I always feel a twinge of excitement when I am getting ready to start a new game. It is that thrill of discovery combined with the wonder of what new challenges and surprises might await.
I am on a personal quest to play as many CRPGs, Adventure Games, & Graphic Adventures as I possibly can in the order in which they first appeared. I know what you’re thinking. ‘This is impossible!’ or ‘This guy is nuts!’ Well you may be right on both counts but I’m certainly going to have fun with the process.
I wanted to cover each of the games that I played in detail here in this blog. My favorite genre or type of game is the role-playing game; specifically the dungeon crawlers. So I decided to start my quest with games created in 1975 because it was in this year that CRPGs were being created on university computer systems. In his book, Dungeons & Desktops, Matt Barton calls this period of time the “Dark Age” and it persists through 1979. There were not many games to cover in 1975 & 1976 but I had a hell of a time playing the CRPGs found on the Plato System. You can read about my experience with those early games here on the blog. Moria was one of the games that ended up occupying hours and weeks of my time which brought the blog to an almost screeching halt.
1978 provided me with many more game experiences as the home computer revolution begins to take shape. I found myself on quite a roll as I moved from one game offering to the next from 1978. It was in 1978 that text adventures or interactive fiction began to gain in popularity and we were introduced to a number of these.
I am now wrapping up the last game that was on my list to play from 1978. I knew about a week ago that I would have to begin research on which games were eligible to make the list for 1979. My criteria were pretty simple: 1) was the game available to play in 1979? 2) does it fall under the category of computer role-playing game or interactive fiction? 3) thematically does it sound like something that I’d like to play?
The list has been officially created and I wanted to share it with you. I will also make it available so that it can be accessed from the homepage of the website. If you think that I have made an oversight and I have missed something that belongs on this list; please leave a comment and I will add it to the list. You’ll also notice that I wanted to take a little time to experience Asteroids, Galaxian, and Space Invaders because these treasures debuted in arcades and took the world by storm.
This is the playlist that I compiled from 1979. I will play them in no particular order though admittedly it is the CRPGs I am drawn to the most. I have been particularly looking forward to playing Akalabeth: World of Doom and the Dunjonquest series. There are some amazing looking games on the list and I cannot wait to begin. Once again, fellow wizards, if there is a game I have overlooked from the annals of our history please bring it to my attention so that I can add it to the list. There are a total of 43 games on that list. I am not sure how many hours, days, weeks, months of my time this list is going to occupy but I am looking forward to the journey. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to charge the battery for my lantern, procure some rations, and find 50′ of rope.