#017 - Hunt the Wumpus: Who Wants to Go on an Adventure?

Release Date: May 1973

Platform: Mainframe

Genre: Adventure

Developer(s): Gregory Yob

Publisher(s): People's Computer Company

Mugwump. Hurkle. Wumpus. 1973 had a thing for similarly-named mythical creatures, eh? Another thing 1973 had going for it was adventure. Yes, the beginnings of a new genre are taking place here in 1973, and one that would define much of early popular computer gaming, alongside CRPGs. Before being eaten by a Grue, one had to be eaten by a Wumpus.

I'm going to be spending more time on the authorship and history section of this article because there's a ton of information available about Hunt the Wumpus (also simply titled Wumpus) and its creator, Gregory Yob.

Gregory Yob (who also went by the names Hara Ra and Gregory H. Coresun) was a sometimes-contributor to the People's Computer Company newsletter. He provided a substantial write-up for the PILOT programming language in PCC's April '73 publication, and Hunt the Wumpus would later be included in the November edition the same year. I'm not sure where the May '73 date MobyGames has comes from.

PCC's Wumpus article. They let you come up with your own Wumpus design.

What I do know for certain is that Hunt the Wumpus succeeds Mugwump and Hurkle, because Yob himself confirms it. Those two games are effectively the reason why he made Hunt the Wumpus. While the game isn't in Ahl's BASIC Computer Games, it (and its sequel) are featured in that book's sequel, More BASIC Computer Games. On top of that, Yob himself did the write-up for it, explaining why he made the game. He records his reaction to seeing Mugwump and Hurkle for the first time as - and I quote - "EECH!!" 

Suffice it to say, he was not impressed. He hated the grid-based games, and wanted to see a game like them with the grid removed entirely. Later that day, he had an idea. The phrase "Hunt the Wumpus" came to him during meditation, and that's where the game began. The concept revolved around having a playing area made up of interconnected points, which Yob decided would be in the shape of a flattened dodecahedron because "it's my [Yob's] favorite Platonic solid." The shape would have 20 interconnected points, which would become different rooms in a cave system.

He didn't really know what this "Wumpus" creature was to look like, exactly. It's appeared in several forms in later media - including being the mascot of Discord (hint: shameless plug) - but at the time Yob was inviting readers to come up with their own ideas of what the Wumpus looked like. It took a few years for the general design of the Wumpus to be formed, but it was settled by at least the time the TI-99 computer came out in 1979.

The Wumpus as depicted in the TI-99 version of Hunt the Wumpus. Horror game material?

As for the objective of the game, it involved the player exploring the caves in hunt of the Wumpus. When they thought they were in a room near or adjacent to the Wumpus, which you would know from its pungent body odour, they'd shoot it with bow and arrow. Just to make things more interesting, however, Yob added some hazards into this cave system. Two, to be exact: bottomless pits and what he called "Superbats." Bottomless pits are obvious, but "Superbats" would grab the player and take them to a random room elsewhere in the cave system. The starting positions of player, Wumpus and hazards were all randomised at the start of the game.

The Wumpus could also move around the caves. It would move whenever the player shot an arrow or entered its current room in the cave. Yob even thought about some lore for how the Wumpus avoided the hazards - it was to heavy to be lifted by the bats, and had "sucker feet." It also had a thing for human flesh, as if the player ended up in the same room as the Wumpus after it moved, they became lunch. Very few games did this sort of thing at the time, and it creates a tension between hunter and prey, where the hunter could become the hunted. Some have argued that this is the genesis of horror/survival horror games, and I can see their point to some extent. Your character can meet a gruesome end, either from pit or coming face to face with the Wumpus, which can make exploring the caves somewhat unnerving.

The in-game instructions probably explain it better than I do.

What I will say for certain is that Hunt the Wumpus is the first adventure game. It has the working parts of an adventure game, even if not fully fleshed out. The bulk of the game is taken up with exploring this cave system, with the occasional descriptor appearing, sometimes functioning as hints to what's in the connected rooms, other times describing the player's unfortunate demise. We'll see this format expanded on later on in the decade in games like Wander and, eventually, Zork.

The descriptors/hints/warnings/whatever you want to call them. Also sequels!

Later in 1973, Yob presented his complete game to the People's Computer Company, where it was included in the November edition of the newsletter as I mentioned earlier in the article. Yob recalls attending a conference about a month after submitting the game, where almost every terminal was filled with people playing Hunt the Wumpus. It seemed like Yob had a hit on his hands. Creative Computing got their hands on the game in 1975, and Yob capitalised on his unexpected success by creating a number of sequels in an example of an early series/IP (we could say Pong was the first real video game series.) Yob created at least three more Wumpus games. 

Creative Computing's Robo-Wumpus. Definitely horror game material.

Now, I've played a form of Hunt the Wumpus previously on the Apple I (emulated, of course, because nobody actually owns an Apple I.) I recall that version not working too well - it may have been bugged to the point that the Wumpus didn't actually appear! I remember spending a long time wandering about in those caves with no sign of a Wumpus anywhere!

This time, I'm playing a DOS port from the Internet Archive. It's another one of those "modern or classic mode" versions where I always pick classic because I'm a purist snob like that. I can confirm that the Wumpus does indeed appear in this version. I know because I shot it and the game cackled at me, declaring "THE WUMPUS'LL GETCHA NEXT TIME!!"

Instructions are standard fare in Hunt the Wumpus, telling you all the things you need to know about how the game works, hazards, win and lose conditions, etc. One loss condition is shooting yourself with your own arrow. If you somehow manage to loop the arrow around multiple rooms back into your current room, you can kill yourself accidentally. I did this back on the Apple I version when I had no idea what I was doing. What a noob.

Having practiced archery, I don't know how one can shoot a "crooked" arrow.

Hunt the Wumpus dumps you straight into the caves, and now it's up to you to explore and try not to die. Having thought about it some, I realised that this is one of the only games up to this point in time where exploration is central to gameplay. The only other game I can think of that does this is Mike Mayfield's Star Trek. While it won't be obvious immediately, this emphasis on exploration marks a significant shift in game design. We have a few more early adventure games coming up (the Caves series) but, come 1974, we'll get Wander, another milestone in adventure games, and from there the floodgates open for exploration-based games (exclusively in the computer game sphere; arcades and consoles take a long, long time to catch up.)

I found that it's critical to memorise the locations of hazards within the cave system. I also think I got lucky with my first layout, as the first move I made allowed me to easily deduce the locations of one pit and one super bat.

Avoiding rooms 11 and 18.

Back to room 20 to go the other way. I slowly work my way through the other rooms without incident, until I get to room 12, where I'm able to determine the location of the other pit, in room 3.

A dead end. Literally.

The only real choice to make here is to backtrack and move over into the single-digit rooms. I go back to room 4 and make the discovery I need - the Wumpus is near! All that I need to do is determine which room it's in, which is actually very easy to do. I just came from room 14, and I know that room 3 has a pit, so that leaves only room 5. I load up my bow, and fire into room 5...

Got him!

And it's a win for me. Again, I honestly think the random generation was quite kind to me here, so I wanted to try again with a different setup. Fortunately the game is quite kind and lets you generate a new game without having to close and reopen it. 

My second attempt was a bit trickier, as I encountered the Wumpus first. I quickly figured out that a good strategy to avoid the Wumpus was to move back a room and shoot from a safe distance. I missed the first time (I stuffed up the inputs on my first go) and the Wumpus moved further away. I chased it and tried the same thing again, and this time was successful at snagging him.

You can see my strategy at work here.

I had a few more goes, just to got a more rounded view of possible game scenarios. I had one where I got caught by a bat. When that happens, the game declares "ELSEWHEREVILLE FOR YOU!" There's certainly a peculiar quirkiness that runs through the game. My reading on Gregory Yob suggests that he was quite an odd individual, so it checks that his personality would feed into the game. Fun fact: when Yob died in 2005, he was cryogenically frozen in hopes of being revived far into the future. Presented without comment.

Gather round the campfire now, enjoy some flame-grilled Wumpus steaks (are they edible?) as I go through the scores.

Time Played: 20 minutes (approx.)

Difficulty: 2/10 (Very Easy)

I didn't die once in my entire time playing the game. It gives you a lot of assistance in identifying hazards, so they end up not really being much of a danger, even if you start with a slightly trickier configuration.

Gameplay: 12

Easily one of the better games I've played for the blog thus far. It has a lot going for it in terms of game design. The emphasis on exploration is novel for its time, but it also makes good use of the mechanic by introducing hazards to avoid. Sometimes, depending on the cave configuration, a calculated risk is necessary to proceed. On top of this, there's additional strategy required. Identifying the location of pits is essential, and it's also necessary to build a strategy for taking out the Wumpus once encountered to ensure you don't become it's dinner.

Hunt the Wumpus also succeeds in building a small degree of tension. The stakes are high, it's either the Wumpus or you, and there are several ways you can die, which really isn't something we've seen before. It helps in making the caves exciting, and somewhat nerve-wracking to traverse.

The only significant piece of criticism that I can give is that the game undoes a bit of its strategic and tension-building work with how easy it is. I think it gives a little bit too much assistance to the player, as I could always back up whenever there was a pit or bat in an upcoming room and go around, making them a non-issue most of the time. The Wumpus being a static target most of the time also doesn't help. I think that it may have made the game more tense and exciting if the Wumpus had a chance of moving with each action you made. You may eventually end up in the same room as it, creating a real moment of tension and fear.

Controls: 5

It's pretty much as standard as it gets with regards to controls. Single or double digit inputs all around.

Visual: 6

It gets an extra point not so much for its formatting (which is fine), but more its writing. Since I don't consider story for this game, I add the writing of the game into the visual category so that exceptional writing is rightly rewarded. There's a lot of personality and goofiness in the writing of Hunt the Wumpus, from the grumbling of the game when you get the Wumpus, to its evil cackling when you die, and the weirdness of being caught and moved by a Super Bat to "elsewhereville." It's fun and memorable.

Functionality: 5

No issues, unlike the Apple I version.

Accessibility: 4

I do think Hunt the Wumpus manages to be a bit more accessible than other text-based games. It doesn't require as much reading as other games, only more imagination, which I think is a benefit. 

On the practical level, the game was so popular that it's practically ubiquitous, so there shouldn't be any issues finding a version to play.

Fun Factor: 12

I'd easily want to play this ahead of anything else I've played so far, except for Star Trek. It's memorable and easy to replay thanks to every round being slightly different. Again, the only knock against it is that it's too easy, which dampens my enthusiasm to return to it.

I don't know about the Wumpus steaks, but the game is pretty good. It earns a score of 44, which makes it only the second game to land a C-tier placement thus far, and is also earns second overall on the list, behind only the mighty Star Trek.

One can definitely see why Hunt the Wumpus was such a hit back in the day. It was something very different to the norm, and having a titular fantasy creature as the main focus, alongside its emphasis on exploration, predicts much of the future of video game design. I'd definitely consider it a "milestone" game.

The next few games go back to the standard fare of the time, but there's another series of early adventure games coming up soon, courtesy of a man they call "Dave of the Caves." Stay tuned for those.

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