a high school student who attended the Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Prairie View, Illinois. There's another Acey Deucey (spelled that way) from 1973, from Andrea Barsh and Duff Kirkland, which was written for one of the UNIVAC systems. Unsurprisingly, due to its platform, that one is lost to us. Palmby's is not, however, as it was written in BASIC, and included in David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games. Palmby's game doesn't have a release date online, but July 1973 makes the most sense, as that's when the first edition of Ahl's book released. 

Acey Deucy from the Microcomputer edition of the book.

As for Palmby himself, unfortunately there is no information about him I could find anywhere. This is his only game credit according to MobyGames, and searching for him online only leads to the game he authored, or other people sharing his name.

The only question left to ask now is how Palmby went about putting this card game into digitised form. A helpful reader noted on my article on War that that game didn't translate all the rules of the card game over, which is why I went over the proper rules of Acey Deucy at the start of the article. I want to make sure I know what the card game is supposed to be before looking at a video game interpretation of it.

Amusingly, the first thing I noticed was that the game title is misspelled. It says Acey-Ducey. Whoops. Not off to a great start, there. The original edition of 101 BASIC Games also makes this error.

It's the only typo, at least.

Anyway, the game is as I suspected it might be - a pared back interpretation of the card game, with most of the rules not implemented. The rules present are only the most basic of Acey Deucy: if the third card is in between the two in your had, you win; if it's the same as one of the cards or not in between, you lose. You don't lose double your bet if it's the same. Other nuances, like what happens if you're handed two aces, are not included, either. That's a rule where the two aces are split into two different hands, with extra cards drawn to make them up, and you choose which hand to bet on. I don't think Palmby's game can have two of the same card appear.

This is the game. All of it.

I played for about three minutes all up, according to my OBS timer. This is one of those games that can almost be boiled down to being an RNG simulator, along with the likes of War and Slots. At least this, unlike War, has some player agency, as you can choose whether to bet on your hand or not. My quick search online to learn the rules for Acey Deucy recommended passing if there weren't at least a gap of 8 between the cards in your hand. Mind you, that never prevents the game from screwing you. I got an Acey Deucy at one point, and the game drew another ace as the third card and I lost. Predicably, I put a significant bet on that hand. Luck of the draw, eh? I'm not a gambler - never have been, especially in my video games. I prefer certainty over unpredictability, or at least a way to plan around bad luck.

The dealer rigged that one, I'm sure of it.

You can keep going for as long as you like with this game - you can't break the bank, so the only way for the game to end is if you go bust. Or just turn it off, whichever happens faster. The latter occurred for me. I can't really see you going bust unless you intentionally try to, or get horrifically unlucky.

This game's not going to get unlucky with it's scores - it'll go bust by its own efforts.

Time Played: 5 minutes

Difficulty: N/A

I can't give a difficulty score, as Acey Deucy is inherently an RNG-based game.

Gameplay: 1

As much as I wanted to give it a zero, I can't, because the player does have the tiniest bit of agency. There's one choice you can make - whether to bet or not, and there is the most basic of basic strategy surrounding that choice.

Controls: 5

No issues with controls, it's all standard for text-games.

Visual: 1

It's as plain and basic as a text-based game could possibly be. I'm not docking points for the typo.

Functionality: 5

There's very little that can go wrong with such a tiny game.

Accessibility: 3

Pretty much the same as most every other text-based game I've played so far. It's inherently less-accessible for being a text game, although this one has less text, which theoretically makes it easier to get into.

Fun Factor: 0

I can give it a zero for fun, though! Shouldn't be much of a surprise here. I kind of mindlessly drifted through playing the game. It's a pretty pointless one, and doesn't even include all the rules, which could've made it slightly more interesting. Slightly.

So it's not quite bust for Acey Deucy... but's it's leaving with a hefty dent in its wallet - a pitiful score of 15, the same as Horserace down at the bottom of the F-tier. Yeah, it's that bad. Though, "bad" is not necessarily the word to use, as there's not much wrong with Acey Deucy... there just isn't much of any merit-worthy substance. It's just a basic simulation of a basic card gambling game. That being said, I like it more than Horserace, so that's that tiebreaker decided. I hate Horserace. Acey Deucy is just more of a nothing-burger, landing itself in 41st place currently. That's out of 45 games on the tier list so far, for reference, making Acey Deucy one of the worst games reviewed thus far.

Next time, we move from a card game that has several different names, to a board game that has several different names.

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#027x - Gotcha: One Controversy, Coming Right Up

Release Date: October, 1973

Platform: Arcade

Genre: Maze

Developer(s): Atari

Publisher(s): Atari

Alrighty, finally I'm back from my break. It feels like quite an awfully long time, even though it's much shorter than previous breaks I've had. Probably because it wasn't that much of a break - I was sick for the entirety of my holiday and am still having some health issues. Anyway, that's enough about me - on to today's topic.

Now, who's ready for some controversy?

Video games have had no shortage of controversies over the medium's lifetime (it seems like there's more controversy than ever in current day.) But, there always has to be a first one, and I'm fairly sure this is it. A rather minor controversy in the grand scheme of video game controversies, to be sure, but it shows that developers were interested in doing some rather silly things with their games that would get them into trouble, even in these formative years.

Atari tended to be right at the forefront of most controversies early on in the industry's life. Lawsuits about copying Pong, terrible movie tie-in games, and Pac-Man. All with Atari at centre stage. It's been well-documented that there was a culture of excess at early Atari, including significant drug use (this has been admitted by staff,) which does provide a suitable explanation for some of the odd decision making at Atari. 

Those above controversies occur much later in Atari's life. In 1973 was their first flirt with danger, coming in the form of Gotcha. Gotcha appears to have been born out of Atari's frustration with the voluminous Pong clones dominating the video game market throughout 1973. Despite being the originators of the idea, Atari only had roughly 10% of the market that year. Patents were filed to stop the clones, but came too late to have any effect. By 1974 most of the Pong clones were falling out of popularity anyway, thanks in part to Magnavox's Odyssey lawsuits, and probably in part to oversaturation. Atari were then able to get more of a foothold, as those lawsuits put many of their competitors out of business, but benefitted them quite nicely.

A flyer featuring Atari's 1972-73 selection of games.

Atari's alternative solution to combat the Pong clones was to branch out from ball-and-paddle games. They already had done Pong Doubles as a sequel, and did Quadrapong through their sneaky fake competitor / subsidiary, Kee Games (a story for later.) Space Race, which I've already covered, falls into the same category as Gotcha, in being an alternative to Pong-style games, although it was also intended to fulfill a contract preceding Pong's creation. Gotcha, only Atari's fourth game, had no such contract needing to be fulfilled, and thus Atari were completely free to design the game as they pleased.

Once again, Al Alcorn was the chief designer for the game. The story goes that he was inspired by an error he saw occasionally in some Pong boards. This error in the circuit board would cause glitched numbers to appear all over the screen. In his eyes, the numbers created maze-like patterns, and so he modified what was a bug into a feature - not a first time occurrence at Atari. Alcorn made the numbers move, creating a moving maze, with pathways constantly opening and closing. Added to this were two characters, a chaser and chased, and Atari had Gotcha. The prototype design was finalised by Cyan Engineering's Steve Mayer, a recent acquisition of Atari that'll play a very important role in the company's future.

Gotta sell it somehow, right?

Now this all seems relatively innocuous and non-controversial, and you'd be right about that. So where does the trouble come in? Well, it's not with the game itself, but rather the... unique cabinet that was designed for it. The design was done by a fellow by the name of George Faraco, who was at the time Atari's "product designer." There seems to be come conjecture at this point, but the story goes that either he, or someone else at Atari, had their mind firmly stuck in the gutter and thought that it would be funny if they had Gotcha use a "feminine" control scheme to contrast with the more "masculine" scheme of a joystick.

As a result, the first design of the Gotcha cabinet included as a controller a large pink/purple half-sphere. One looking at this controller can very easily make out what it was meant to represent, and as such Gotcha earned itself an infamous nickname - the "boob game."

The offending article.

Adding to the controversy was the game's marketing. There's an infamous flyer featuring a man grabbing a woman who appears to be wearing a short dress with the appearance of a night gown. Alongside it is the cabinet with two of the pink controllers front-and-centre. What exactly Atari was trying to communicate here is anyone's guess. Were they trying to market Gotcha as a more "adult" game? Or just playing off of the suggestive controllers with the subtlety of an atomic bomb?

There are so many questions with this flyer.

Regardless, Gotcha wasn't a very popular game. It was received poorly, and it sales weren't all that positive, either. Ralph Baer has it listed as selling 3,000 units. Of those 3,000 units, the majority ended up not using the controversial controllers, instead replacing them with cheaper, more conventional joysticks.

Non-pink cabinet.

One more noteworthy thing to mention with Gotcha is that it's also the first game that experimented with true colour. Most arcade games through the early 70s that wanted colour did so through the use of cellophane overlays - the colour did not actually come from the game itself. Gotcha, however, actually had a true colour version produced, and is likely the first colour arcade game ever produced. It's quite rare, but cabinets of it do still exist in the wild. Back in 2016, a collector named Ed Fries acquired a PCB of colour Gotcha, restoring it to working order.

A quick word on the game itself. I did play it for the article, although I won't be scoring it. It's a fine little maze chase game that has some merit from the constantly changing maze. I could see it being fun. The sound is quite obnoxious, though. My thinking is that it could've potentially been more successful without the whole "boob game" thing hanging over it like a bad smell, and if its release were delayed till after the Pong craze ended in 1974.

Getting back into the process after the illness/holiday has been rough. Lots of work and lots of fatigue has been taking a lot out of me. So apologies if this article feels a little short and dry. There should be some more regularity come next week, and hopefully I'll be back to two articles a week then.

#027 - Drag: Perfect Shift, or Blown Engine?

Release Date: October, 1973

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)

Genre: Racing, Simulation

Developer(s): N/A

Publisher(s): Creative Computing Software

Here in Australia, one of our TV broadcasters airs a weekly show called Speedweek. Like its name suggests, it's a weekly motorsport wrap-up, covering all sorts of Australian racing competitions, from track racing, to motocross, to even speedboats. I used to love checking in on it every weekend, and one of the sections I most looked forward to was the drag racing. These insane, purpose built monsters with tyres taller than a person that spat flames everywhere and needed parachutes to help them stop, were awe-inspiring to me as a child. I don't keep up with it now (heck, my house doesn't even have a TV signal,) but I remember those days fondly. That, the V8 Supercars and Top Gear spurned a keen interest in cars and motorsport in me.

And then there was the video games. Naturally, racing games have historically been one of my favourite genres, growing up with the early and Black Box-era Need for Speed games, as well as Project Gotham Racing, Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport. Need for Speed Underground 2 currently sits on my personal top 10 games of all time list. It's not quite my favourite genre (that would be RPGs) but, I still love racing games, and I'm excited to see the earliest racing games in action.

One such racing game is today's topic. Drag is a text game based on those awe-inspiring Top Fuel and Funny Car drag racing machines. It's not the first racing game - that title probably goes to the lost Can-Am from 1972 - but it's an example of what early game developers were thinking and wanting to do with a genre like racing, which was hardly a genre at all in 1973. Sure, Space Race technically counts as a "racing" game, but it's a very different kind of racing game.

Sadly, there's very little information on Drag available. We don't even have an author. All we know on its background comes from More BASIC Computer Games, which tells us that Drag was sourced from the Hewlett-Packard User Library. The October '73 date of publication comes from the game's Sol-20 source code. Creative Computing's code in More BASIC Games edits the date part out. 

More BASIC Computer Games.

Also, it's time to debut a new resource in this article: Creative Computing Magazine. As I'm sure I've mentioned somewhere along the line, Creative Computing is the company David Ahl founded after leaving DEC. CC's magazine first appeared in October 1974, and ran until the end of 1985. I know I'm not into 1974 coverage yet, but it's relevant to bring this up now, as Drag appears in the Jan '77 issue of CC magazine. It still has no author attached to it, but it retains the unmodified source code. I find it funny that they call it a "new game," despite being 4 years old at its time of inclusion. That's an eternity in video game years; some home consoles don't even last that long.

Apparently we're drag racing in the 1900s.

The Creative Computing Magazine archive can be found here. It'll also be in the Recommended Resources page from now on, under the Books & Magazines heading.

And that's it. Yeah, that's all the information we've got. 

Drag not only has you race a dragster, but you also get to design several aspects of your machine. Horsepower, rear end ratio, tyre width and tyre diameter are the available metrics, and there's no limits to them. As Creative Computing's articles say, you can create a dragster with 2 million horsepower, but in practice it won't work. The engine you'd need to generate that much power would be massive! They also say that the computer opponent is quite hard to beat... 

Now, it's probably fine to jump into Drag thinking of the kind of top fuel drag racing of today, where specially made cars can generate thousands of horsepower. Top fuel was active in 1973, but I'm not sure it was quite at the same power levels that 2025 reaches. Looking at the example game provided in More BASIC Computer Games, it selects 790 horsepower. The magazine only does 370hp. For reference, the fastest production cars of the day capped out in the high 300s/low 400s in horsepower. No Bugatti Veyrons around in those days.

All that is to say that I wasn't sure on how to approach designing a dragster for this game. I honestly don't know anything about what makes a good dragster - I like cars and motorsport, but I know very little of the mechanics behind it. 

Rookie dragster on the scene here. Go easy on me.

After the game gave me the run down of instructions, and I asked to play the computer (you can choose to play against another person,) we come to designing the beast. I chose to base my stats somewhat off of what's in the book and magazine for my first run. I went with what I thought was a conservative 500hp, went with a rear-end ratio of 5:1, tyre width of 18 inches, and tyre diameter of 2.8 feet.

The very cluttered table suggests I'm behind. I have more rubber, though.

And then, we let the car loose. With the way my DOSBox settings were, the game took a while to calculate the results. The computer's car (#1) stopped "burning rubber" first, with mine (#2) taking a couple more seconds to stop. However, I was slower over the few seconds of the race, so despite that, I still lost by about 35 feet.

Not enough, however.

Now comes the fun part of figuring out what I need to adjust to make the car faster. My thoughts were that the approach needed is to adjust the stats one at a time and compare results after each run. Horsepower was probably fine as is, so I started adjustments with the rear end ratio. I also turned up the cycle speed slightly in DOSBox to try and speed things along a little.

I tried upping the rear end ratio to 5.5 first. At first, there was no difference at all, but at the very end of the race, I ended up with slightly worse results. I reverted it back to 5 and try changing tire width instead. I upped the width to 20 inches, and this provided a marginal improvement in speed. Must be worth trying again, right? I tried 22 inches for the next round.

Getting closer...

This results in another small improvement! The two tyre adjustments have so far resulted in closing the gap by about 10 feet. Probably best to keep pushing it until increasing tire width stops having benefits.

The increases starting becoming more negligible the further I pushed tyre width. I stopped at 26 inches, as my later speed was beginning to decrease. The gap had closed to 20 feet by this time. 

The next aspect to look at was tyre diameter. First I'd look at increasing it to 3 feet, and see what that did. This got me another little step closer, but the noticeable change here was that my car stopped burning rubber a second earlier.

These settings got me over 1300ft for the first time.

Changing the diameter more produced interesting results. At 3.2 feet, I was closer to matching the computer's speed, but I stopped burning rubber at the same time as him, and ended up being a little further behind at the end. 

I decided to revert back to 3 feet for diameter, and starting working on horsepower instead. Upping it to 550hp got me the closest I'd been so far, only 11 feet off the pace. More power! 600hp improved again, but only minimally. Worth trying more power, regardless, but my guess at this point that the tyres would need to be changed to accommodate more power. Upgrading to 650hp has my car stop burning rubber at the same point as the computer again, and I had a worse finish. Back to tyres.

Getting even closer...

The combination that got me really close was tuning down to 630hp, and upping tyre width to 30 inches. It put me neck-and-neck with the computer up until the end, where I faltered a little more than previously. I thought horsepower might need more tweaking.

And it did... but a whole lot else needed tweaking, too. I spent a fair bit of time tinkering with settings. At first, I thought wider tires was the solution. To a point, it was. They'd get me off the line faster, but the car would lose speed faster as the tyres burnt out earlier and earlier. I tried messing with the rear end ratio, but I definitely fluked out on getting it right straight away. Any adjustments away from 5 just made things worse. Tyre diameter can't go any larger than 3.4, else the tyres burn out immediately.

Nope.

Eventually, after at least a couple of hours of tweaking, I did it. What led to the breakthrough was something that, on the surface, seemed counter intuitive - narrower tyres. While wider tyres built up more speed at the start, they lost more speed at the back end of the race. Narrower tyres don't pick up speed as quickly, but they're better at maintaining speed through the race. 28 inches ended up being the magic number. I also discovered that pairing narrower tires with the maximum tyre diameter of 3.4 worked the best.

A winner is me...???

With those numbers locked in, it was just a matter of getting the horsepower right. One of my better earlier attempts started at 650hp, so that's where I started. Increasing by 5hp each run, my times improved up until 665hp, where the game declared me the winner! But, it didn't feel quite right. The computer hit 1320 ft, and 665hp with all those other settings only got me to 1319.957. I wasn't sure if the game was right. I needed to see that 1320 number, so I kept going. 

664hp. Time: 1320.001

Done. I did it. Boy, that felt satisfying. I punched the air a few times when I saw the 1320 come up. After inching closer and closer towards it over the previous hour, one can imagine the excitement of finally nailing it.

Photo finish!

There wasn't really much else to do in the game, now that I'd achieved what I wanted. With all the post-race interviews and trophy presentations done, it's now time to reflect on the race.

Time Played: 3 hours

A lot of this time is admittedly bloat, coming from how slowly I ran the game in DOSBox.

Difficulty: 7 (Hard)

Drag demands precision in order to win, and the settings to win aren't immediately obvious, resulting in a lot of experimenting and trial & error.

Gameplay: 9

Drag plays most similarly to Lunar, I find. Both are really dependent on trial & error to achieve the precise winning settings, almost like a puzzle game. Drag is better executed, as the results from the player's incremental changes are more perceivable, making it easier to tell what's working and what isn't. So, when victory comes, it feels more earned and satisfying than with something like Lunar.

As an aside, some weird stuff is going on with the Archive's ports of this game. The online versions seem to use different calculations than the downloaded ones. My winning setup only got to 1315 ft there, but passed 1320 ft on both the classic.exe and classic.qb64 downloads. It still registered it as a win, but the inconsistency is concerning. Not the game's fault, mind you.  

Controls: 5

Pretty standard for a text-based game.

Visual: 2

Here's where things get really weird for Drag. CC's book and magazine show what Drag is supposed to look like, with a relatively neatly-formatted table. However, the ports on the Archive don't all follow suit. The DOSBox port I played completely ruins the table with excessively large numbers, but loading the game online presents the game without issue (different calculations notwithstanding.) I'm basing my score on what the game is meant to look like. The instructions need better spacing, but the table is decent, although it is hard to tell who the winner is because the large numbers rear their ugly heads at the end of the table, regardless of version. 

Functionality: 5

No problems over multiple hours of gameplay.

Accessibility: 2

I think Drag assumes a level of knowledge about drag racing. This can make it a bit off-putting if you're coming in without any understanding, like I was. That being said, it's relatively easy to approach after getting over the initial apprehension.

Fun Factor: 11

I really enjoyed this. I didn't get overly frustrated like I did with Lunar. The win felt tough, but achievable, and I was immensely satisfied after tuning my dragster just right to break that 1320 ft mark. 

However, there's not really any draw to returning back to Drag once it's won. It's like a puzzle game with one solution - once that solution is found, what reason is there to return for a second go? I doubt there's many different winning setups. Still, for a "one-and-done" sort of game, Drag does it very well.

Drag doesn't quite get the perfect shift, registering a score of 34, which is still respectable for the time period we're in. In fact, this puts it at fifth overall in the Tier List for now, despite only being in the D-tier. Definitely a standout game for me, and it's a real shame that it seems to have been significantly overlooked.

We're taking our winnings from the drag strip back to the casino, but not before sidestepping into a questionable game of tag.

Don't forget - if you enjoy my blog, be sure to leave a comment and follow so you don't miss any updates!

Update: Score Revisions (Again)

Get used to seeing these from time to time. If I'm being generous, I'd say that it's come about because I'm constantly learning and refining my process. If not, I'd just say that I'm fickle and never fully content with my scoring system.

I won't go through the changes in painstaking detail like I did last time. I don't think that's necessary, and it would take far too long considering the amount of games we've got on the list now. It's getting close to 50, which seems like a lot, but it's barely a grain of sand in the grand context of video game history.

All I'll say is that I shifted my philosophy on a few metrics, and started using a letter grade as a reference help for game design and fun factor. This helps me better understand what's a "passing grade," more-or-less.

The major change that took place was with how I approach visuals from now on. I'm not putting every text game at a base 5 anymore. They'll all start from a 1, and earn points based on my current metrics, especially formatting. So many of those early text games have truly awful formatting (I even gave one game a zero for how bad it was.)

There's a couple of other minor changes to individual game scores on other metrics that needed it. See if you can spot them all in the updated Tier List.

What this has all resulted in is an overall shift downwards for most games. The D, E and F tiers are now more balanced, with far more games now in the F tier than previously - and they all deserve it. There is a new worst game on the list, War, which now has a score of twelve. It's just awful, and deserves to be at the bottom of the barrel.

Some games have gone up, like Galaxy Game, which is now out of the F tier. The top of the list hasn't changed, the scores have only been re-adjusted. Star Trek is still on top, though Space Race is now second. Hunt the Wumpus fell out of C tier, and into third overall. 

I think the list is now more balanced, with better variety of scores, outside of F tier. Getting away from the stock 5 score for visuals has allowed for a better spread, and for games to be more distinct in the list. 

Have a scan of the List if you're interested. I just do these scores for fun, mostly. And to have a more empirical means of knowing which games I like more than others. It's like, I could give you a top 10 games of all time list, but it'd probably change every week. Doing this helps me crystallize my thoughts better. 

Are there any scores you disagree with? Did I miss something? If so, drop a comment below. Dialoguing is fun, and I'm enjoying seeing more comments trickle through.

I'm aiming to have the Drag article ready by tomorrow. If not, it'll be out on Monday. My focus is entirely elsewhere on weekends, and I don't work on Sundays. I'm going to attempt to have more of a release schedule again, which will ideally be Mondays and Fridays.

#026 - Taxman: Let Me Tell You How It Will Be...

Release Date: September, 1973

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)

Genre: Educational

Developer(s): Howie Franklin

Publisher(s): People's Computer Company

There's one for you, nineteen for me

'Cause I'm the Taxman

Yeah I'm the Taxman...

Revolver is the best Beatles album. Change my mind.

Unfortunately, this game is not about The Beatles. Rather, it's about one of life's inevitabilities: taxes. Except, not really. Taxman is, in fact, an educational puzzle game about numerical factors. Sounds fun, right?

Before getting into the game, let's start with the game's author. This one's a tricky one to figure out. MobyGames has the author listed as a Howie Franklin. Now, I couldn't find much of any information about him online. What to Do After You Hit Return references him as a PCC employee, but other than that, crickets. The only reference I found to him as the author of Taxman comes from a very old PCC alumni website that appeared to be maintained by Bob Albrecht. He has a page listing all the games included in the PCC newsletters over the years, and Taxman is listed there with a comment in parenthesis, which says,

"(by Howie Franklin? Great game!)"

...and that's all the information there is on him. That same site lists all PCC contributors, including Franklin, but his page is basically empty. It's kind of frustrating, seeing as there were a few opportunities to name the author, as Taxman appears in three editions of the PCC newsletter: September '73, November '73, and January '74. The newsletter created a little story surrounding the game centred on two characters, Max and Minnie, who represented different ways to play Taxman throughout the articles in each newsletter.

Should five percent appear to small, be thankful I don't take it all.

An interesting tidbit PCC gives us via What to Do After You Hit Return, is that Franklin wasn't the originator of the idea for Taxman. At the back of that book, it provides the code for all the games, and on Taxman's page, a comment is given stating that the concept for Taxman originated at the Lawrence Hall of Science - a place that's come up a few times before on this blog. Battle and the original form of Bagels originate from there. What to Do also states that the Hall didn't know who the idea came from. So that's just fantastic. I have no certain author, nor a certain originator. History is fun.

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street.

Just to complicate things further, there's the source code from the Sol20 website. This one has two names attached to it: J. Stewart and Dave Skrove. One of these two could also be the original author. This code is dated to January 11, 1974, though, so these my be the two who converted the game from the "Mankato Library," as noted by the game code itself. 

Considering the evidence, I'm inclined to go with what Bob Albrecht said on the PCC Alumni site, as his statement is effectively an eyewitness account.

If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.

With that settled, let's get into the game. As I said at the beginning, Taxman is about mathematical factors. The game does quite a good job of explaining itself, so I'll allow it to do so for me (courtesy of the Archive's "modern" version port):

If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat.

Understood? If not, maybe my playthrough will help. I mulled over how to approach a 10-number game before playing, and decided on what I thought was a pretty air-tight strategy to win. The basic premise is to try and not have the Taxman take more than one factor with each of my moves.

My first thought was to get rid of 1 as soon as possible, with it being a factor of every number. The only real viable choices for this are 2, 3, 5 and 7. 2 and 3 are factors of several other numbers on the list, and 5 is a factor of 10. That leaves 7, being a prime number, as the most logical first choice. It's not the only prime number on the list, but it is the only one that isn't a factor of any other number.

I take 7, the Taxman takes 1. Next move.

This next move took a little bit of thought. Again, wanting to make sure that Mr. Taxman only takes one number. I could've taken 4, and he take 2 - but that would leave 8 all alone for the Taxman to swoop up at the end. 6 would have him take 2 and 3 - but I need to keep 3 for 9. Taking 10 now would mean I lose 2, which I need to keep also. This really only left 9 as the only viable move, as the only number that would be taken was 3. 6 would still have 2, and 8 would still have 4, so it works perfectly.

9 is taken. Taxman gets 3.

If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.

The game opens up significantly from here, as there remains three pairs of numbers: 6 and 2, 8 and 4, and finally 10 and 5. It's pretty much routine from here, and I win by a significant margin: 40 to 15.

Don't ask me what I want it for (Ha-Ha, Mr. Wilson)

That turned out to be a fun, but simple brain exercise. However, I wondered how the game would change when more numbers get added into the mix. 

Starting with 11 numbers, things don't change much. Instead of taking 7 first, I take 11. 7 has to be left for the Taxman at the end, as there's no way to remove it after taking 11. The rest of the round plays out exactly the same as a 10-number game. Thinking forward, though, things will get more and more challenging with every prime number that is added.

12 numbers makes the game much more complicated, since it's another number with 2, 3 and 4 as factors. Taking 11 and leaving 7 is still a necessary choice, as is taking 9 and losing 3 to the Taxman. It gets tricky after this. There's no real way to have Mr. Taxman only take one number here. What ends up making the most sense is having him take two of the lowest numbers, which at this point are 2 and 4. Therefore, 8 becomes the best next choice. It removes 2 and 4, while leaving 6 as a factor of 12, alongside 10 and 5. Doing this results in a 50-28 win.

If you don't want to pay some more (Ha-Ha, Mr. Heath)

13 numbers actually doesn't change much. I have to take 13 instead of 11, which leaves both it and 7 for the Taxman at the end. The strategy remains the same as the 12-number game, for a 52-39 win.

14 numbers is actually easier since there's now a way to get rid of the 7. The overall strategy doesn't change from 13 or 12 number games, I can now just take 14 at the end to have a bigger winning margin of 66-39.

Now my advice for those who die...

15 numbers is the last round I tried for this blog. Can't ruin all the fun if you want to try this at home. 15 is the next major difficulty spike, as it adds another number with 3 and 5 as factors, which takes away 9 and 10's monopoly on 3 and 5, respectively. What I decided was the best option was to leave the 9 for Taxman, and have 3 be taken by 15. This results in a win of 72-48. 

Declare the pennies on your eyes.

For those who are curious, I did have a look at what the largest game that can be played in Taxman. Turns out to be 50 numbers. This is quite a scary proposition, but I gave it a go, and it is possible to beat. I'll leave it to you, reader, to discover how.

For now, we'll have a look at how Taxman rates. Is it as good as its Beatles' namesake, or is it a tax fraud?

Time Played: 20 minutes

Difficulty: 4/10 (Mild)

I probably won't find Taxman as challenging as some. I'm a numbers guy, so this is my jam. Still, the larger groups of numbers become quite challenging to manage.

Gameplay: 7

This might surprise. I actually quite like Taxman for what it is. It's a very simple concept, but executed well. Its difficulty scales well with larger number groups, and I think the goal it has of teaching factors it achieves.

Controls: 5

Standard.

Visual: 5

It's really nothing special to look at and very much in line with everything else from this era.

Functionality: 5

I had one instance of the game bugging out on me when attempting a 50-number game, where the game decided to end itself, much like Button. The second attempt at 50 numbers had no issue, however, so I'm happy to leave this at a 5.

Accessibility: 3

It's probably in the same accessibility tier as most other text-based games.

Fun Factor: 7

For one, Taxman has great replayability. Having basically 50 levels is pretty cool for a 1973 text game. And again, I'm a numbers guy, so this sort of math game is right up my alley. For what it is, it's a pretty fun game.

Taxman gets a score of 32. That doesn't quite propel it to the heights of The Beatles, but it still does pretty well for itself at this stage in the Tier List. It's in the D-tier at 13th overall, keeping some respectable company with Lunar and Civil War. I'm sure I could come up with some joke about taxation causing an interstellar war, but the wording escapes me for the moment.

Get your driving helmets ready for the next game - we're going out to the drag strip. You can drive my car, and yes, I'm gonna be a star. 

[P.S. As a small nitpick, PCC gets the date for "Taxman" the song wrong. It's a 1966 track, not 1967. Sorry, my inner music snob just had to get that out before I finish here.]

And you're working for no one but me...