[02] Dice and Ladders

 I remember some of the games I played on Grandpa's XT, before I had one of my own.  Other than Castle Adventure, the earliest game memory from that PC I have is Willy the Worm.

Willy the Worm in color mode

Willy the Worm was released in 1985 as a shareware title from Alan Farmer in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Sadly, his name is one way too common to track down, the best I found so far is a few other game credits through about 1990.  This game is both simple, yet impressive for different reasons.  Firstly, it was distributed with the source code, in Pascal.  Secondly, it came with a level editor (also with the source code).  While admittedly not a very challenging game, unless you play it on a modern speed computer, I'm sure that, in the right hands, a challenging set of levels could be designed.

The game offered a color mode in addition to black & white.  The color mode?  Added a blue background, so it's blue & white instead.  I'm not sure if I played this first on his amber monochrome monitor.  For a while, I remember he had both connected to his computer at the same time, because some programs apparently had an issue with the CGA card, perhaps.  At 8, I wasn't yet well versed in those things, although like most PC users, later I would become much more knowlegable.

Playing the game today, using DOSBox to emulate a really slow XT, I remembered how much fun I had at the time.  As a second grader, I likely saw this as impressive, if not state of the art.  Looking now, it takes some of the best gameplay items from Donkey Kong and Super Mario, without the charming graphics or a princess to rescue.

Another early favorite, one I would play for years to come, is a very-well programmed implementation of the board game of Monopoly.  According to the readme, author Don Phillip Gibson programmed the game as a practice exercise using Turbo Pascal on his Tandy 1000.  

Monopoly (1985)

The game required you to play by the rules -- no house rules.

The top screenshot shows the limited CGA output under certain resolutions, while the shot below has multiple colors, and used all of the 16 available for the different color property cards in the game.

For memory's sake, I played some of it right now as well -- although since I live alone, I had to play against my alternate personalities, because a computer player mode was sadly not implemented.

Other games played at my grandparents' house included some of his casino favorites, such as Keno.  I played that game, guessing wildly, not having bothered to learn the rules.  Now, I know that it's the basis for the local lottery's Pick-10 game.

Perhaps in my next post, I'll play with some computer favorites from elementary school.  I'll even resist the urge to show a screenshot from Oregon Trail.