Release Date: February 1973
Platform: Mainframe
Genre: Puzzle, Educational
Developer(s): Bob Albrecht, Martin "Bud" Valenti (and students)
Publisher(s): People's Computer Company
Our next entry is one that's potentially a predecessor of one of the more famous early text games, Hunt the Wumpus - an early progenitor of the text-based adventure genre (pretty much the only style of game anyone thinks of when it comes to text-based games these days.) Mugwump finds its roots, like so many other early video games, in experiments with computers in educational settings - with maybe a little bit of Battleship thrown in for good measure.
Authorship is, fortunately, a fairly simple case for Mugwump (and its successor, Hurkle, for that matter.) Mugwump is attributed to Bob Albrecht, and was published in his People's Computer Company newsletter for February 1973.
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| Mugwump (and Hurkle) are in the top right of this... interesting looking page. |
This presents a bit of a dilemma, however. Upon doing my research for the game, I discovered that MobyGames' release date for Mugwump is incorrect. Over there, Mugwump is listed as a May 1973 release. However, as just stated, Mugwump and its successor, Hurkle, both featured in the February 1973 edition of the People's Computer Company Newsletter. The games' section of the newsletter also states that,
"HURKLE was inspired my MUGWUMP."
Straight from the horse's mouth. The publisher makes a clear statement that Mugwump preceded Hurkle, which MobyGames lists correctly as a February 1973 release. This is why I'm going against my usual pattern of doing games with shared release months in alphabetical order. If I hadn't found this information, we'd be discussing Hurkle right now. While our online databases are wonderful, they're not perfect. I've submitted a correction, for anyone wondering.
The newsletter also states that Mugwump was inspired by a "Project SOLO," run by the University of Pittsburgh. This project, according to one of their newsletters,
"...is an experimental program concerned with exploring the potential of computers in the hands of high school students and teachers."
The antecedent of Mugwump was a direct result of Project SOLO, developed by the students of Martin "Bud" Valenti, a WWII veteran and public school mathematics teacher. This game Mugwump is based on can be found in the June 1972 edition of the Project SOLO newsletter, and is titled Hide and Seek. Its original purpose was to be a game used to help students learn about Cartesian co-ordinates (with compass included.) Compared to Mugwump, it turns out Albrecht changed very little about the game, only changing the four players to the titular Mugwumps, and the ending text. It's unknown how Albrecht got access to Hide and Seek.
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| Hide and Seek in the Project SOLO newsletter. Graph paper and a compass were recommended assistants for this game. |
With all that out of the way, let's get into the game itself. The most critical question we must ask at this juncture is:
Just what is a Mugwump?
Even the PCC newsletter asks the same question. They understand. This type of question is of vital importance to our understanding of the cosmos. Unfortunately, it's also the type of question that doesn't have an answer. It's a shame, really.
Upon opening the game, I noticed that it bucks the trend of early text-based games in that it doesn't bother asking if you want the instructions - it just gives them to you. I'm told that the objective is to find four Mugwumps hiding themselves in a 10x10 grid. Why they limit themselves to such a small space, I'll never know.
I mentioned the board game Battleship at the start, because the process of finding the Mugwumps is much the same as choosing a co-ordinate in that classic game (or even Battle, for a prior video game example. Mugwump shares much in common with Battle, as it turns out.) Co-ordinate 0,0 is in the bottom left of the grid, and follows the typical grid system of the first digit being the horizontal x-axis, and the second the vertical y-axis.
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| You also only get 10 guesses. Good luck. |
Also explained in the instructions is the clue system the game provides. I'm glad I don't have to go in blind, just wildly guessing without any reference points. After the first guess, the game will give you a clue as to the location of each uncaught Mugwump in relation to your guess. It does this in "units," which aren't always a round integer. Decimals signify the location being on a diagonal. Apparently, this is where a compass and graph paper are useful. I have graph paper (for dungeon mapping in future RPGs), but this is 2025, not 1973 - nobody uses compasses in the future.
For my first couple of goes at the game, my strategy was to have my first guess directly in the centre of the grid - co-ordinate 5,5. In hindsight, this was probably a terrible idea, as the clues only tell you distance, not direction. It's probably best to stick to the margins - less possible directions to consider.
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| This was a terrible idea. |
The clues didn't really help me on account of deciding to plonk myself in the middle of the field. I made a somewhat educated second guess of 3,3. This provided much better results, as I had two of the Mugwumps either directly up or across from my location.
My next guess was 8,3, which resulted in one caught Mugwump! This guess also happened to be a solid anchor point for every other Mugwump, as they were all in straight directions from 8,3.
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| Got 'em. |
The next most logical spot to guess was 9,3, as guess 2 had the fourth Mugwump one unit further away from the third Mugwump. I was correct, and now there was only two Mugwumps left.
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| Making solid progress. |
Based on guess 3, the other two Mugwumps were either left or right three spaces - take your pick. I did, and picked wrongly, going right to 8,6 when I should've gone left to 8,0.
Upon rectifying this error, I was greeted with the final two Mugwumps hiding in the same space! I'm surprised the game allows this to occur, but it's also likely a rare occurrence. My first game of Mugwump resulted in successfully finding all four Mugwumps in only six guesses - the number of guesses the game's writeups suggest is a good score... when using a compass. See, I told you it was unnecessary.
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| So what do I do with the Mugwumps after I catch them? |
This is one of those games that starts a new round immediately, so I decided to have another go around. I didn't mind the first round, so going a second time wasn't a hard choice.
This round was... less successful. I went with the same strategy, and the folly of it showed this time. I was only able to catch three of the four Mugwumps, and found it considerably more difficult to ascertain their locations.
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| Tch. Knew I should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque... |
Naturally, I had to play again after reconsidering my strategy. It turns out the game is a fair bit harder than I first thought. The strategy for the next handful of games was to start at 1,1, but none of those attempts were successful.
Eventually, I tried 0,0 as the starting move, and this proved far more effective. I found all Mugwumps in six turns again. What I learned during that attempt is that when the distance is listed as a round integer ("x units; no decimal point), it doesn't always mean that the Mugwump is in the same row/column as your guess. Often, it's one over, as can be seen from this screenshot:
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| Not always straight ahead. |
My first guess was 0,0. This generated a clue for Mugwump 4 being 8 units away. Naturally, my next guess was in line - 8,0. The Mugwump was still 1 unit away, somehow. The only logical place to go next was 8,1 - exactly where the Mugwump was hiding. When the angles get very narrow, the game seems to round down, as sometimes it will use a .1 to signify something like this, other times it does not.
The 0,0 strategy resulted in two wins in a row for me, which I think proves it to be the best of the three strategies I tried for the game. You'd probably have the same success starting in any of the corners, however. Let's coin it the "corner" strategy. Both my recording attempts were also successful using this strategy. I found in my dumped attempt that, if 0,0 doesn't give good clues, you can just go to a different corner.
In case you couldn't tell, I rather enjoyed myself with this game, which will be reflected in the scores. This is also an attempt at finding more interesting ways to say "on to the scores." One of my writing goals is to be more creative with my segues.
Difficulty: 4/10 (Mild)
There is a bit of challenge here in deciphering the clues and figuring out the best way to proceed. The random dispersion of the Mugwumps always kept me on my toes, and failure is possible if the clues aren't interpreted correctly.
Gameplay: 8/20
Controls: 5/10
Visual: 5/10
Functionality: 5/5
Accessibility: 3/5
Fun Factor: 10/20
Yeah, a surprise higher score for Mugwump. Much like Battle, I really did find enjoyment and intellectual stimulation in having the space to make strategic decisions and interpret clues. While the random dispersion of Mugwumps assist in giving the game some replay value, it's still not exactly something I'd seek out in my own time.
1973 continues to impress (compared to previous years, anyway), with Mugwump earning a score of 36, giving it a percentage equal to Hamurabi (51.42%), and thus a spot high in the D-tier. Mugwump just beats out Hamurabi in the Fun Factor tiebreaker, taking 5th place on the tier list as it stands at the time of writing.
Next time we have Mugwump's sister game, Hurkle to tackle. I think that's going to be an interesting comparison, as both games are near identical, with one small difference that could have huge gameplay ramifications.
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