#028: Acey Deucy, or Whatever You Want to Call It

Release Date: July 1973

Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)

Genre: Card Game

Developer(s): Bill Palmby

Publisher(s): Digital Equipment Corporation

We're back to the simple text games after foraying into some more complex ideas in Drag and Taxman. Also a good way for me to get back into the swing of blog writing.

First thing when dealing with Acey Deucy (also spelled Acey Deucey) is defining which Acey Deucy we're talking about. There's two different games that share the name - one is a variant of the board game Backgammon, the other is a card game. This game is based on the card game, which is also commonly called In-Between. It also has a host of other names, including but not limited to Between the Sheets, Maverick and Red Dog. Why it has so many names - many of which make little sense - is beyond me.

The rules at least make the names In-Between and Between the Sheets self-evident. The dealer will deal players a hand of two cards, left face up. The dealer will then give a third card. Players can choose to place a bet if they believe that the third card will be in between the first two cards. If it's in between, they win. If it isn't, they lose. Simple, eh? However, if the third card is the same as one of the first two, then the player loses double their bet. These are the basic rules - there are others, but I won't go into them now.

The cards are ordered in rank, with 2 being the lowest, and Ace being the highest. This is apparently where the name Acey Deucy comes in, as receiving a hand of A-2 is the best possible hand. The only way to lose with this hand is if the third card is another Ace or 2.

Our computer implementation of Acey Deucy for this article comes from Bill Palmby, a high school student who attended the Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Prairie View, Illinois. There's another Acey Deucey (spelled that way) from 1973, from Andrea Barsh and Duff Kirkland, which was written for one of the UNIVAC systems. Unsurprisingly, due to its platform, that one is lost to us. Palmby's is not, however, as it was written in BASIC, and included in David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games. Palmby's game doesn't have a release date online, but July 1973 makes the most sense, as that's when the first edition of Ahl's book released. 

Acey Deucy from the Microcomputer edition of the book.

As for Palmby himself, unfortunately there is no information about him I could find anywhere. This is his only game credit according to MobyGames, and searching for him online only leads to the game he authored, or other people sharing his name.

The only question left to ask now is how Palmby went about putting this card game into digitised form. A helpful reader noted on my article on War that that game didn't translate all the rules of the card game over, which is why I went over the proper rules of Acey Deucy at the start of the article. I want to make sure I know what the card game is supposed to be before looking at a video game interpretation of it.

Amusingly, the first thing I noticed was that the game title is misspelled. It says Acey-Ducey. Whoops. Not off to a great start, there. The original edition of 101 BASIC Games also makes this error.

It's the only typo, at least.

Anyway, the game is as I suspected it might be - a pared back interpretation of the card game, with most of the rules not implemented. The rules present are only the most basic of Acey Deucy: if the third card is in between the two in your had, you win; if it's the same as one of the cards or not in between, you lose. You don't lose double your bet if it's the same. Other nuances, like what happens if you're handed two aces, are not included, either. That's a rule where the two aces are split into two different hands, with extra cards drawn to make them up, and you choose which hand to bet on. I don't think Palmby's game can have two of the same card appear.

This is the game. All of it.

I played for about three minutes all up, according to my OBS timer. This is one of those games that can almost be boiled down to being an RNG simulator, along with the likes of War and Slots. At least this, unlike War, has some player agency, as you can choose whether to bet on your hand or not. My quick search online to learn the rules for Acey Deucy recommended passing if there weren't at least a gap of 8 between the cards in your hand. Mind you, that never prevents the game from screwing you. I got an Acey Deucy at one point, and the game drew another ace as the third card and I lost. Predicably, I put a significant bet on that hand. Luck of the draw, eh? I'm not a gambler - never have been, especially in my video games. I prefer certainty over unpredictability, or at least a way to plan around bad luck.

The dealer rigged that one, I'm sure of it.

You can keep going for as long as you like with this game - you can't break the bank, so the only way for the game to end is if you go bust. Or just turn it off, whichever happens faster. The latter occurred for me. I can't really see you going bust unless you intentionally try to, or get horrifically unlucky.

This game's not going to get unlucky with it's scores - it'll go bust by its own efforts.

Time Played: 5 minutes

Difficulty: N/A

I can't give a difficulty score, as Acey Deucy is inherently an RNG-based game.

Gameplay: 1

As much as I wanted to give it a zero, I can't, because the player does have the tiniest bit of agency. There's one choice you can make - whether to bet or not, and there is the most basic of basic strategy surrounding that choice.

Controls: 5

No issues with controls, it's all standard for text-games.

Visual: 1

It's as plain and basic as a text-based game could possibly be. I'm not docking points for the typo.

Functionality: 5

There's very little that can go wrong with such a tiny game.

Accessibility: 3

Pretty much the same as most every other text-based game I've played so far. It's inherently less-accessible for being a text game, although this one has less text, which theoretically makes it easier to get into.

Fun Factor: 0

I can give it a zero for fun, though! Shouldn't be much of a surprise here. I kind of mindlessly drifted through playing the game. It's a pretty pointless one, and doesn't even include all the rules, which could've made it slightly more interesting. Slightly.

So it's not quite bust for Acey Deucy... but's it's leaving with a hefty dent in its wallet - a pitiful score of 15, the same as Horserace down at the bottom of the F-tier. Yeah, it's that bad. Though, "bad" is not necessarily the word to use, as there's not much wrong with Acey Deucy... there just isn't much of any merit-worthy substance. It's just a basic simulation of a basic card gambling game. That being said, I like it more than Horserace, so that's that tiebreaker decided. I hate Horserace. Acey Deucy is just more of a nothing-burger, landing itself in 41st place currently. That's out of 45 games on the tier list so far, for reference, making Acey Deucy one of the worst games reviewed thus far.

Next time, we move from a card game that has several different names, to a board game that has several different names.

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#011: Slots

Release Date: January 29, 1973

Platform: Mainframe

Genre: Casino/Gambling

Developer(s): Fred Mirabelle, Bob Harper

Publisher(s): N/A

So begins 1973, with a game that I won't be spending too much time on, as there's not much game to talk about.

Slots is, as the name implies, a slot machine game - the good ol' One-Armed Bandit. It's the first of many games from this year to feature in David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games series of books.

A very... plain introductory page.

However, simple as the game may be, the timeline for it is not. While MobyGames states its release date to be January 29, 1973, it also states that this game is not the same slot machine game to feature in the original Ahl book, but instead features in the book's microcomputer re-release from 1978. Hmm.

So, where does the January 1973 date come from, then? Fortunately, there's a simple answer for this. The program authors, Bob Harper and Fred Mirabelle left a line in the program's code, stating their authorship, and date of creation as January 29, 1973. I'm very appreciative of this.

The line of code in question is the fourth line, left column.

As for the authors, there is scant information on them. I couldn't find anything on Fred Mirabelle, and Bob Harper... well... this Bob Harper is not to be confused with the Bob Harper who was a trainer on the US version of The Biggest Loser... despite MobyGames treating them as the same person. If it were the case, he must have been a coding genius, as he would've been seven years old when he made this game. What wasted potential.

On the serious side, there's actually a few other Bob (or Robert) Harpers floating around, but none that I can definitively say is the Bob Harper that created this game. There's a computer scientist Bob Harper, who is naturally a likely candidate, but I found nothing to suggest he was the programmer of this game. Once again, the authors will remain a mystery. The one-game-wonders strike again...

The game itself is a very basic (ha) interpretation of a casino slot machine. There's no graphical representation of the slot machine - everything is represented in text. The "machine" itself only has a few different symbols for its reels, six, at my last count. No stereotypical 7s for the jackpot, either, just fruit, bells and bars. Suddenly, I'm reminded of Pac-Man. No idea why.

Your digital "One-Armed Bandit."

You have the choice of betting between $1 and $100 dollars, and, according to the book's description, the odds are in your favour. The book goes into a detailed description of how real slot machine odds work, before stating that the game has an 11% bias towards the player; you win $111 for every $100 you put in. If only the real ones were like that.

My first play of Slots didn't last long. Less than thirty seconds, in fact. I placed my first bet, and then tried to put in another bet when it asked my if I wanted to go again, which ended my game. Turns out you have to input a 'Y' when it asks you this to continue. I think we're getting to the point where this kind of input is becoming unnecessary and intrusive. I could just be allowed to input another bet to continue, or input a zero if I wanted to leave.

I've been kicked out of H&M Casino...

Having learnt this, I tried again, and played for a couple minutes to see what would happen. Here is when I noticed a neat little easter egg: the game introduces itself as "H&M Casino," a reference to the game's authors. As for the game itself, there were the typical swings you get from a glorified RNG simulator, but I ended up finishing with over $3500 of winnings, thanks to hitting the jackpot (called "TOP DOLLAR" by the game) twice. I decided this was enough, and that I didn't need to see anymore. 

Jackpot. If only it were this easy.

Unfortunately, I had to go around again, as I couldn't use that footage for YouTube, as I didn't realise my laptop microphone was on, meaning that there was white noise throughout the recording. I did another playthrough once I fixed this issue, going until I hit the jackpot, which took 3 minutes exactly. Humourously, this doubled my overall playtime with Slots.

I don't have anything more to say here, so let's get into the scores, shall we?

Time Played: 6 minutes

Difficulty: 0/10 (RNG Sim)

Gameplay: 0/20

I think it was pretty clear from the outset that this was getting a zero. There is no gameplay - just another glorified RNG simulator.

Controls: 4/10

I'm knocking this down a point from the standard 5/10 for the annoyance of having to press Y every time I want to bet again. It's also what I say every time I have to press said button.

Visual: 4/10

Also knocking down the visuals score for the sheer plain-ness of the game. Considering how text-based games are now trying to be more creative from a visual standpoint, Slots stands out as being particularly unimaginative.

Functionality: 5/5

Full marks here, as there are no functional issues. Very little can go wrong.

Accessibility: 3/5

A lot of people don't like gambling, and this is an old, text-based, digital version of gambling, so it doesn't really seem all that appealing.

Fun Factor: 0/20

Yeah. What did you expect?

Overall, Slots is currently tied with Galaxy Game as the worst game I've reviewed on the blog thus far, with a measly score of 16/70. However, as this has a Gameplay score of zero, it will sit at the very bottom of the F-tier as the worst game I've played. I didn't really expect much else out of a text-based slot machine simulator. There's not even the interest of a graphical display, watching the reels spin and seeing what symbols they land on. It's just... sad.

Not a good start for 1973... at least this was a nice, easy way for me to get back into the swing of things. Still enjoy it as much as I did before the unplanned 2-month break, so that's good. Also good is that 1973 is very quickly going to get a whole lot more interesting.

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Prehistory XVIII: Roulette

Release Date: September 3, 1970

Platform: Unspecified mainframe

Genre: Casino

Developer(s): Unknown

Publisher(s): DECUS

This is a weird one to cover. While it appears in both the original 1973 and updated 1978 versions of Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games, it is completely different in both books - the code and presentation of the games differ significantly, barring the description, which remains almost entirely untouched. All that was changed in the 1978 description is that the game simulates an American roulette wheel instead of a European one. It does make me wonder if these were completely different games to begin with.

As far as I know, that question cannot be definitively answered. The only credit we have for the game is W. C. Hoffer, who converted the program for its 1978 Compucolor I release, naming it European Roulette in Color, which will receive its own separate review. The 1973 101 BASIC Games description claims Roulette had been around for many years at that time, but that its original author was unknown. The 1978 edition of the book doesn't even bother including that much. I find it perplexing, as my databases don't list these two versions as separate games, despite them being completely different. 

This abnormality presents me with a conundrum to solve: do I treat these as separate games, or deal with them in this one article? The fact that I'm writing this article should give away my decision - I'm covering both in this one article. Vintage BASIC's collection only contains the 1978 version of Roulette, so that's the version I'll be playing and basing my review on. The 1973 version appears to remain missing, sadly. To compensate, I'll be contrasting and comparing both versions of Roulette throughout where I can, so we can get an idea of how different the two games are. It's a bit tricky to do so since the 1973 release is missing, but there is enough information from its entry in the 1973 edition of 101 BASIC Games to facilitate the comparison.

For reference, from this point on I'll be referring to the version of Roulette in the 1973 edition of the book as the "original" version of the game for convenience - even if it may not be totally correct in saying that it's the original.

Upon booting up the 1978 version of Roulette, it asks for the current date. I find it amusing playing this game in 2024 when the example date the game provides in in 1979... It's an odd way to open the game - but it does have relevance later on. The original version of Roulette does not include asking for the date.

The 23rd of January, 1979 was a Tuesday.

The game then offers its instructions to you, first presenting a visual representation of the betting layout. The original has this graphic, too, but it's been simplified in the 1978 version. I much prefer how the original looked - some effort was put into making it look nice, whereas the 1978 version just feels a bit lazy, indicating the red numbers with an asterisk instead of having a nice table with the colour directly under the number.

Compare this...

To this. Much nicer. (Sourced from archive.org)

You may notice from these two pictures that the numbers themselves are slightly different, with the original having 0 - 36, and the 1978 version having 1 - 35 with 0 and 00 at the end of the table. As mentioned earlier in the article, the 1978 version of Roulette was changed from European-style roulette to American roulette, and this here is the key change between the two variants, according to the game's intro page in BASIC Games. Apparently the American version gives the house better odds, and was thus becoming the more popular variant of roulette. What a surprise...

The remainder of the instructions explain how to make bets, what bets are available, separated into groups based on payouts. Single number bets pay out 35:1, whereas the other two groups are either 2:1, or even.

All the standard betting options are here.

Absent from the original are the options to bet on number ranges: 1-12, 13-24, and so on. More choice is good, I suppose, and it makes things a little more realistic. That being said, it doesn't make much difference when it all comes down to luck. I feel like I've said that line a lot during this Prehistory series. Lack of player agency and irrelevant choices in wholly luck-based games is becoming a real pet peeve of mine.

I initially had some trouble inputting my bets. It asks for how many bets you want to make, which didn't immediately register with me, as the instructions don't mention the fact that you have to choose how many bets you want to make first before inputting said bets. Hence I tried inputting a bet with the required formula of [bet],[amount] with no spaces to repeated error messages until I realised my mistake. It would have been helpful for the instructions to specify that there was a step before putting a bet down.

I recreated the scenario just mentioned, and found an additional piece of text telling you off for trying to make the same bet twice.

Here above I recreated what happened in that first playthrough I didn't record. I noticed that the game then skipped asking me again and went straight to asking for bets. I decided to follow this through, as I wasn't sure what the game was doing at this point. In total it made me input 37 bets. What the game ends up doing is ignoring every input past the first number and accepts that as the number of bets to make. I selected 37 as the first number, and therefore it assumed I wanted to make 37 bets. Much to my amusement I actually made some money overall from that set.

Anyway, that was just a little aside. Eventually I figured out my mistake, and was able to input bets correctly.

This is how it's supposed to go.

The manual provides a "good strategy" in the form of what it calls "doubling" for how to bet effectively. This involves starting with the lowest amount possible on an even/odds bet (any of the even money bets), and doubling the amount you bet until you win, then reverting to the lowest amount and starting over. Oddly, the manual in the 1978 version was unchanged, instructing you to start with $1 despite the minimum bet in that version being $5. Small oversight, but it doesn't affect the strategy. It's a slow way of building up winnings, but it works. I slightly misremembered and did the strategy with the 2:1 bets, but it still works there.

You win some, you lose some.

I did experiment with making multiple bets at once, though I honestly didn't like it that much. You can't do it with the doubling strategy, as that needs to be controlled one bet at a time. It's nice that the option's there, even if I don't see myself using it.

I persisted with the doubling strategy, having a rather bad streak of luck where I almost lost all my money. I did not in that instance, but looking back later made me rather curious as to what happens when you do go bust.

So I loaded up the game again and quickly blew all the money I had to see what the game would do:

Game over.

Much akin to the other text games I've played, it humourously insults you for your failure. This is a very early example of a game over screen, reminiscent to me of Hamurabi ending your game early if you manage your resources poorly, resulting in your subjects all starving to death. 

On the flipside, it also makes me very curious as to what happens if the player manages to break the bank. I imagine that would take a long time to do, with the bank starting with $100k, but I suspect it to be very possible. Within the code there appears to only be a single line of text that appears: "You broke the house!" So the developer probably anticipated it occurring. I'm tempted to put that down as the game's "completed" condition, but I'm not sure if I want to be bothered playing a 1978 text rendition of a roulette wheel for hours just to see one line of text.

The original game doesn't appear to address either situation, further solidifying my theory that these are totally different games. Simply comparing the code of both games should be enough to prove that these are different games.

After a couple more minutes of playing, I decided I'd had enough. If you say no when it asks if you want to bet again, it then asks for a name to make the check to. This is where the date inputted is relevant, as it appears on the check the game draws up for you.

Memory bank? Did I win memory bytes, not money? I feel ripped off.

It draws up a neat little representation of a physical check. I'm not sure what determines the "Check No." What I find odd is that, in the 1978 code, the location of the "Memory Bank" is Virginia, not New York. I wonder when and why that was changed in the version I have? The original does not have the check graphic.

And that is Roulette. I'm surprised I had so much to say about a simple casino game. What is not simple is its history. I'm fully convinced that the two versions I discussed are completely different games, and MobyGames is simply missing the 1978 version. It's far too removed from the 1970 original featured in the 1973 BASIC Games to be the same game in terms of code and overall design. It makes this frustrating for me, as this is a chronological blog, and here I'm somewhat going out of order. However, history is not always - if ever - simple and linear.

Now, onto the scores.

Time Played: 10 minutes

I think this is a fair estimation.

Difficulty: 0

Same as Horserace, no difficulty as it's a luck game.

Gameplay: 1

It gets a 1 purely in that there is at least some semblance of an end goal to work towards, and a sound method to get there provided by the manual. It's still an entirely luck-based game, but you can at least do something, unlike Horserace.

Controls: 10

As is the standard for most early text-based games - simple inputs make the game very playable.

Visual: 4

Fairly unremarkable as far as an early text game is concerned. I am disappointed by the apparent downgrade in the 1978 version compared to the original in terms of the effort put into the text graphics. Otherwise, the formatting is good and clear.

Functionality: 5

There was one thing that could potentially be a glitch with the "number of bets" question, though I think that's more related to a lack clarity in the instructions than an actual code error. So full marks here.

Accessibility: 3

It's not too bad as far as a text-based game is concerned. Again, there is a small issue with some missing clarity in the instructions surrounding the "number of bets" question. The game of roulette itself is not difficult to understand, so getting into a text adaptation of it is not difficult, either.

Fun Factor: 1

A small modicum of enjoyment was had finding the extra text, but otherwise this falls into the category of games I truly dislike for being purely based on luck. There isn't any substance to compensate for the randomness, which is another nail in its coffin.

Roulette gets a total score of 24/70 (34.28%), which sits it in the middle of the E tier at the current time, between PDP Basketball and Gamnim. Again another throwaway program, in essence, that seems to be more about testing the waters of what can be simulated within early BASIC rather than trying to make a compelling game.

[Add.] Upon completing the rescore project, Roulette's lost 4 points down to a 20/70 (28.57%)

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