Prehistory XXIV: LEM [Apollo, Rockt2]

Release Date: 1970

Platform: Unspecified mainframe

Genre: Simulation

Developer(s): William P. Labaree II

Publisher(s): DECUS

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%)