#013: Mugwump

Release Date: February 1973

Platform: Mainframe

Genre: Puzzle, Educational

Developer(s): Bob Albrecht, Martin "Bud" Valenti (and students)

Publisher(s): People's Computer Company

Our next entry is one that's potentially a predecessor of one of the more famous early text games, Hunt the Wumpus - an early progenitor of the text-based adventure genre (pretty much the only style of game anyone thinks of when it comes to text-based games these days.) Mugwump finds its roots, like so many other early video games, in experiments with computers in educational settings - with maybe a little bit of Battleship thrown in for good measure.

Authorship is, fortunately, a fairly simple case for Mugwump (and its successor, Hurkle, for that matter.) Mugwump is attributed to Bob Albrecht, and was published in his People's Computer Company newsletter for February 1973. 

Mugwump (and Hurkle) are in the top right of this... interesting looking page.

This presents a bit of a dilemma, however. Upon doing my research for the game, I discovered that MobyGames' release date for Mugwump is incorrect. Over there, Mugwump is listed as a May 1973 release. However, as just stated, Mugwump and its successor, Hurkle, both featured in the February 1973 edition of the People's Computer Company Newsletter. The games' section of the newsletter also states that,

"HURKLE was inspired my MUGWUMP." 

Straight from the horse's mouth. The publisher makes a clear statement that Mugwump preceded Hurkle, which MobyGames lists correctly as a February 1973 release. This is why I'm going against my usual pattern of doing games with shared release months in alphabetical order. If I hadn't found this information, we'd be discussing Hurkle right now. While our online databases are wonderful, they're not perfect. I've submitted a correction, for anyone wondering.

The newsletter also states that Mugwump was inspired by a "Project SOLO," run by the University of Pittsburgh. This project, according to one of their newsletters,

"...is an experimental program concerned with exploring the potential of computers in the hands of high school students and teachers."

The antecedent of Mugwump was a direct result of Project SOLO, developed by the students of Martin "Bud" Valenti, a WWII veteran and public school mathematics teacher. This game Mugwump is based on can be found in the June 1972 edition of the Project SOLO newsletter, and is titled Hide and Seek. Its original purpose was to be a game used to help students learn about Cartesian co-ordinates (with compass included.) Compared to Mugwump, it turns out Albrecht changed very little about the game, only changing the four players to the titular Mugwumps, and the ending text. It's unknown how Albrecht got access to Hide and Seek.

Hide and Seek in the Project SOLO newsletter. Graph paper and a compass were recommended assistants for this game.

With all that out of the way, let's get into the game itself. The most critical question we must ask at this juncture is:

Just what is a Mugwump?

Even the PCC newsletter asks the same question. They understand. This type of question is of vital importance to our understanding of the cosmos. Unfortunately, it's also the type of question that doesn't have an answer. It's a shame, really.

Upon opening the game, I noticed that it bucks the trend of early text-based games in that it doesn't bother asking if you want the instructions - it just gives them to you. I'm told that the objective is to find four Mugwumps hiding themselves in a 10x10 grid. Why they limit themselves to such a small space, I'll never know.

I mentioned the board game Battleship at the start, because the process of finding the Mugwumps is much the same as choosing a co-ordinate in that classic game (or even Battle, for a prior video game example. Mugwump shares much in common with Battle, as it turns out.) Co-ordinate 0,0 is in the bottom left of the grid, and follows the typical grid system of the first digit being the horizontal x-axis, and the second the vertical y-axis.

You also only get 10 guesses. Good luck.

Also explained in the instructions is the clue system the game provides. I'm glad I don't have to go in blind, just wildly guessing without any reference points. After the first guess, the game will give you a clue as to the location of each uncaught Mugwump in relation to your guess. It does this in "units," which aren't always a round integer. Decimals signify the location being on a diagonal. Apparently, this is where a compass and graph paper are useful. I have graph paper (for dungeon mapping in future RPGs), but this is 2025, not 1973 - nobody uses compasses in the future.

For my first couple of goes at the game, my strategy was to have my first guess directly in the centre of the grid - co-ordinate 5,5. In hindsight, this was probably a terrible idea, as the clues only tell you distance, not direction. It's probably best to stick to the margins - less possible directions to consider.

This was a terrible idea.

The clues didn't really help me on account of deciding to plonk myself in the middle of the field. I made a somewhat educated second guess of 3,3. This provided much better results, as I had two of the Mugwumps either directly up or across from my location.

My next guess was 8,3, which resulted in one caught Mugwump! This guess also happened to be a solid anchor point for every other Mugwump, as they were all in straight directions from 8,3.

Got 'em.

The next most logical spot to guess was 9,3, as guess 2 had the fourth Mugwump one unit further away from the third Mugwump. I was correct, and now there was only two Mugwumps left.

Making solid progress.

Based on guess 3, the other two Mugwumps were either left or right three spaces - take your pick. I did, and picked wrongly, going right to 8,6 when I should've gone left to 8,0. 

Upon rectifying this error, I was greeted with the final two Mugwumps hiding in the same space! I'm surprised the game allows this to occur, but it's also likely a rare occurrence. My first game of Mugwump resulted in successfully finding all four Mugwumps in only six guesses - the number of guesses the game's writeups suggest is a good score... when using a compass. See, I told you it was unnecessary.

So what do I do with the Mugwumps after I catch them?

This is one of those games that starts a new round immediately, so I decided to have another go around. I didn't mind the first round, so going a second time wasn't a hard choice.

This round was... less successful. I went with the same strategy, and the folly of it showed this time. I was only able to catch three of the four Mugwumps, and found it considerably more difficult to ascertain their locations.

Tch. Knew I should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque...

Naturally, I had to play again after reconsidering my strategy. It turns out the game is a fair bit harder than I first thought. The strategy for the next handful of games was to start at 1,1, but none of those attempts were successful.

Eventually, I tried 0,0 as the starting move, and this proved far more effective. I found all Mugwumps in six turns again. What I learned during that attempt is that when the distance is listed as a round integer ("x units; no decimal point), it doesn't always mean that the Mugwump is in the same row/column as your guess. Often, it's one over, as can be seen from this screenshot:

Not always straight ahead.

My first guess was 0,0. This generated a clue for Mugwump 4 being 8 units away. Naturally, my next guess was in line - 8,0. The Mugwump was still 1 unit away, somehow. The only logical place to go next was 8,1 - exactly where the Mugwump was hiding. When the angles get very narrow, the game seems to round down, as sometimes it will use a .1 to signify something like this, other times it does not.

The 0,0 strategy resulted in two wins in a row for me, which I think proves it to be the best of the three strategies I tried for the game. You'd probably have the same success starting in any of the corners, however. Let's coin it the "corner" strategy. Both my recording attempts were also successful using this strategy. I found in my dumped attempt that, if 0,0 doesn't give good clues, you can just go to a different corner.

In case you couldn't tell, I rather enjoyed myself with this game, which will be reflected in the scores. This is also an attempt at finding more interesting ways to say "on to the scores." One of my writing goals is to be more creative with my segues.

Time Played: 20 minutes (approx.)

Difficulty: 4/10 (Mild)
There is a bit of challenge here in deciphering the clues and figuring out the best way to proceed. The random dispersion of the Mugwumps always kept me on my toes, and failure is possible if the clues aren't interpreted correctly.

Gameplay: 8/20

I'd say Mugwump is comparable to Battle in gameplay. Both are co-ordinate guessing games with clue systems. Mugwump is more on the simple side, but is no less interesting. Even on a basic level, I had space to develop strategies to give myself the best chance of success. The clue system takes a little bit of time to learn as well, but can give a satisfying payoff when a risky, educated guess comes off.

On the flipside, clues aren't always as clear as they could be (i.e. the previously mentioned issue of round integers not always representing a straight line.) The suggestion of needing to use graph paper and a flippin' compass is rather ludicrous, also. Ultimately, Mugwump is still a very primitive game, and provides limited gameplay value, hence why it isn't rated higher, despite my praise of it.

Controls: 5/10

As standard - I think they're about as appropriate as they could be for this type of game. I initially used "good" instead of "appropriate" before realising the latter was a more effective word for describing the controls.

Visual: 5/10

I'm going to use the same word here - appropriate. The formatting is as should be expected, resulting in a clear and readable game. Games shouldn't get brownie points for doing merely what they ought to do.

Functionality: 5/5

No problems here.

Accessibility: 3/5

Fortunately the graph paper and compass are only suggestions. Like, come on, we're not playing a CRPG here. Otherwise this score would drop to a 1 because, you know, everyone just happens to have a compass on hand these days. I can see some people benefitting from the visual aid of graph paper, however (or an Excel spreadsheet.)

 

Accessibility is otherwise fairly standard for a text-based game - points off for requiring a certain level of English reading proficiency.

Fun Factor: 10/20
Yeah, a surprise higher score for Mugwump. Much like Battle, I really did find enjoyment and intellectual stimulation in having the space to make strategic decisions and interpret clues. While the random dispersion of Mugwumps assist in giving the game some replay value, it's still not exactly something I'd seek out in my own time.

1973 continues to impress (compared to previous years, anyway), with Mugwump earning a score of 36, giving it a percentage equal to Hamurabi (51.42%), and thus a spot high in the D-tier. Mugwump just beats out Hamurabi in the Fun Factor tiebreaker, taking 5th place on the tier list as it stands at the time of writing. 

Next time we have Mugwump's sister game, Hurkle to tackle. I think that's going to be an interesting comparison, as both games are near identical, with one small difference that could have huge gameplay ramifications.

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#012: Warfish

Release Date: February 2, 1973

Platform: Mainframe

Genre: Strategy

Developer(s): Randy Witt

Publisher(s):

Well, I'm back from my holiday, so it's time for another article. Here, we have something a bit (when I say "a bit," I mean a lot) more interesting. Warfish presents a game concept we've only seen on the Magnavox Odyssey thus far in video game history: submarine warfare. Later in the decade, there'll be a few noteworthy naval warfare games involving submarines, such as Midway's Sea Wolf and Gremlin's Depth Charge, but here in 1973, the concept is still fresh.

Another point of interest for Warfish is that it may very well be the first ever game based on a book. The 1958 book War Fish is the source of inspiration for this game, a book telling the firsthand account of submarine commander George Grider's wartime career. He was commander of the USS Flasher, and was on duty during World War II.

Warfish appears in the sequel to one of the most oft-referenced books on my blog, David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games. More BASIC Computer Games, published in 1979, includes a new stack of games and programs from across the 1970s, generally a bit more varied and complex than the games in the first book. We'll be seeing this book a few more times throughout 1973, and, like its predecessor, is freely available to read at atariarchives.org. 

I'm sad to say that the authorship of this game is, for the most part, another standard case for this time period. Our author today is Randy Witt (sometimes spelled "Wit".) This is his only game, and, once again, there are several people sharing that name, with no immediate indication of which Randy Witt was the author of Warfish. Fortunately, we have some clues in the game's Sol-20 source code (found here), including the date on which Warfish's development was completed. The code also tells us where Randy Witt was from: Janesville, Minnesota. From here I was able to do some sleuthing, and determined that the Randy Witt who authored Warfish is a Randy Robert Witt from Iowa. The little else I could find on him suggests that he stayed in computing in some form after programming Warfish. Coincidentally, there are also a couple of other Randy Witts who served in the military.

The only information we have on Warfish outside of the source code.

Unlike the preceding book, there is no set of Vintage BASIC games for More BASIC Computer Games, so different means are required to access Warfish. It had a couple of microcomputer ports, including to the Sol-20 and TRS-80. A DOS port of the game has been uploaded to the Internet Archive - it's one of the ports that has a "modern" and "classic" version of the game, of which the "classic" version is exactly the same as the game listed in the book, so that's what I'll be going with today. 

I had higher hopes for this game compared to the last one (Slots), which was not hard, mind you. It seemed from reading the game description that it might have been something akin to a text-based version of Midway's Sea Wolf, and I love Sea Wolf.

So, is Warfish as I hoped? Well... kind of. The gameplay loop is a fairly rudimentary one - you use your sub's periscope to search out a target, and then fire torpedoes at it until it sinks. Rinse and repeat until you run out of torpedoes, or get blown up by your enemies. The only intrusion into the basic loop is if a ship is attacking you, where you can dive to avoid it (or risk fighting back.) The main aim of the game is to sink as many ships as possible, with the game giving you a score according to the gross tonnage of the ships you destroyed. Except for avoiding enemy ships, this is a fairly similar gameplay loop to Sea Wolf.

How strong is your desire for rules?

Warfish, as is standard, first asks if you want the instructions. You get the rundown of how the game works, and also gives you a little bit of a military history lesson by listing the names of real US submarines. It's giving you a bit of inspiration, as your first task is to name your sub. I went with one of the real names, Thresher. The submarine that George Grider commandeered, USS Flasher, is also listed.

Personally, I have a deep-seated desire to read the instructions of games I've not played before.

The inputs for your gameplay choices reflect how many text-based games handle inputs going forward. Each command is an entire word - to use the periscope, you actually type in "PERISCOPE," and so on. I think it's neat that Warfish does this, as it adds to the immersion of the game. What's even neater, however, is that you don't actually have to type in the full word! The first letter of each command is accepted by the game, too.

There are various types of ships you'll encounter during a round of Warfish. Most, like transports, tankers and aircraft carriers, don't fight back, and sinking them is just a matter of firing torpedoes until enough hit to sink them. According to the description in More BASIC Computer Games, whether a torpedo hits or not is determined at random.

How an encounter with a generic ship typically goes.

When it comes to attacking enemy ships, things are a little different. It's still random, but there's a bit more choice available to the player. You can dive to try avoid the ship, or you can take a risk and fire retaliatory torpedoes. I tried both in my playthrough, and came out unscathed. The code appears to suggest two ways your sub can be destroyed, either by depth charges, or gunfire.

An encounter with a hostile vessel.

It took a while for a hostile ship to appear in my first go around. I was mostly just taking potshots at whatever crossed my path up until I encountered a destroyer escort, then an actual destroyer. I can imagine in my head that they must've got really sick of me sinking all their other ships, and decided to come after me with all they had. I evaded the escort, but the destroyer hung around after I dived to avoid it. I decided that, if I wouldn't go away on its own, that I'd make it go away. I only had two torpedoes left at this point, so I chose to throw a hail Mary and see what would happen.

That's what you get, destroyer!

Fortunately, I was successful in sinking the destroyer. I think I got rather lucky here, as in my testing after this run, I was almost always gunned down when I tried to fire back. Never ran into the depth charges, however.

And with that, my first round of Warfish came to an end. I sunk 7 vessels, with a gross tonnage of 59,300. This is on the lower end of the scores I ended up getting on follow-up playthroughs.

Before I go onto the score, I have an opportunity to talk about high scores for a change! For arcade games and the like that keep track of high scores, I'll be putting up my best effort from my playing time for you all to compete against. For Warfish, I played a few more rounds, and managed a best of 13 ships, with a tonnage of 77,370. If you have a go at this one, let me know what your best was in the comments.

Now we can do the scores.

Time Played: Rough estimate of 15 minutes. A single playthrough takes between 1 - 3 minutes.

Difficulty: 1/10 (Very Easy)

It's hard to quantify the difficulty of Warfish, as the outcomes of most actions are random. As long as you're not feeling especially risky, it's incredibly easy to complete a playthrough.

Gameplay: 4/20

Warfish occupies a similar space to something like Dartmouth Championship Football. Both present several strategic options, but suffer from the illusion of choice, as outcomes are determined randomly. I think Warfish is a little better, thanks to its faster pace and simple attempts at immersion.

Controls: 7/10

Even if not immediately obvious, the ability to input the first letter of each command is an excellent addition to help the fast-paced nature of the game.

Visual: 4/10

There's a small typo in the instructions (I'll let you figure out where), and some of the formatting is a little wonky when diving.

Functionality: 5/5

No noticeable performance issues.

Accessibility: 3/5

While Warfish does require less reading, and is more action-oriented than previous text games, it's still a text game.

Fun Factor: 5/20

High scores make everything that little bit more replayable for me. Although, the random nature of the game severely impacts the interest in wanting to keep playing, as there's not really any skill required. Still, the speed of the game does make it somewhat enjoyable.

In total, Warfish earns a 28/70, which is 40% exactly, meaning it just scrapes into the bottom of the D-tier. A much better showing than Slots, and gives me a bit of hope that 1973's games will continue to improve from here.

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