#016 - Slalom: It's All Fake Snow Up Here

Release Date: March 8, 1973

Platform: Mainframe

Genre: Sports

Developer(s): Jonathan Panek

Publisher(s):

[Ed. trying out some new colours on the blog - let me know what you think!]

We're re-entering the strange world of text-based sports games for this next entry. It's always seemed rather peculiar to me that early game developers thought that sports were suitable for text-based games, especially for more fast-paced sports like the one we're examining today. They seem diametrically opposed on the surface, but maybe, because of that, there's the making of an interesting game here? 

Slalom is a winter sports game, based on the slalom discipline of skiing. It's not exactly the first of its kind, as Magnavox's Odyssey console does have a ski game from 1972, creatively titled Ski (plus there's also its cancelled Ski Festival game.) But it is at least the first text-based attempt at a winter sport I know of.

The 1978 edition of BASIC Computer Games informs us that the author of Slalom, J. Panek, was a student at Dartmouth College when he wrote the game. Once again, this is a one-and-done author, though there is fortunately a good amount of information about him online. A quick search provides a LinkedIn profile of a Jonathan Panek, who fits the profile of scant information provided by the book and MobyGames. MobyGames adds that the J. Panek who wrote Slalom attended a St. Paul's school in 1977, which matches Jonathan Panek's LinkedIn profile. He also continued at Dartmouth College after St. Paul's School - in electrical engineering, no less, and later worked at Hewlett-Packard. From this information, I think it's a reasonable conclusion to say that this Jonathan Panek is the most likely author of Slalom.

Game description is savage. Maybe David Ahl didn't like skiing?

Dating the game might be confusing at first (it was for me,) as the source code in BASIC Computer Games has the game's setting as the 1976 Olympic Winter Games. Panek being at St. Paul's from 1971 - 1977 would also suggest that a later date may be likely (IMDB's entry for the game has it listed as a 1975 game.) However, the original source code is online, saved on the Sol-20 website, where it confirms the 1973 date. Panek tells us in the fourth line of the source code that his last work on the game was completed March 8, 1973. He also originally intended the game to be set at the '76 Winter Games, so that mystery is also solved. I do love it when all the data comes together neat and tidy like this.

Now, only one question remains: how do you simulate slalom skiing in a text-based game? The solution Jonathan Panek came up with was to have exclusive focus on one of the main controllable elements of skiing - speed. Slalom then, is all about speed management. At each gate of the slalom course, you have the choice of how much to speed up or slow down (or to maintain your current speed.) Go too slow, and you won't get a medal. Go too fast, and you'll hit a flag and crash out. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? You're even given to option to try and cheat by attempting to skip a flag, which got a chuckle out of me when I first saw it.

Slalom runs a little differently to most other text games I've covered so far. The first thing you do in game is not to look at the instructions. Radical game design. No, you first choose how many gates the slalom course you want to run will have. It can have as many as 25 gates, and as few as a single, lonely, solitary gate. I can't imagine one gate being much fun (spoilers: it isn't,) so I went for a moderate number for my first attempt: 10 gates.

Once you're done with that, then you can read the instructions. But, once again, Slalom does things a little differently. At this point. you've got three options:

1. Read the instructions.
2. View maximum speeds.
3. Start the race.

1 and 3 are self-explanatory, but option 2 appears an odd one on the surface. Basically, this option tells you the approximate top speed for each gate. You'd theoretically want to aim to pass each gate at around this speed in order to get the best time, without going over it, which would risk you missing the gate or crashing. In practice, however, it really doesn't work like this. At all. More on this later.

If I - an Australian - am America's only hope, we're in big trouble...

So I get the maximum speed list for the gates, and off I go. Although, there is one more thing to do before you get to start the race: difficulty selection. The game asks you how good a skier you think you are, with 1 being "worst," and 3 being "best." These are, apparently, the difficulty modes. I'm assuming that 1 is easiest and it gets harder from there. I haven't attempted the harder modes as I write this part. I think this is the first game to have actual difficulty modes, though. Sure, some previous games have had customisation options that affect difficulty, but not actual difficulty modes.

Obviously, I selected 1 for my first go. I've literally never even seen snow before in my life, so you can be sure I've never skied before. With that, I was off on this perilous journey down the course. Gate 1's max speed was 14 MPH, and I started at 13 MPH, so I opted to select option 3 and speed up a "teensy" bit. I pass the gate at 14 MPH.

Gate 2's max is 18 MPH, so I figure I can speed up a bit more, and choose to speed up a "little." 17 MPH passing the gate. Things seem to be progressing smoothly so far. Before I choose what to do at Gate 3, I check my time: just over 29.34 seconds. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Gate 3 represents a big speed jump - I can take it at 26 MPH. I speed up a lot. Up to 25 MPH, to which the game comments, "Close one!" Got to risk it for the biscuit.

However, this risk fails to pay off any further. Gate 4 is at 29 MPH, so I keep speeding up. I snag a flag, and it's game over. Although, I must say I was very confused at this stage of the game. It told me I had gone over the maximum speed, but I had not. My speed at Gate 4 was only 28 MPH.

Err, no I didn't. I want to speak to an official.

The game allows you to try again, and so I did. Same thing happened again, only at Gate 3. The maximum speed was 26 MPH, but this time I was only going 21 MPH and was told I went too fast. I played a fair bit safer on my next attempt, and got to Gate 8 before the same thing occurred. Its max speed was 32 MPH and I crashed out at only 28 MPH.

I then went for another attempt and... something very strange happened. The game printed its race start line, and then I was greeted with the message, "!OUT OF DATA IN LINE 540," and then the game stopped.

This time, the game wiped out.

Did it just crash on me? Several more attempts ended in the same fashion, so it appears to be a bug in the game. There was also a typo I noticed, where "MAXIMUM" was sometimes misspelled "NAXIMUM." What's weird about this typo, however, is that it isn't in either the original source code or the BASIC Computer Games revised code. Both of them abbreviate the word "MAXIMUM" as "MAX." so I have no idea where this error comes from. In fact, the entire line saying you've gone over max speed has been entirely re-written in the version I got from Vintage BASIC. Who did this and when is a complete mystery. I won't be holding this against the game in scoring, and I in fact went into the game code and fixed the spelling, just so that I wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

Right, with that out of the way, back to the game. I had an overnight think about the strange stuff going on with the max speeds not lining up, and decided to do a test on the game. I started with a 1 gate race, and played it several times over to get an idea of what was going on in the game, repeating the process with 2 gate, 3 gate races, and so on. This is Obsessive Gaming Chronology, after all, I'm gonna do deep into these games. 

What I discovered is that I have no idea how anything in this game works, and it all seems mostly random and inconsistent. Fun!

First, I can't tell if the difficulty modes actually do anything. I was able to get bronze, silver and gold medals on all modes, so I really don't know what difference the choice makes.

Second, your end results - if you don't crash out - appear to be mostly random. And wildly random at that. The same race I got a gold medal time in, I can get a time up to 20 seconds slower, even if I use the same inputs. On top of this, you can actually become a time traveler in Slalom, because you can crash out of a race with a negative time. 

I found a rift in the space-time continuum.

The third thing, and something I alluded to earlier, is that the max speed chart lies to you. I discovered from doing 4 gate races that what that chart tells you (the values are static) is either misleading at best or blatantly incorrect at worst. Gate 4 is always set at a max speed of 29 MPH, but you'll always crash if you get anywhere near that speed at this gate. You actually need to slow down to have a chance to pass this gate cleanly, after the first three gates often allowing you to go at full pelt.

What this means is that you actually need to play more reactively than you'd think. The random nature of game results, and the variability of your starting speed and speed gains means that what you actually need to do to have a successful run is to listen to what the game tells you. This is the most likely way you'll get a medal. If it tells you that you went over speed at a gate, it's probably best to slow down a bit for the next one - same if it says "CLOSE ONE!" If you consistently wipe out at one particular gate, you probably need to slow down more at it in future attempts. It's honestly not how I expected the game to play at all coming into it. I also find it very frustrating, as I feel like my success in game is more reliant on luck than skill. Everything is just too random.

And yet, I press on. The other point of me putting the word "obsessive" in the blog title is that I'm a completionist - I'm usually not satisfied just beating a game - I need to master it. Every collectible, every difficulty mode, every achievement... I leave no stone unturned in exploring any game I play. There hasn't been much opportunity with previous games to lean into this tendency of mine, but there is with Slalom. 

But, how do I even determine completion of Slalom? The difficulty modes don't do anything discernable, and I don't even know which one is supposed to be the "hardest" one, so there's no point in using that as a metric. That just leaves the race length. 25 gates is the longest a race can be in Slalom, so that's my goal: get a gold medal on a 25 gate race. The successful attempt will be added in a video at the top of the article, if and when I do so. [Ed. video is up now.] The releases of article and video will likely become desynched the longer and more complex games become, especially because I want the videos to be of a high gameplay standard. Eventually I want to start live-streaming all my gameplay, but that simply isn't viable for me at the current time.

[Ed. Update on Slalom progress: Look, folks... I think it's impossible. I managed to snag a Silver medal on the 25 gate race, after about half an hour and several Bronzes in a row, and switching from mode 3 to 1. Which was great - I though Gold couldn't be far off. I also thought now, maybe the difficulty modes made a difference... I eventually went back to mode 3, and got another Silver. And another. And another. So, maybe they do, only in the opposite direction. Mode 3 might actually allow to get faster times, as my first mode 3 Silver time was over 20 seconds faster than the first Silver. I went from 64 seconds to 42 seconds.

So... what does it take to get Gold, then? I assume under 40 seconds. So I kept trying for over an hour. Nothing better than the 42 seconds. In fact, I didn't even come close to beating that time. I even tried the cheat option - which worked once, and never again - but no, nothing remotely close. It's so frustrating because I'm not in control of the outcome. I feel like I'm doing Gran Turismo license tests again, except I can only suggest to the car what it should do.

Therefore, I think I have to call it here for Slalom. Whether or not the Gold time is possible, I don't know. I don't think it is, and I don't care to find out anymore.]

All that's left to do now is score Slalom. Is it in the running for a podium finish? Probably not, but let's find out, anyway.

Time Played: 2 hours (most of which was spent attempting to get gold in the 25 gate race...)

Difficulty: 6/10 (Challenging)

It's difficult (irony) to rank Slalom's difficulty on account of the randomness built into the game. This makes it hard to tell how well you're doing, and sometimes you can fail without warning. Learning the game isn't particularly difficult, and is just a matter of knowing what to do at each gate. The in-game difficulty modes have no discernable bearing on the game, so I've not factored them into this score.

[Ed. I've increased the difficulty score 2 points after my failed attempt to get the 25 gate Gold medal.]

Gameplay: 6/20

There's a lot of problems with Slalom, but also some meritorious gameplay. The foundation of the game is good, and I appreciate the range of choices it gives you that allow for more precision (even letting you cheat, which I've never seen be successful to date.) Managing your speed requires learning the course, knowing when to speed up and when to slow down. The game also does a reasonable job of warning you when you're going too fast, allowing you to react accordingly.

Slalom's chief issue is its sheer inconsistency. The game can just fail you at any moment. You might've gotten through that gate at that speed with no complaints from the game last time - but not this time. The speed gains and slow downs are somewhat unpredictable, and the actual time you earn at the end of the course can fluctuate wildly without reason.

Other issues include the max speed chart the game provides being very deceptive, as closing in on the reported max speed will often result in a crash. It ends up being better to learn by ear what each gate requires, and reacting to the randomness of the game accordingly. I also can't tell if the "rate yourself as a skier" difficulty modes actually do anything.

Controls: 5/10

Aside from the commands at the start of the game, the rest is your standard single-key inputs. Makes sense and does the job it needs to do.

Visual: 6/10

I will give Slalom props for doing a very good job with its formatting and presentation. It's clear to me that some consideration was given to ensuring that the game is neatly presented, and with some writing charm, to boot. The race start text, and even the instructions are good examples of the writing and neatness, respectively. Even the little indenting of the speed text at each gate is a detail that elevates the game presentation. 

Functionality: 4/5

Obviously it loses a point for the "out of data" bug that causes the game to crash. Fortunately, it doesn't directly impact gameplay and takes a while to show up.

Pro tip: when doing a 25 gate race, don't pull up the instructions and max speed chart. The game will crash immediately upon trying to start a race. Starting the race immediately will not cause this issue.

Accessibility: 3/5

It's fairly standard for a text-based game. A decent level of reading proficiency is needed.

Fun Factor: 5/20

Look, the game has some merit to it, despite the raft of flaws. There is a degree of skill and learning of the game required to do well, which encourages replaying. However, once you learn the game, its extreme randomness results in a "grind until the game lets you win" type of situation. Then it becomes more work than fun if you actually want to "complete" the game (by my standard of completion, anyway.)

This one was an interesting, but tricky game to rate. I don't think I've encountered a game on the blog so far that's had so many aspects, both positive and negative, to consider. Then end result is a middling, but appropriate score of 29, which puts Slalom very far away from a podium finish (11th overall,) near the bottom of D-tier, just ahead of Warfish. The result is another proof of my scoring system working, as Warfish was the game I ended up comparing Slalom to the most in terms of where and how to grade it. That, at least, is quite satisfying.

Before closing out this article, I have a couple of updates to share:

For anyone wondering, the PLATO article is still in progress. The development history segment is complete, and I'm in the process of recording game footage for the game library section. If you don't know PLATO, you're mind's gonna be blown at what's on that system.

Also, by way of reminder, there's now an OGC Discord and Patreon where you can get involved in the growing community and support the work I do here. Links are in the sidebar.

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