Apologies on taking a while to get this post out - at the time of writing I just bought a new laptop and have been in the process of getting it set up properly as a dedicated gaming laptop, which will also be what I use for the blog from now on. Hopefully, it should streamline a few processes to help get these out quicker.
There are three more games (at the time of writing this) to go in the Prehistory of Video Games series, and High Noon is the first of them. Bridge is not on the Pterm PLATO emulator, and Moo is technically playable, but runs on Multics, which I looked into and found exceedingly complicated to get up and running, so I'm skipping that. In case you're curious, Moo is just the pen-and-paper / board game Bulls and Cows (otherwise known as Mastermind).
High Noon is quite the outlier in the 1970 list. It's not in David Ahl's book, 101 BASIC Computer Games, where most games have come from thus far, nor is it a simulation / adaptation of a pre-existing physical game (pen-and-paper, card, board or casino.) Instead, it takes a more similar approach to a game like Civil War, or Hamurabi, in that it creates an original game out of a historic setting. In this case, it's the Wild West, which marks the first time this setting has been used in a video game.
It's development is also odd. It wasn't developed, modified or published by anyone related to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) or its user's society (DECUS), nor was it developed on a PDP system. High Noon was developed by a high school student, Chris Gaylo, from Syosset High School in Long Island, New York. Gaylo programmed the game on the school's timeshared system from a company known as Call-a-computer (later renamed to Advanced System Labs). That's all the information we have - we don't know exactly what computer system it is. Elsewhere online the computer is simply called "Call-a-computer."
I couldn't find any other information on Chris Gaylo. This is the only game he's credited on, and there isn't any definitive information online about what he did afterwards. He did share some information on the game with myBitBox.com, explaining a bit more about the game's development, with photos and scans of the source code, and a scan of a piece of correspondence he had with a Call-a-computer employee named Mike Lowery. Lowery liked the game so much that he asked Gaylo if he could add it to their system library (so that every system on the timeshared network could access it), and offered to add a line of code to the game crediting Gaylo with its creation. Interesting little insight into how early computer games were distributed.
While there is a lack of information on High Noon's author, there is certainly no lack in ways to play the game. I have two main options for playing High Noon for this blog:
The creator of myBitBox, who goes by the online handle "s1axter", produced a browser-based recreation of the game that mimics a teletype to give a more authentic-to-the-original experience.
MyAbandonWare contributor Benedict (who's been mentioned here before) made up a DOS-based version of the game that plays more like the BASIC Computer Games book games I've been playing through Vintage BASIC.
Seeing as I prefer trying to be as close to the original game as possible, I'm going to go with myBitBox's version for this blog. Both versions come directly from the source code, so there aren't any differences in gameplay between the two - it's purely aesthetical differences.
Do you dare take on this deadly duel?
Upon opening the game, you're asked (as with so many of other games I've covered already) if you'd like instructions. These instructions are a bit different, however, as they also provide you with a bit of story! The premise is that you have challenged to a duel by the notorious outlaw, Black Bart. He appears from a saloon 100 paces away from you, and that's where the duel begins.
The core gameplay is cleverly integrated into this little section of story als0:
You and Black Bart have 4 bullets each.
Your marksmanship is equal.
The closer you get, the better your chances of hitting are.
This is the first time anyone's produced anything close to resembling a story, and I must say I'm rather impressed by it. It's only a few sentences, but it sets the stage, provides a bit of immersion, sets the imagination off, and integrates the gameplay effectively. Completing this introduction, the game asks if you "still want to continue." Very nice touch - first setting the stage and then asking "are you sure?"
Well, to answer that question: I'm still here, writing this blog, so I think I want to continue. The game then provides you with the choices you have in the game:
Advance
Stand still
Fire
Jump behind watering trough
Give up
Turn tail and run
You can give up, or give up in a more embarrassing way.
So there are two different ways to give up... interesting. Afterwards the game asks you for a lucky number. I'm not sure what this does, perhaps something to do with generating the game seed? The game might be too old for that sort of thing, mind you. I selected 7 as my lucky number for my first game.
I decided that it made sense to advance a bit first, so my first move was to advance 10 paces. Bart responds by moving forward 7 paces. 83 paces between us now. Maybe it's best to wait and see what he does next. I opt to stand still. The game calls this out as a bad move, and Bart fires and misses. Probably not the best idea to do that again, then.
The game's not shy of letting you know when you messed up.
I think I'll advance a bit more. Perhaps only 5 paces this time. Bart chooses to fire again! He misses, but only just. The bullet catches my left jaw, however. I'm very much appreciating the game going out of its way to give extra details.
Considering that Bart is going gung-ho trying to get me, I think finding some cover would be a good idea. Jumping behind the trough, Bart's third bullet hits it, and I'm commended by the game. Bart only has one bullet left, and I have all 4 of mine. I'm in a good position, so long as I make the right move. I'd like to try and make him waste his last bullet, so maybe I'll stick behind cover.
Always get behind cover. Have you never played Gears of War?
It works, Bart's final bullet is lodged in the trough, and he's out of ammo. Time for me to strike. I miss, and Bart turns tail and runs. I win the duel! Though I'm disappointed that I didn't manage to get him, but the game assures me that he won't be seen again. Still, this is not the most satisfying conclusion to the game, so of course I need to play it again.
I meant to do that... Black Bart won't be so lucky if he sees me again.
The Browser version of High Noon was a pain to record right, and the game also had some issues when inputting moves, so I opted to switch to the DOS port to see if that gave better results when recording. The results were mixed.
The DOS port. Looks a tad dull in comparison, doesn't it?
To start with how my playthroughs went. The second one, I chose lucky number 3, advanced 10 paces twice and immediately got shot and died. Can't just charge straight at him, he's too smart for that.
Shot through the heart... you know the rest.
So I went back to lucky number 7, and found success there. I first advanced 8 paces, then fired at Bart after he fired at me. Misses all around (but Bart got me in the shin). I then accidentally hit Enter before inputting a command and the game scolded me for that,
"You sure aren't going to live very long if you can't even follow directions."
I think that's a bit harsh, don't you?
Hey! It was an accident!
Anyway, after that I jumped for cover, Bart got me in the side of the jaw, and I fired and grazed his right arm. I still felt like I was too far away, so I crept forward 2 paces, and Bart missed his final shot and moved forward 9 paces. The game says that this is the moment to strike. So I do, and I get him right between the eyes, and Black Bart falls down dead (the screen scrolled far to quickly to see this text in the moment - I had to look back at my recording to see what happened).
Having defeated the menace that was Black Bart, the mayor of "Dodge City" approaches you to thank and congratulate you for killing him, and he presents you with a check for $20,000. The game then draws up a graphic of the check, dated to the 18th of August, 1889. You're advised not to spend it all in one place, but I don't think it would be possible to do that with 20k in 1889. That's a massive amount of cash for 1889.
Got him!
My well-earned reward.
I had another go at the game after this to try and get a good recording in DOSbox. One thing I discovered is that the "lucky number" does indeed appear to be a seed selection, as I chose the same moves as the previous game, and the same result ensued. As mentioned above, however, the screen scrolls too fast in DOSbox, and text is missed as a result, and DOSbox won't allow me to scroll the screen up to catch what was missed. So I went back to the Browser version for the final recording, which is what you see at the top of the article and on the YouTube channel.
We have ourselves a second impressive game in a row. Let's see how it scores.
Time Played: 20 minutes
Difficulty: 1/10 (Very Easy)
It wasn't too hard to win, only took 3 attempts for me to get the Black Bart kill.
Gameplay: 5/20
The gameplay is surprisingly the weakest element of the game. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, it's just extremely simple. There aren't a lot of options to work with, and half of the presented options you shouldn't pick anyway. Distance isn't utilised as well as it could be in my experience of playing the game; you get to around 80 paces and Bart'll snipe you pretty quickly.
Controls: 10/10
It's great - simple inputs that work.
Visual: 8/10
First off, the formatting is excellent. There's never too much text on one line (excepting the introductory paragraph), the move list is clear and spaced out, and the game even draws the check for you at the end of the game. It's clear a solid amount of time and consideration was put into the formatting, and it shows.
Story: 6/10
The first game to have a story! I'm glad to say it's one that's been executed quite well. It's incredibly simple, but the limited dialogue is written well and integrates with the gameplay. My imagination has always been quite vivid when it comes to reading, and High Noon does get the imagination going and I can visualise the events thanks to how descriptive Chris Gaylo managed to make everything with such a small game.
Functionality: 5/5
Works great, no issues.
Accessibility: 4/5
This is the highest score I've given for a text-based game for accessibility. The story elements I think give this an extra level of appeal - it's perspicuous and very simple to play. Could be a recommendation for someone just getting into text-based games.
Fun Factor: 5/20
The story elements really carry the game and shore up how enjoyable it is. I had to drag myself through successive playthroughs since I wasn't compelled to keep coming back.
High Noon has managed to knock Battle out of second spot (barely) with a score of 43/80 (53.75%) to claim the top spot in the D-tier. It's interesting - High Noon is unarguably a more complete game, but I'd go back to Battle before it. Just my tastes, I suppose. The re-score I'm planning after the next two games might shuffle things around a bit to reflect my thoughts better.
[Add.] Upon completing the rescore project, High Noon lost 1 point, down to 42/80 (52.50%), but is now the highest rated game on the tier list to date.
Two more games to go in 1970, and both of them are based on Lunar Lander. The first one honestly looks quite scary.
Don't forget - if you enjoy my blog, be sure to leave a comment and follow so you don't miss any updates!
I haven't had to skip a game on my list this time, which is a welcome change to what I've become accustomed to during this series of blog posts. What isn't different here is that it's yet another pre-existing game getting the digital conversion treatment: Battleship. I suspect most people would have played this classic guessing game at least once in their life - I know I did. I think this is the first time I've really had a personal connection to the core idea one of these games is based on, as I have a real fondness for Battleship thanks to my childhood memories of it. I played it quite a lot as a kid, actually. It was one of those games I had a fascination with, I don't know why, but I played many different physical and digital versions of it growing up. I never played any versions of Electronic Battleship, however. It was either fully digital, or fully old-school with the plastic pegs.
Having said all of that, this game, which is probably the first video game adaptation of Battleship, is a bit different. While it still retains the core Battleship gameplay concept, it comes with a twist, one that I'll discuss a little bit later on.
First, as per usual, I'll discuss authorship. The good news here is that we have an undisputed author for Battle: Ray Westergard, of the Lawrence Hall of Science, situated at the Berkeley campus of the University of California. He even wrote the program description found in BASIC Computer Games. I couldn't find much more certain info on Westergard, as he has no other game credits, and there appear to be multiple people of that name: one appeared to be a Unitarian theologian (awkward), and another an abusive university professor (extra awkward.) There's a possibility that neither of these are the Ray Westergard that programmed Battle, considering that the game is near 55 years old, so the Ray Westergard in question may very well have passed away during that time. At least this short dig was an interesting one.
Now, back to the twist I mentioned. It seems that, since this is a singleplayer implementation of Battleship, that Westergard felt that some modifications needed to be made to make it function properly. So, what he decided to do was add some codebreaking into the mix, which transforms the classic strategy board game into more of a puzzle game.
The concept is this: the game provides you with a 6x6 matrix of the enemy fleet, consisting of 6 ships. However, it's a coded matrix, meaning that the supposed positions of the ship on the matrix the game gives you are not the actual locations of the ships. Your job is to simultaneously decode the matrix while sinking the enemy fleet in as few turns as you can.
Battle's BASIC Games page might do a better job of explaining things.
The instructions of the game expect you to write out your own matrix as you play, which is exciting for me as it's the first time on the blog I get to use spreadsheets. Believe me, I will be making liberal use of the mighty spreadsheet in the future, especially with RPGs... In this game's case, I'll simply use a spreadsheet to write out my own matrix as the game suggests.
You must decode the matrix.
Upon opening the game, you're presented with the coded matrix of the fleet's positions. To make a shot, you input first the X-axis (horizontal co-ordinate) followed by a comma, and then the Y-axis (vertical co-ordinate.) I opt for 1,1, suspecting that the code may involve the 0 spaces. It does not, and I hit open water.
Next, I try 1,6 (top left,) seeing as the matrix says there's a ship there...
It's not a great code if the ship is actually where it says the ship is...
It's a hit! I successfully strike ship 1, one of the destroyers. The matrix says the other spot should be on the right, so I go for 2,6, but that's a miss. That gives me a clue about how this matrix is coded. Perhaps the ship positions are perpendicular to how they're presented on the coded grid?
Armed with this theory, I go for 1,5 next.
Hurrah for the good guys indeed.
My theory was correct! One ship down, five to go.
I decide to go for the other destroyer next, ship 2. It's highest position is 3,6, so that's what I select. My theory at this moment is that the topmost co-ordinate is correct, but the ship's alignment is perpendicular to what's presented on the grid. Turns out this was incorrect. It's a miss. I try 3,5 instead.
An unexpected surprise, but a welcome one.
Something unexpected occurs - I get a hit, but not on the ship I was aiming for. I hit ship 6 (a carrier) instead. Interesting...
Next I opt for 2,4, suspecting that the carrier is aligned north-east. Another unexpected occurrence! I hit ship 2! That makes me curious, could ships 2 and 6 have their positions switched? I try 2,3 next, but I miss. 2,5 also accrues a miss.
Here is what my spreadsheet matrix looks like at this point.
At this point, I realise that ship 6 can only be going eastward, as that's the only 4-long space available (assuming that ship 5 is where it says it is). I am correct, and take out ship 6 (while accidentally putting a miss on 6,6.) It's also helpful in ruling out the rest of row 6, as no other ships are small enough to fit in that gap now. At least for ships 2 and 6, my theory of perpendicularity has proven true. In the case of the vertical ship (6), it was also shifted up one space north-east as well.
The thought now is that, perhaps the opposite is true of ships aligned horizontally on the coded matrix? Perhaps they are also shifted, but one space south-west? It proves true in the case of ship 2, as 1,4 is its other position. Halfway there.
Insert Bon Jovi reference here.
I look to ship 4 next, as the other two are diagonals, and I'm not sure how to deal with them yet. If my theory is correct, 4's true position should be 3,4 - 4,4 - 5,4.
Hmm...
Another curveball is thrown, as I hit ship 5 instead of 4. Hm. Well that changes things a bit. There's only two potential locations for 5 - straight west, or straight south. Going south could potentially land me a hit on 3, while confirming the position of 5, so that's what I decide to do, and go for 3,3.
Miss. That's frustrating. The silver lining is that I've confirmed 5's position as westward.
Except I hadn't.
Or so I thought. I go 4,4, and I hit ship 3 instead. What? That's not what I expected at all! That means that 5's position hasn't changed at all... Does that mean 3 has simply been shifted to the opposite side of 5? It has, as 5,3 registers a hit, and 6,2 sees the cruiser fall to the bottom of the ocean.
Where the heck is 4 supposed to be?
So where on earth is 4, then? It can't be anywhere near its original position. There are a few potential spaces for it left on the grid in the south-west section. I come up with the theory that it's in the same spot, but on the perpendicular side. I try 2,1 to test this theory, and am correct. The fleet has been successfully dispatched. My final splash/hit ratio is .3888889. If I'm reading the instructions correctly, that's pretty good, as it's calculated as a fraction (splashes/hits), meaning a smaller ratio is better.
A job well done.
The true positions of the fleet.
Now, having had the first run help me get my bearings, I had to find out whether the code algorithm was consistent or not.
Upon starting my second game (seen in the video up top), I could definitively say the answer to that question is no - the code is different each time. For my second game, the positions of all ships were essentially opposite to what the matrix said. For visual reference, here's my finished spreadsheet for game 2:
It was opposite day for this fleet.
The game matrix is on the left in this image, with my completed game on the right. You can see this "opposite" code most clearly with ships 2, 4, and 5 - with 4 being in the opposite corner, and 2 and 5 also being in their opposing corners, and rotated. 3 is the odd one out in this set, as it doesn't move into its opposing corner, but is just rotated 90 degrees. My splash/hit ratio was the same as the first game, in case you were curious.
I think this is enough evidence to suggest that the game changes the code for each game. I could play a few more rounds to see if it randomises or selects from a limited set of rules, but I don't see much point in doing that. I can't read BASIC, either, so I couldn't tell you from looking at the source code how the game determines the fleet positions and matrix code.
What I can tell you from the code is that there is a little congratulations message programmed if you take out every ship without missing. It simply reads:
"Congratulations -- A direct hit every time."
Nice to see an acknowledgement for a perfect game. I'm not likely to try this, as there's always going to be a large degree of luck involved, but it's certainly possible to achieve.
That does it for Battle. Now to do the scores.
Time Played: 45 minutes
It takes a lot longer to complete a round than almost all of the other games I've played to date. My first run (which I took notes while playing) took roughly 33 minutes, and my second about 8-and-a-half, so I'll round it up to make things easy.
Difficulty: 3/10 (Easy)
It wasn't particularly difficult for me to figure out how to decode the matrixes I was given. The first one was a bit more challenging, as I didn't know how the game was going to code the fleet's position, but once I started to understand how the game did things, it was fairly easy to figure out the code.
Gameplay: 7/20
I'm actually fairly impressed with Battle from a game design standpoint. It's a clever twist to convert Battleship into a code-breaking puzzle game, and it works well. Each round is different from the last, meaning it has some replay value. While still very simple, it's miles better than the glorified RNG simulators that I've been playing recently.
Controls: 10/10
Each move only consists of 3 inputs, with the second always being a comma, and the first and third always being a number between 1 and 6. No issues with inputs on this one, full marks.
Visual: 4/10
It's roughly down-the-middle as far as text-based games are concerned. The fleet matrix is nice and clear, but the text generated upon destroying a ship is a lot, and feels quite cluttered. I think it would've been easier to digest if each type of ship was on its own line, instead of all three being on the one line. There's a little bit of charm and personality in the writing, but not enough to give it another point.
Functionality: 5/5
As with most text-based games of this ilk, everything works perfectly.
Accessibility: 3/5
It helps that Battle is based off a highly recognisable game, so that gets it an extra point, but text games still aren't an easy thing to get into.
Fun Factor: 8/20
I enjoy numbers and patterns quite a bit, so Battle appeals to me quite well as a puzzle game. It's simple but enjoyable, and has genuine replay value.
With these scores, Battle earns the second-highest position on the tier list (at the time of this blog), with a final score of 37/70 (52.85%). It just barely misses out on a C-tier placement, having to settle for a spot at the top of the D-tier. It's nice to see some improvement on the game design front, and something with actual gameplay to talk about instead of yet another RNG simulator.
I'm contemplating some re-scores once the Prehistory series is done, as I need to re-evaluate how I score controls and visuals on text-based games. I'll do a score change round-up blog once I complete the final games from 1970.
Don't forget - if you enjoy my blog, be sure to leave a comment and follow so you don't miss any updates!
