#022 - Number: A Number Guessing Game (That I Missed)

Release Date: October, 1972

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)

Genre: Puzzle

Developer(s): Bob Albrecht

Publisher(s): People's Computer Company

Hmm, well this is little embarrassing. I'm going to be writing far more words than this game deserves, but I've got some explaining to do. I appear to have fell into a rabbit hole within a rabbit hole. 

The research that I was doing into Button, Button, Who's Got the Button? (which was meant to be the next game I covered) has resulted in discoveries, accidents, errors and misses. This is one I missed. The original plans are becoming scrambled, shuffled and pushed back as more and more gets discovered. It all meant that I'd been writing on Lost in the Caves instead, upon discovering that its release date is listed incorrectly on MobyGames. But now, I instead have to write on a game I previously thought missing. Number: A Number Guessing Game has actually been staring me in the face for the last few days while I've been working through old People's Computer Company newsletters on the Internet Archive for research.

The offending game.

What a knucklehead. I always thought it was odd that it wasn't included in Vintage BASIC's collection. In fact, that collection includes the Number game from the original 1973 101 BASIC Computer Games. An anomaly for Vintage BASIC, which almost always has the games from the 1978 edition. I simply concluded that PCC's Number game was lost. Every day I work at this, I see more flaws in my research approach that need addressing. It's good in a way - it's a refining process to find blind spots in my work process, and ensure that I do more extensive, accurate research.

I'll keep this next part quick. Number was one of the type-in programs featured in the very first edition of the People's Computer Company newsletter from October 1972, alongside its sister game, Letter, which I covered back in May. It doesn't have an author attached to it in the newsletter. However, Bob Albrecht, founder of PCC, is credited with creating the game in BASIC Computer Games by David Ahl. 

David Ahl claims Bob Albrecht wrote Number.

Within the context of the newsletter, Number appears to have been a really basic example program to show a utility of generating random numbers in BASIC. Like, this is programming 101 to a T. Makes sense, given it was in the premiere newsletter. I'm no programmer, and I've made a game almost exactly the same as Number in C++, when I was taking a Unity game development course years ago.

With that in mind, you know that there isn't much to talk about when it comes to the actual game. It's "computer picks a random number. Guess what the number is. Computer tells you if your guess is higher or lower than its number. Repeat until you win."

PCC literally tells you how the game works.

There's no reason to spend a whole lot of time playing something like this. I know how the basic strategy works: first guess is always 50, keep splitting the difference until you get the number. Usually it takes around 6-7 guesses. Both times it took me seven, only because I lost what was functionally a coin toss both times.

Easy-peasy.

The only other thing I suppose I could say is that PCC suggests that Number could be used as a platform to build more complex games upon. Even just modifying the number range the computer chooses from is an easy start into playing around with game design. These days you have plenty of other options, though.

Time Played: 1 minute

Difficulty: 1/10 (Brain-dead)

You cannot lose, the game tells you exactly what to do. Almost no brainpower required.

Gameplay: 1

It doesn't get a zero because it's an actual game. Barely.

Controls: 5

Standard.

Visual: 4

Taking a point off just because it's really plain and uninteresting to read.

Functionality: 5

No problems, so full marks.

Accessibility: 4

I could almost give it a full 5/5 here, but I think that would be too generous for a text-based game. Even if it's text games 101 and doesn't require a whole lot of comprehension.

Fun Factor: 0

Can't give it a zero for game design, but I can give it a zero for fun. Because it's not fun.

Well, look at that. Number got the exact same score as Letter (19, E-tier.) Isn't that something? If I had to give preference to one, it'd be Number, purely because there is 100 potential guesses instead of just 26.

For real, next time we should be back on track with 1973. Unless something else weird happens.

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#021 - Bagels 2: Beyond Bagels

Release Date: September, 1973

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC Type-In)

Genre: Puzzle

Developer(s): David "Dave of the Caves" Kaufman [New discovery!]

Publisher(s): People's Computer Company

This is an odd one. I almost didn't want to include it due to the lack of information, and lack of difference to its prequel. As a result, this'll be a very quick article. Which is good, in a sense, as I can work on it and not be behind on content whilst I'm in the process of moving house. Just as a heads up, there might be a slowdown of content over the next week or so.

Beyond Bagels (also called Bagels 2) is kind of a mystery. It appears in a 1974 PCC type-in game compilation simply titled PCC Games. No author is attached to it, nor does it appear in any issue of the main PCC newsletter. The only description given is the program's length: 1015 words. Afterwards it disappears, never to be seen again. I'm not sure where MobyGames gets it September '73 release date from. PCC Games was published after the January '74 edition of the PCC newsletter, so it was likely in between the January and March editions, otherwise March '74 games would've been included.

Beyond Bagels' only appearance for PCC.

The only other bit of information we have on the game's background comes from MobyGames, where it explains that Beyond Bagels is merely a modification of the original Bagels program written by Diane Resek and Pete Rowe back in 1972. Beyond Bagels changes the clue system from the Pico-Fermi-Bagels system to a point-based system. You get a point for each number guessed correctly, and another point if a number is also in the correct space, for a total of 6 points. The only other change is limiting the amount of chances you have to guess the number. The unmodified guess limit is 20, which is quite generous.

[Ed. I've discovered who the author of Beyond Bagels is! Turns out it's Dave "Dave of the Caves" Kaufman. I discovered this while working on the Lost in the Caves article. Kaufman claims authorship of Beyond Bagels in the May 1974 edition of the PCC newsletter.]

Once again, I'm having to turn to the Internet Archive for playing this one. Most of the PCC games are fortunately preserved there through MS-DOS ports. I had to do this one a little differently, as DOSBox has this particularly annoying quirk of not allowing you to scroll up. Beyond Bagels' instructions are longer than the screen, meaning the first line or two get cut off, and I can't scroll up to view them. What I did to circumvent this was download the game and run it through my own DOSBox with the cycle speed set to 10. This forces the game to load far more slowly, giving time to read all the instructions. I know I could use the "modern" version provided, but like I've said before, I'm a purist and want to play games as originally intended. Don't get me started on the state of modern gaming and endless patches.

I managed to get a snap of the full instructions.

I suppose the main question to ask with Beyond Bagels is: do the changes make any difference? Honestly, not really. While the clue system is different, it doesn't change the guessing method. The 123, 234, 345 system still works very well here, and I was able to guess numbers in as few as 6 guesses. [I got down to 5 guesses in the video.]

Sometimes, you just get lucky.

That's all the game has to offer. Like its prequel, there's no alternate game modes, unless you want to modify the code yourself. Oddly, I found myself enjoying this more than Bagels, from what I can remember of it.

Let's see how the two compare.

Time Played: 10 minutes

Difficulty: 2/10 (Easy)

Beyond Bagels still presents the most rudimentary form of Bulls & Cows. I only say this is slightly harder than Bagels is due to the guess limit and a different clue system.

Gameplay: 2

This and Bagels are interchangeable, really. The changes made make no discernable difference in gameplay. It still doesn't tell you that numbers don't repeat unless you try putting in an answer with repeated numbers. One oddity I found is that Beyond Bagels won't let you type a 0 as the first number of a guess. Weird.

Controls: 5

As standard for a text-based game of this ilk. Single digit inputs.

Visual: 5

Also standard. It's formatted neatly, with no typos.

Functionality: 5

Unlike Bagels, this one doesn't have a broken "play again?" question that boots you out of the game, even if you say yes.

Accessibility: 3

Using a point-based system maybe makes this game a little easier to understand; more numbers and less words. If so, the difference is negligible.

Fun Factor: 3

Despite being almost the same game as Bagels, I found Beyond Bagels slightly more enjoyable. Honestly, it could just be that I'm in a better mood when writing this; both games are that similar that it could swing the opposite direction on any given day.

Beyond Bagels does manage to beat out its prequel by two points, scoring a 23. It's only a few places up in the E-tier, managing 19th overall. There's not much reason to play this, in all honestly.

Next up, we have four games in a row by the same author. These ones I'm genuinely curious about and looking forward to trying them out.

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