#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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