#009: Stars

Release Date: December 1972

Platform: EduSystem 20

Genre: Puzzle

Developer(s): Bob Albrecht

Publisher(s): People's Computer Company

Back to the guessing-game train. This is another number guessing game coming to us from Bob Albrecht. It's a little bit different to Albrecht's previous number guessing game I covered last month, Trap, but the foundation is basically the same.

Stars was initially published in People's Computer Company's second newsletter, published in December 1972, two months after the company's debut newsletter in October 1972. A full page is dedicated to Stars, with it being described as "for small people, but big people like it, too." In other words, Stars is designed for young children.

PPC's Stars feature. I fear how many variations can be made on number guessers.

PPC's article (as does BASIC Computer Games' page) encourages the reader to adjust parts of the code - want to change the number of guesses? Edit line 160. Want it to run on a HP 2000 instead of the EduSystem 20? Delete line 130. It's ultra base-level programming, but is a way for primary school-aged kids to get their feet wet with programming and to understand how parts of BASIC code worked. Otherwise, you'd just be typing in the program code and watching the game somehow run like it's witchcraft.

Not too soon after PPC's publishing of Stars, David Ahl picked it up, including it in 101 BASIC Computer Games. It's in both editions of the book, and is also unchanged between versions (the code is always adapted for microcomputers in the 1978 edition. I think I should've mentioned this ages ago. Whatever games are carryovers from the first edition of the book always have their code updated to work for whatever version of BASIC microcomputers use, so they're technically not identical. Functionally identical, code not identical.)

Circling back to the beginning, Stars is a simple number guessing game. Like Trap before it, the computer randomly selects a number between 1 and 100 for you to guess. Stars gives you only 7 guesses. Where Stars differs is in how it tells you your proximity to the correct number. The titular stars function as those clues telling you how close you are to the correct number. The more stars shown after each guess, the closer you are to the number.

Seven stars, seven rings, seven chaos emeralds... any more I'm forgetting?

It's a very quickfire game to go through, as there's nothing to it, really. The standard instructions are there to explain the game and what the stars mean. Then, you get to guessing. The standard strategy with most number guessing games of this ilk is to guess 50 first, and then the game would tell you if the number is higher or lower than that, then keep going for the middle (75 -> 87/88 or 25 -> 12/13) until you get it. It doesn't quite work like that in Stars, as the game doesn't tell you if the number is higher or lower than your guess. You'd have to pick a direction and see what the stars say.

The standard strategy given a mediocre review by the game.

I used this standard strategy as my base, picking 50 first, which generated 3 stars. I decided to go up from there, choosing 75 for my next guess. Seven stars. Hello. Being unsure as to how close seven stars meant, I opted to hedge my bets and rule out some of the surrounding numbers. 80 generated five stars, and so did 70. This suggested to me that seven stars must indicate an adjacent number (this is in fact the case), so I made 76 my fifth guess - success! 

That's more than seven stars, game...

For fun, I decided to see what happens if you fail to guess the number in seven attempts. It's not as exciting as I hoped, as the fail message was anticlimactically plain, "Sorry, that's 7 guesses." Boo, I was hoping for something a bit more interesting. Designing a game for young kids doesn't mean you suck all the personality out of it.

Sorry? That's all you have to say?

You might be surprised to know that I played a couple more rounds after this. My curiosity for knowing exactly what the stars indicated needed to be satiated. It seems clear to me that seven stars indicate that the guess is directly adjacent to the correct number. Six stars seems to either be 2 or 3 numbers away, and five stars are given for being 4 to 8 numbers away. You'll even get two stars if the number is 50 off!

That's all there is for Stars. Really not much to discuss - same case with the scores.

Time Played: 5 minutes

Difficulty: 1/10 (Very Easy)

Gameplay: 1/20

There's hardly a game here. It's just a basic, first-week-of-coding number guessing game. I've written them before. The only point of difference is the stars

Controls: 5/10

Standard integer input for text-based games.

Visual: 5/10

Very, very plain.

Functionality: 5/5

Works perfectly as intended.

Accessibility: 4/5

Being designed for young children, it's a very simple and easy game to understand for text-based standards.

Fun Factor: 0/20

I don't know how much more I can take of guessing games. PPC's Stars article promises more in their next issue, which I'm dreading. How many more variations of this can there possibly be? I'm yearning for something of more substance. Soon.

Stars receives a total score of 20 [28.57%]. I do find Trap's method a little more interesting. Just a little. Stars is sitting near the bottom of the E-tier, next to Roulette and 1970 Batnum. The tiebreaker leaves Stars at the bottom of these three. It's not really worthwhile playing Stars - it doesn't provide much of value.

So, next up is Darts, which marks the last game of 1972, and also marks the debut of a new platform - PLATO - and one I'm very excited to dig more into. We're going to start getting actual graphics, new genres and even online multiplayer. I'm also currently writing up an Overview article for PLATO, which will hopefully be ready for Saturday. If not, Darts will be the Saturday article, Lord willing. Either way, the entrance of PLATO will cap off my coverage of 1972.

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