#012: Warfish

Release Date: February 2, 1973

Platform: Mainframe

Genre: Strategy

Developer(s): Randy Witt

Publisher(s):

Well, I'm back from my holiday, so it's time for another article. Here, we have something a bit (when I say "a bit," I mean a lot) more interesting. Warfish presents a game concept we've only seen on the Magnavox Odyssey thus far in video game history: submarine warfare. Later in the decade, there'll be a few noteworthy naval warfare games involving submarines, such as Midway's Sea Wolf and Gremlin's Depth Charge, but here in 1973, the concept is still fresh.

Another point of interest for Warfish is that it may very well be the first ever game based on a book. The 1958 book War Fish is the source of inspiration for this game, a book telling the firsthand account of submarine commander George Grider's wartime career. He was commander of the USS Flasher, and was on duty during World War II.

Warfish appears in the sequel to one of the most oft-referenced books on my blog, David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games. More BASIC Computer Games, published in 1979, includes a new stack of games and programs from across the 1970s, generally a bit more varied and complex than the games in the first book. We'll be seeing this book a few more times throughout 1973, and, like its predecessor, is freely available to read at atariarchives.org. 

I'm sad to say that the authorship of this game is, for the most part, another standard case for this time period. Our author today is Randy Witt (sometimes spelled "Wit".) This is his only game, and, once again, there are several people sharing that name, with no immediate indication of which Randy Witt was the author of Warfish. Fortunately, we have some clues in the game's Sol-20 source code (found here), including the date on which Warfish's development was completed. The code also tells us where Randy Witt was from: Janesville, Minnesota. From here I was able to do some sleuthing, and determined that the Randy Witt who authored Warfish is a Randy Robert Witt from Iowa. The little else I could find on him suggests that he stayed in computing in some form after programming Warfish. Coincidentally, there are also a couple of other Randy Witts who served in the military.

The only information we have on Warfish outside of the source code.

Unlike the preceding book, there is no set of Vintage BASIC games for More BASIC Computer Games, so different means are required to access Warfish. It had a couple of microcomputer ports, including to the Sol-20 and TRS-80. A DOS port of the game has been uploaded to the Internet Archive - it's one of the ports that has a "modern" and "classic" version of the game, of which the "classic" version is exactly the same as the game listed in the book, so that's what I'll be going with today. 

I had higher hopes for this game compared to the last one (Slots), which was not hard, mind you. It seemed from reading the game description that it might have been something akin to a text-based version of Midway's Sea Wolf, and I love Sea Wolf.

So, is Warfish as I hoped? Well... kind of. The gameplay loop is a fairly rudimentary one - you use your sub's periscope to search out a target, and then fire torpedoes at it until it sinks. Rinse and repeat until you run out of torpedoes, or get blown up by your enemies. The only intrusion into the basic loop is if a ship is attacking you, where you can dive to avoid it (or risk fighting back.) The main aim of the game is to sink as many ships as possible, with the game giving you a score according to the gross tonnage of the ships you destroyed. Except for avoiding enemy ships, this is a fairly similar gameplay loop to Sea Wolf.

How strong is your desire for rules?

Warfish, as is standard, first asks if you want the instructions. You get the rundown of how the game works, and also gives you a little bit of a military history lesson by listing the names of real US submarines. It's giving you a bit of inspiration, as your first task is to name your sub. I went with one of the real names, Thresher. The submarine that George Grider commandeered, USS Flasher, is also listed.

Personally, I have a deep-seated desire to read the instructions of games I've not played before.

The inputs for your gameplay choices reflect how many text-based games handle inputs going forward. Each command is an entire word - to use the periscope, you actually type in "PERISCOPE," and so on. I think it's neat that Warfish does this, as it adds to the immersion of the game. What's even neater, however, is that you don't actually have to type in the full word! The first letter of each command is accepted by the game, too.

There are various types of ships you'll encounter during a round of Warfish. Most, like transports, tankers and aircraft carriers, don't fight back, and sinking them is just a matter of firing torpedoes until enough hit to sink them. According to the description in More BASIC Computer Games, whether a torpedo hits or not is determined at random.

How an encounter with a generic ship typically goes.

When it comes to attacking enemy ships, things are a little different. It's still random, but there's a bit more choice available to the player. You can dive to try avoid the ship, or you can take a risk and fire retaliatory torpedoes. I tried both in my playthrough, and came out unscathed. The code appears to suggest two ways your sub can be destroyed, either by depth charges, or gunfire.

An encounter with a hostile vessel.

It took a while for a hostile ship to appear in my first go around. I was mostly just taking potshots at whatever crossed my path up until I encountered a destroyer escort, then an actual destroyer. I can imagine in my head that they must've got really sick of me sinking all their other ships, and decided to come after me with all they had. I evaded the escort, but the destroyer hung around after I dived to avoid it. I decided that, if I wouldn't go away on its own, that I'd make it go away. I only had two torpedoes left at this point, so I chose to throw a hail Mary and see what would happen.

That's what you get, destroyer!

Fortunately, I was successful in sinking the destroyer. I think I got rather lucky here, as in my testing after this run, I was almost always gunned down when I tried to fire back. Never ran into the depth charges, however.

And with that, my first round of Warfish came to an end. I sunk 7 vessels, with a gross tonnage of 59,300. This is on the lower end of the scores I ended up getting on follow-up playthroughs.

Before I go onto the score, I have an opportunity to talk about high scores for a change! For arcade games and the like that keep track of high scores, I'll be putting up my best effort from my playing time for you all to compete against. For Warfish, I played a few more rounds, and managed a best of 13 ships, with a tonnage of 77,370. If you have a go at this one, let me know what your best was in the comments.

Now we can do the scores.

Time Played: Rough estimate of 15 minutes. A single playthrough takes between 1 - 3 minutes.

Difficulty: 1/10 (Very Easy)

It's hard to quantify the difficulty of Warfish, as the outcomes of most actions are random. As long as you're not feeling especially risky, it's incredibly easy to complete a playthrough.

Gameplay: 4/20

Warfish occupies a similar space to something like Dartmouth Championship Football. Both present several strategic options, but suffer from the illusion of choice, as outcomes are determined randomly. I think Warfish is a little better, thanks to its faster pace and simple attempts at immersion.

Controls: 7/10

Even if not immediately obvious, the ability to input the first letter of each command is an excellent addition to help the fast-paced nature of the game.

Visual: 4/10

There's a small typo in the instructions (I'll let you figure out where), and some of the formatting is a little wonky when diving.

Functionality: 5/5

No noticeable performance issues.

Accessibility: 3/5

While Warfish does require less reading, and is more action-oriented than previous text games, it's still a text game.

Fun Factor: 5/20

High scores make everything that little bit more replayable for me. Although, the random nature of the game severely impacts the interest in wanting to keep playing, as there's not really any skill required. Still, the speed of the game does make it somewhat enjoyable.

In total, Warfish earns a 28/70, which is 40% exactly, meaning it just scrapes into the bottom of the D-tier. A much better showing than Slots, and gives me a bit of hope that 1973's games will continue to improve from here.

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