The finale has arrived! It's time to close out the Prehistory series with this - the 25th and final article. As a side, I love that it closes on a nice, round number. It certainly was not planned that way. It's taken just under 11 months to complete this series, which is longer than I initially expected. However, the further I researched, the more my list of games kept expanding. There were also some lengthy down periods where I didn't post anything. I hope in the coming year to become more consistent with game articles, and to also produce some other types of articles that you'll have to wait in suspense for.
I also didn't plan to end the series with two Lunar Lander games. I often don't research whether games are available to me until I begin to work on that game's article. That's going to change in the coming year, as I want to be more prepared in my research and planning.
Rocket is the second of these two Lunar Lander games, and final of the three Lunar Lander variants listed in David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games book. The first was the original game by Jim Storer, and the second is LEM, by William Labaree, which I covered in the previous article. In the last article, I described that LEM and Rocket take two different approaches to expanding on Storer's original. LEM added additional gameplay mechanics, whilst Rocket (listed as Rockt1 in the original BASIC Games) adds graphical elements, but plays much more similarly to the original game.
The Lunar Lander page from the original 101 BASIC Computer Games.
Rocket was developed by Eric Peters, an employee at DEC - the company that published the majority of BASIC games through publishing the original version of David Ahl's BASIC Computer Games. Peters wrote another game published in the book, Even Wins. He developed a "cybernetic" version of the game that features AI that learns to play the game as you go. Finding any more information on Peters is quite difficult, as there are numerous people who share that name.
It's safe to say I was significantly less intimidated by Rocket in comparison to LEM. On the surface it seemed far more similar to the original in terms of gameplay, and the inclusion of a graphical display of the location of the lunar module looked like it would provide an excellent visual reference. I ended up really disliking LEM, so I'm hopeful that Rocket will be far more enjoyable.
Nice, clear instructions. Did you know your on-board computer in the game is named Digby?
First off, the game has very well-formatted instructions that clearly explain its mechanics. Rocket actually, in further contrast to LEM, simplifies the game mechanics from Lunar. You only have 150 units of fuel, the maximum you can use per second is 30, and each unit of fuel slows you down by 1 ft/sec. This immediately made sense to me, which I appreciated, having come from LEM where I stared at the instructions for a good 5 minutes, at least, trying to figure out everything.
I followed the same strategy I used for Lunar, which was waiting to use my fuel until being much closer to the surface. Immediately I noticed a formatting error when I inputted my first command, with the text shifting left a few spaces. I waited until I was under 350ft from the surface before putting the thrust on full blast. I got close, but this I crashed, hitting the surface a 8.3 ft/sec (9.1 kph, which seems awfully slow...)
You blew it. Literally.
I was actually pretty happy with this run, despite the failure. I decided to wait for another second for my follow up attempt. This one went better, landing at 3.16 ft/sec (3.46 kph). The game still considered this a crash, which mildly annoyed me. Going that slow would surely not cause a destructive crash?
Round 2 also came to an explosive ending.
Oh well, another round! This one went less well, so I tried again. Another failure, as I forgot what I did from my most successful run.
However, on the next attempt, I found success. In fact, I got a perfect landing. It turns out I wasn't too far off on my second attempt. The winning strategy was as follows:
Wait until the module is 250 feet from the surface.
Use 30 units of fuel for the next 3 seconds.
Use 10 units of fuel for 5 seconds.
Win.
The winning formula.
Surprisingly simple. I think it helped that I had previous experience from other Lunar Lander-style games, though. I'm at the very least pleased that I figured out the perfect landing on my own in one of these games. On to the scores.
Time Played: 0:12
Difficulty: 4/10 (Easy)
It wasn't challenging to figure out the perfect landing. I'm giving a bit of leeway in this score, as my previous experience helped, so it may be harder for someone coming into the game fresh. It's still the easiest of the three Lunar Lander games by quite some margin.
Gameplay: 7/20
Being based on Lunar means that Rocket has a solid gameplay foundation. It works like a puzzle, consisting of experimenting with the use of fuel and timing of using it through trial and error. The refining process is much simpler than Lunar, as the numbers you work with are much smaller here. While it makes for a good introduction to the Lunar Lander genre, the simplifying of the gameplay has caused some depth and difficulty to be lost, which I believe is to the game's detriment.
You may be confused as to why this is getting a 7, when the original Lunar got a 6. I'm currently doing a rescore of all reviewed games, and will post an article detailing these changes. Rocket's score is based on these changes, and will make more sense once I release that article.
Control: 5/10
As standard as it gets for text-based games.
Visual: 5/10
Unfortunately, the visual plot of the module's distance from the landing zone isn't anywhere near as helpful as I thought it would be. It only follows the module's distance up to halfway, so it ends up being rather pointless. There is also that slight formatting error, where the numbers on the table shift left after inputting a command. On the positive side, the instructions are very well presented, and general formatting is sound. I think all of this evens out to result in a 5 being a fair score.
Functionality: 5/5
Didn't find any technical issues.
Accessibility: 3/5
Easily the most accessible of the three Lunar Lander games. It's much friendlier, and simpler to understand due to how "game-ified" it is.
Fun Factor: 6/20
I was a bit disappointed by how simple the game was. I think Rocket suffers from my previous experience with Lunar. I did most of my obsessive trial and error experimenting there, so I came into Rocket already knowing how it would work. It being simplified really works against it there, whereas I think it wouldn't as much if I was coming into Rocket without having played any previous Lunar Lander games.
Rocket's final score is quite amusing. At the time of writing, it's identical to Lunar's - 31/70 (44.28%) - a D-tier placement. It won't be like that for much longer, though. I do think that Rocket is marginally worse than Jim Storer's original game. I was hoping for it to be better, but the distance plot ends up being pointless, and the gameplay is simplified just a touch too much.
Next time we move into the beginnings of the commercial era of video games. I've already done the first two arcade games, Computer Space and Galaxy Game, so my attention has to turn elsewhere. Computer gaming was still evolving, and the next game up is a landmark game that would continue to be remade and expanded upon all throughout the 1970s: Mike Mayfield's Star Trek.
However, before that, I want to rescore all the games from the Prehistory series, as I've mentioned already. That'll be the next article to expect before I get into Star Trek.
The next two games up - and the final two of 1970 and the Prehistory series - are both Lunar Lander variants. They both expand on Jim Storer's iconic 1969 classic in different ways. One adds extra levels of complexity, and the other adds graphical elements.
LEM (short for "Lunar Excursion Module") is the former of these two. In the original version of Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games book, this game is listed as Rockt2, to not-so-creatively distinguish it from the other two versions of Lunar Lander in the book. The name LEM comes from the 1978 microcomputer edition of the book. The in-game title is Lunar Landing Simulation.
Our author is another one who's a bit of a mystery. William P. Labaree II is the credited author, and he was from Alexandria, Virginia. All I can surmise from that is that he probably wasn't a high school student, as game authors who were high school students were typically credited alongside the high school they attended - but that's about it. This is the only game he's credited with according to MobyGames, and I couldn't find any more information about him online.
I have to be honest - this game kind of scares me. Just looking at the sample runs from the book gives me great concern that this is quite a complex take on the Lunar Lander format. The book describes it as "the most comprehensive of the three versions," and goes into detail of all the options you have in the game. You can set the interval of thrust firing, the thrust itself, the angle of the module and the measurement system (metric or imperial.) The more I think about it, the more it sounds like the text version of Atari's 1979 vector graphic arcade version of Lunar Lander.
My fear of LEM only builds upon opening the game and reading the instructions. And boy, there are a lot of instructions for this game. It first asks if you've "flown a mission" before. Appreciate the wording there. It then gives you the option to choose metric or imperial (the game calls it "English") measurement. Obviously, I choose metric.
The game then launches into a lengthy explanation of its mechanics. These are unquestionably the longest instructions of any game I've played to date. Bear with me, as this'll take a bit to explain.
I have to manage horizontal positioning now? On top of vertical?
The first mechanic is altitude angle. Fortunately, the game provides a helpful diagram in understanding this mechanic. You can choose any angle between -180 and +180 degrees, with 180 degrees I assume meaning that the lunar module is upside down, and 0 meaning the opposite. Being at 180 degrees would never be desirable, in that case. The moon's orbit factors into the angle also, with the orbit moving westward.
Next is thrust. The game sets 1 fuel unit as equals to 1 second of maximum thrust. You have to manage the engine power as well, and can set that to a value between 10 and 100 percent.
The input order is time interval, percentage of thrust, altitude angle. Each are separated by a comma. To abort you would input 0,0,0.
The rest of the instructions. Oy vey.
Finally, the game explains the numbers presented on the gameplay table. I'll likely need to refer back to this to remember what's what. Boy, this is complicated stuff for 1970. You see why I feel intimidated by this game now? The learning curve appears more like a sheer cliff face. Yet, I must push on in the face of fear.
I'm going to take an approach similar to the original Lunar, where you let the module drop for the first few turns before slamming on the thrusters. I take the initial steps in 10-second intervals.
What do the numbers mean??
Eventually I got bored and upped in intervals to 20 seconds, then 30, then 60. I have absolutely no idea what's going on, what range the numbers should stay between, literally everything. I keep toying around with it, and get the module over to the landing site, but I overshoot it, and get a game over, having been "lost in space with no hope of recovery."
Awfully generous calling me an "experienced astronaut."
Great. That really didn't fill me with confidence. I have no idea what I was doing wrong, as I was trying to get the module to go back the other way, but nothing worked. I have to admit, I didn't really want to play this again. It's too complicated.
I pushed through and gave it another go. I felt like I got closer, but still got lost in space.
So bad it needed a sequel.
The third time, however, I at least managed to crash. I feel like I'm starting to figure out how the game works. I managed my vertical velocity fairly well, but my horizontal velocity finished at about half of where it started.
Everyone died, but at least I made progress.
A strategy was beginning to form in my mind at this point. I think that I need to think about working the module on diagonal angles (between say, -70 and -20 degrees) to get both vertical and horizontal velocity down efficiently.
Several attempts later, and I was consistently crashing, but not getting anything better than that. The horizontal velocity seems to decrease much slower than vertical velocity. Eventually I got a run that crashed at only 55kph - my best result yet.
This was the best I managed.
I had been playing for over an hour at this stage, and had pretty much had enough. I was already feeling quite tired on the day I played this, and my patience had run out for such a precision game. I had a break for a while, played some Stardew Valley to take my mind off things, cooked dinner, and then came back to do the YouTube recording. That was my best result to date, which was a crash and 12 kph that somehow made an 8m deep crater... that doesn't sound right. Did the author know how slow 12 kph is? I'm at least happy for the progress. Still not enjoying the game, but I'm improving at it.
If I ever bother to come back to this game to try for a good landing, I'll let you all know. I can't see that happening, I kind of just want to move on from this game. In that spirit, here's the scores:
Time Played: 1:15. Trying to simplify the time format. When you start each landing attempt takes about 15 minutes, which I got down to 8 - 10 for my later attempts.
Difficulty: 8/10 (Very Hard)
It's very hard to learn, and just as hard to get a good landing. I wasn't able to do it, but that's also a symptom of the game being very off putting and unfun to play. I didn't want to try for a good landing.
Gameplay: 4/10
I had a really hard time figuring out my score for gameplay, because the core gameplay is solid - it's based on Lunar, so it's mechanically sound. I think it just does too much. Too many mechanics, too many numbers on screen... The addition of horizontal movement, and complicating the engine controls I don't think has made the game better, only more frustrating. The original Lunar worked because it knew the limitations of the medium, and focused on one mechanic. It's also worth mentioning that LEM starts you at a much further distance from the moon, which makes each attempt drag on for what feels like forever, even if it's only 8 - 10 minutes.
Control: 5/10
Standard for text-based games. This reflects the score revisions I'm in the process of working through.
Visual: 4/10
While I appreciate the altitude angle graphic - it's one of the most detailed text graphics I've seen in this series - the main game feels very cluttered. It's like a spreadsheet that has text too big for the boxes, and as a result there is asymmetry everywhere, and is difficult to process. There's also way too many numbers. We don't need that many decimal points.
Functionality: 5/5
I didn't find any technical issues.
Accessibility: 1/5
Yeah, my initial impression tanks the accountability score. I'm sure it would be the same for a lot of people. It's complexity is very off putting, and it being a text game doesn't help matters. I feel like this was a game made for physics majors or maths geeks.
Fun Factor: 1/20
I just didn't enjoy this at all. It's too complex, doesn't explain what to do well enough, and is frustrating to learn. Once I figured some things out there was maybe a sliver of enjoyment to be had. I wanted to put my initial impression aside, but it does ring true.
So that gives LEM a score of 20 (28.57%), which earns it a low E-tier placement. It'll look a little better once the rescore happens, as this is much better than some of the junk that's currently above it in the tier list. LEM overall is really just unpleasant to play. Stick with Storer's original or Atari's arcade game. I'm a bit more hopeful for Rocket, as that seems closer to the original.
[Add.] Upon completing the rescore project, LEM gained 2 points up to 22/70 (31.42%)
Apologies on taking a while to get this post out - at the time of writing I just bought a new laptop and have been in the process of getting it set up properly as a dedicated gaming laptop, which will also be what I use for the blog from now on. Hopefully, it should streamline a few processes to help get these out quicker.
There are three more games (at the time of writing this) to go in the Prehistory of Video Games series, and High Noon is the first of them. Bridge is not on the Pterm PLATO emulator, and Moo is technically playable, but runs on Multics, which I looked into and found exceedingly complicated to get up and running, so I'm skipping that. In case you're curious, Moo is just the pen-and-paper / board game Bulls and Cows (otherwise known as Mastermind).
High Noon is quite the outlier in the 1970 list. It's not in David Ahl's book, 101 BASIC Computer Games, where most games have come from thus far, nor is it a simulation / adaptation of a pre-existing physical game (pen-and-paper, card, board or casino.) Instead, it takes a more similar approach to a game like Civil War, or Hamurabi, in that it creates an original game out of a historic setting. In this case, it's the Wild West, which marks the first time this setting has been used in a video game.
It's development is also odd. It wasn't developed, modified or published by anyone related to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) or its user's society (DECUS), nor was it developed on a PDP system. High Noon was developed by a high school student, Chris Gaylo, from Syosset High School in Long Island, New York. Gaylo programmed the game on the school's timeshared system from a company known as Call-a-computer (later renamed to Advanced System Labs). That's all the information we have - we don't know exactly what computer system it is. Elsewhere online the computer is simply called "Call-a-computer."
I couldn't find any other information on Chris Gaylo. This is the only game he's credited on, and there isn't any definitive information online about what he did afterwards. He did share some information on the game with myBitBox.com, explaining a bit more about the game's development, with photos and scans of the source code, and a scan of a piece of correspondence he had with a Call-a-computer employee named Mike Lowery. Lowery liked the game so much that he asked Gaylo if he could add it to their system library (so that every system on the timeshared network could access it), and offered to add a line of code to the game crediting Gaylo with its creation. Interesting little insight into how early computer games were distributed.
While there is a lack of information on High Noon's author, there is certainly no lack in ways to play the game. I have two main options for playing High Noon for this blog:
The creator of myBitBox, who goes by the online handle "s1axter", produced a browser-based recreation of the game that mimics a teletype to give a more authentic-to-the-original experience.
MyAbandonWare contributor Benedict (who's been mentioned here before) made up a DOS-based version of the game that plays more like the BASIC Computer Games book games I've been playing through Vintage BASIC.
Seeing as I prefer trying to be as close to the original game as possible, I'm going to go with myBitBox's version for this blog. Both versions come directly from the source code, so there aren't any differences in gameplay between the two - it's purely aesthetical differences.
Do you dare take on this deadly duel?
Upon opening the game, you're asked (as with so many of other games I've covered already) if you'd like instructions. These instructions are a bit different, however, as they also provide you with a bit of story! The premise is that you have challenged to a duel by the notorious outlaw, Black Bart. He appears from a saloon 100 paces away from you, and that's where the duel begins.
The core gameplay is cleverly integrated into this little section of story als0:
You and Black Bart have 4 bullets each.
Your marksmanship is equal.
The closer you get, the better your chances of hitting are.
This is the first time anyone's produced anything close to resembling a story, and I must say I'm rather impressed by it. It's only a few sentences, but it sets the stage, provides a bit of immersion, sets the imagination off, and integrates the gameplay effectively. Completing this introduction, the game asks if you "still want to continue." Very nice touch - first setting the stage and then asking "are you sure?"
Well, to answer that question: I'm still here, writing this blog, so I think I want to continue. The game then provides you with the choices you have in the game:
Advance
Stand still
Fire
Jump behind watering trough
Give up
Turn tail and run
You can give up, or give up in a more embarrassing way.
So there are two different ways to give up... interesting. Afterwards the game asks you for a lucky number. I'm not sure what this does, perhaps something to do with generating the game seed? The game might be too old for that sort of thing, mind you. I selected 7 as my lucky number for my first game.
I decided that it made sense to advance a bit first, so my first move was to advance 10 paces. Bart responds by moving forward 7 paces. 83 paces between us now. Maybe it's best to wait and see what he does next. I opt to stand still. The game calls this out as a bad move, and Bart fires and misses. Probably not the best idea to do that again, then.
The game's not shy of letting you know when you messed up.
I think I'll advance a bit more. Perhaps only 5 paces this time. Bart chooses to fire again! He misses, but only just. The bullet catches my left jaw, however. I'm very much appreciating the game going out of its way to give extra details.
Considering that Bart is going gung-ho trying to get me, I think finding some cover would be a good idea. Jumping behind the trough, Bart's third bullet hits it, and I'm commended by the game. Bart only has one bullet left, and I have all 4 of mine. I'm in a good position, so long as I make the right move. I'd like to try and make him waste his last bullet, so maybe I'll stick behind cover.
Always get behind cover. Have you never played Gears of War?
It works, Bart's final bullet is lodged in the trough, and he's out of ammo. Time for me to strike. I miss, and Bart turns tail and runs. I win the duel! Though I'm disappointed that I didn't manage to get him, but the game assures me that he won't be seen again. Still, this is not the most satisfying conclusion to the game, so of course I need to play it again.
I meant to do that... Black Bart won't be so lucky if he sees me again.
The Browser version of High Noon was a pain to record right, and the game also had some issues when inputting moves, so I opted to switch to the DOS port to see if that gave better results when recording. The results were mixed.
The DOS port. Looks a tad dull in comparison, doesn't it?
To start with how my playthroughs went. The second one, I chose lucky number 3, advanced 10 paces twice and immediately got shot and died. Can't just charge straight at him, he's too smart for that.
Shot through the heart... you know the rest.
So I went back to lucky number 7, and found success there. I first advanced 8 paces, then fired at Bart after he fired at me. Misses all around (but Bart got me in the shin). I then accidentally hit Enter before inputting a command and the game scolded me for that,
"You sure aren't going to live very long if you can't even follow directions."
I think that's a bit harsh, don't you?
Hey! It was an accident!
Anyway, after that I jumped for cover, Bart got me in the side of the jaw, and I fired and grazed his right arm. I still felt like I was too far away, so I crept forward 2 paces, and Bart missed his final shot and moved forward 9 paces. The game says that this is the moment to strike. So I do, and I get him right between the eyes, and Black Bart falls down dead (the screen scrolled far to quickly to see this text in the moment - I had to look back at my recording to see what happened).
Having defeated the menace that was Black Bart, the mayor of "Dodge City" approaches you to thank and congratulate you for killing him, and he presents you with a check for $20,000. The game then draws up a graphic of the check, dated to the 18th of August, 1889. You're advised not to spend it all in one place, but I don't think it would be possible to do that with 20k in 1889. That's a massive amount of cash for 1889.
Got him!
My well-earned reward.
I had another go at the game after this to try and get a good recording in DOSbox. One thing I discovered is that the "lucky number" does indeed appear to be a seed selection, as I chose the same moves as the previous game, and the same result ensued. As mentioned above, however, the screen scrolls too fast in DOSbox, and text is missed as a result, and DOSbox won't allow me to scroll the screen up to catch what was missed. So I went back to the Browser version for the final recording, which is what you see at the top of the article and on the YouTube channel.
We have ourselves a second impressive game in a row. Let's see how it scores.
Time Played: 20 minutes
Difficulty: 1/10 (Very Easy)
It wasn't too hard to win, only took 3 attempts for me to get the Black Bart kill.
Gameplay: 5/20
The gameplay is surprisingly the weakest element of the game. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, it's just extremely simple. There aren't a lot of options to work with, and half of the presented options you shouldn't pick anyway. Distance isn't utilised as well as it could be in my experience of playing the game; you get to around 80 paces and Bart'll snipe you pretty quickly.
Controls: 10/10
It's great - simple inputs that work.
Visual: 8/10
First off, the formatting is excellent. There's never too much text on one line (excepting the introductory paragraph), the move list is clear and spaced out, and the game even draws the check for you at the end of the game. It's clear a solid amount of time and consideration was put into the formatting, and it shows.
Story: 6/10
The first game to have a story! I'm glad to say it's one that's been executed quite well. It's incredibly simple, but the limited dialogue is written well and integrates with the gameplay. My imagination has always been quite vivid when it comes to reading, and High Noon does get the imagination going and I can visualise the events thanks to how descriptive Chris Gaylo managed to make everything with such a small game.
Functionality: 5/5
Works great, no issues.
Accessibility: 4/5
This is the highest score I've given for a text-based game for accessibility. The story elements I think give this an extra level of appeal - it's perspicuous and very simple to play. Could be a recommendation for someone just getting into text-based games.
Fun Factor: 5/20
The story elements really carry the game and shore up how enjoyable it is. I had to drag myself through successive playthroughs since I wasn't compelled to keep coming back.
High Noon has managed to knock Battle out of second spot (barely) with a score of 43/80 (53.75%) to claim the top spot in the D-tier. It's interesting - High Noon is unarguably a more complete game, but I'd go back to Battle before it. Just my tastes, I suppose. The re-score I'm planning after the next two games might shuffle things around a bit to reflect my thoughts better.
[Add.] Upon completing the rescore project, High Noon lost 1 point, down to 42/80 (52.50%), but is now the highest rated game on the tier list to date.
Two more games to go in 1970, and both of them are based on Lunar Lander. The first one honestly looks quite scary.
I haven't had to skip a game on my list this time, which is a welcome change to what I've become accustomed to during this series of blog posts. What isn't different here is that it's yet another pre-existing game getting the digital conversion treatment: Battleship. I suspect most people would have played this classic guessing game at least once in their life - I know I did. I think this is the first time I've really had a personal connection to the core idea one of these games is based on, as I have a real fondness for Battleship thanks to my childhood memories of it. I played it quite a lot as a kid, actually. It was one of those games I had a fascination with, I don't know why, but I played many different physical and digital versions of it growing up. I never played any versions of Electronic Battleship, however. It was either fully digital, or fully old-school with the plastic pegs.
Having said all of that, this game, which is probably the first video game adaptation of Battleship, is a bit different. While it still retains the core Battleship gameplay concept, it comes with a twist, one that I'll discuss a little bit later on.
First, as per usual, I'll discuss authorship. The good news here is that we have an undisputed author for Battle: Ray Westergard, of the Lawrence Hall of Science, situated at the Berkeley campus of the University of California. He even wrote the program description found in BASIC Computer Games. I couldn't find much more certain info on Westergard, as he has no other game credits, and there appear to be multiple people of that name: one appeared to be a Unitarian theologian (awkward), and another an abusive university professor (extra awkward.) There's a possibility that neither of these are the Ray Westergard that programmed Battle, considering that the game is near 55 years old, so the Ray Westergard in question may very well have passed away during that time. At least this short dig was an interesting one.
Now, back to the twist I mentioned. It seems that, since this is a singleplayer implementation of Battleship, that Westergard felt that some modifications needed to be made to make it function properly. So, what he decided to do was add some codebreaking into the mix, which transforms the classic strategy board game into more of a puzzle game.
The concept is this: the game provides you with a 6x6 matrix of the enemy fleet, consisting of 6 ships. However, it's a coded matrix, meaning that the supposed positions of the ship on the matrix the game gives you are not the actual locations of the ships. Your job is to simultaneously decode the matrix while sinking the enemy fleet in as few turns as you can.
Battle's BASIC Games page might do a better job of explaining things.
The instructions of the game expect you to write out your own matrix as you play, which is exciting for me as it's the first time on the blog I get to use spreadsheets. Believe me, I will be making liberal use of the mighty spreadsheet in the future, especially with RPGs... In this game's case, I'll simply use a spreadsheet to write out my own matrix as the game suggests.
You must decode the matrix.
Upon opening the game, you're presented with the coded matrix of the fleet's positions. To make a shot, you input first the X-axis (horizontal co-ordinate) followed by a comma, and then the Y-axis (vertical co-ordinate.) I opt for 1,1, suspecting that the code may involve the 0 spaces. It does not, and I hit open water.
Next, I try 1,6 (top left,) seeing as the matrix says there's a ship there...
It's not a great code if the ship is actually where it says the ship is...
It's a hit! I successfully strike ship 1, one of the destroyers. The matrix says the other spot should be on the right, so I go for 2,6, but that's a miss. That gives me a clue about how this matrix is coded. Perhaps the ship positions are perpendicular to how they're presented on the coded grid?
Armed with this theory, I go for 1,5 next.
Hurrah for the good guys indeed.
My theory was correct! One ship down, five to go.
I decide to go for the other destroyer next, ship 2. It's highest position is 3,6, so that's what I select. My theory at this moment is that the topmost co-ordinate is correct, but the ship's alignment is perpendicular to what's presented on the grid. Turns out this was incorrect. It's a miss. I try 3,5 instead.
An unexpected surprise, but a welcome one.
Something unexpected occurs - I get a hit, but not on the ship I was aiming for. I hit ship 6 (a carrier) instead. Interesting...
Next I opt for 2,4, suspecting that the carrier is aligned north-east. Another unexpected occurrence! I hit ship 2! That makes me curious, could ships 2 and 6 have their positions switched? I try 2,3 next, but I miss. 2,5 also accrues a miss.
Here is what my spreadsheet matrix looks like at this point.
At this point, I realise that ship 6 can only be going eastward, as that's the only 4-long space available (assuming that ship 5 is where it says it is). I am correct, and take out ship 6 (while accidentally putting a miss on 6,6.) It's also helpful in ruling out the rest of row 6, as no other ships are small enough to fit in that gap now. At least for ships 2 and 6, my theory of perpendicularity has proven true. In the case of the vertical ship (6), it was also shifted up one space north-east as well.
The thought now is that, perhaps the opposite is true of ships aligned horizontally on the coded matrix? Perhaps they are also shifted, but one space south-west? It proves true in the case of ship 2, as 1,4 is its other position. Halfway there.
Insert Bon Jovi reference here.
I look to ship 4 next, as the other two are diagonals, and I'm not sure how to deal with them yet. If my theory is correct, 4's true position should be 3,4 - 4,4 - 5,4.
Hmm...
Another curveball is thrown, as I hit ship 5 instead of 4. Hm. Well that changes things a bit. There's only two potential locations for 5 - straight west, or straight south. Going south could potentially land me a hit on 3, while confirming the position of 5, so that's what I decide to do, and go for 3,3.
Miss. That's frustrating. The silver lining is that I've confirmed 5's position as westward.
Except I hadn't.
Or so I thought. I go 4,4, and I hit ship 3 instead. What? That's not what I expected at all! That means that 5's position hasn't changed at all... Does that mean 3 has simply been shifted to the opposite side of 5? It has, as 5,3 registers a hit, and 6,2 sees the cruiser fall to the bottom of the ocean.
Where the heck is 4 supposed to be?
So where on earth is 4, then? It can't be anywhere near its original position. There are a few potential spaces for it left on the grid in the south-west section. I come up with the theory that it's in the same spot, but on the perpendicular side. I try 2,1 to test this theory, and am correct. The fleet has been successfully dispatched. My final splash/hit ratio is .3888889. If I'm reading the instructions correctly, that's pretty good, as it's calculated as a fraction (splashes/hits), meaning a smaller ratio is better.
A job well done.
The true positions of the fleet.
Now, having had the first run help me get my bearings, I had to find out whether the code algorithm was consistent or not.
Upon starting my second game (seen in the video up top), I could definitively say the answer to that question is no - the code is different each time. For my second game, the positions of all ships were essentially opposite to what the matrix said. For visual reference, here's my finished spreadsheet for game 2:
It was opposite day for this fleet.
The game matrix is on the left in this image, with my completed game on the right. You can see this "opposite" code most clearly with ships 2, 4, and 5 - with 4 being in the opposite corner, and 2 and 5 also being in their opposing corners, and rotated. 3 is the odd one out in this set, as it doesn't move into its opposing corner, but is just rotated 90 degrees. My splash/hit ratio was the same as the first game, in case you were curious.
I think this is enough evidence to suggest that the game changes the code for each game. I could play a few more rounds to see if it randomises or selects from a limited set of rules, but I don't see much point in doing that. I can't read BASIC, either, so I couldn't tell you from looking at the source code how the game determines the fleet positions and matrix code.
What I can tell you from the code is that there is a little congratulations message programmed if you take out every ship without missing. It simply reads:
"Congratulations -- A direct hit every time."
Nice to see an acknowledgement for a perfect game. I'm not likely to try this, as there's always going to be a large degree of luck involved, but it's certainly possible to achieve.
That does it for Battle. Now to do the scores.
Time Played: 45 minutes
It takes a lot longer to complete a round than almost all of the other games I've played to date. My first run (which I took notes while playing) took roughly 33 minutes, and my second about 8-and-a-half, so I'll round it up to make things easy.
Difficulty: 3/10 (Easy)
It wasn't particularly difficult for me to figure out how to decode the matrixes I was given. The first one was a bit more challenging, as I didn't know how the game was going to code the fleet's position, but once I started to understand how the game did things, it was fairly easy to figure out the code.
Gameplay: 7/20
I'm actually fairly impressed with Battle from a game design standpoint. It's a clever twist to convert Battleship into a code-breaking puzzle game, and it works well. Each round is different from the last, meaning it has some replay value. While still very simple, it's miles better than the glorified RNG simulators that I've been playing recently.
Controls: 10/10
Each move only consists of 3 inputs, with the second always being a comma, and the first and third always being a number between 1 and 6. No issues with inputs on this one, full marks.
Visual: 4/10
It's roughly down-the-middle as far as text-based games are concerned. The fleet matrix is nice and clear, but the text generated upon destroying a ship is a lot, and feels quite cluttered. I think it would've been easier to digest if each type of ship was on its own line, instead of all three being on the one line. There's a little bit of charm and personality in the writing, but not enough to give it another point.
Functionality: 5/5
As with most text-based games of this ilk, everything works perfectly.
Accessibility: 3/5
It helps that Battle is based off a highly recognisable game, so that gets it an extra point, but text games still aren't an easy thing to get into.
Fun Factor: 8/20
I enjoy numbers and patterns quite a bit, so Battle appeals to me quite well as a puzzle game. It's simple but enjoyable, and has genuine replay value.
With these scores, Battle earns the second-highest position on the tier list (at the time of this blog), with a final score of 37/70 (52.85%). It just barely misses out on a C-tier placement, having to settle for a spot at the top of the D-tier. It's nice to see some improvement on the game design front, and something with actual gameplay to talk about instead of yet another RNG simulator.
I'm contemplating some re-scores once the Prehistory series is done, as I need to re-evaluate how I score controls and visuals on text-based games. I'll do a score change round-up blog once I complete the final games from 1970.
