The Sumerian Game
| The Sumerian Game | |
|---|---|
| Studio | IBM |
| Senior Developer | Mabel Addis, William McKay |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1964 |
| platform | IBM 7090 |
| genre | Economic simulation |
| Subject | Management of an ancient city-state |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | keyboard |
| medium | IBM 7-track magnetic tape drive |
| language | English |
| information | First known business simulation and first multimedia game |
The Sumerian Game ( Engl. For: The Sumerians game ) is an early computer game in 1964 by the primary school teacher Mabel Addis designed and made by William McKay on a IBM 7090 has been programmed. It is considered the first known computer business simulation and was used as an educational game for elementary school students in the Katonah-Lewisboro School District in South Salem, New York State .
Game description
The Sumerian Game is a text-based computer game which, in addition to input and output on an IBM 1050 terminal, also controls a printer , a slide projector and a cassette recorder . The aim of the game is to develop the Sumerian city-state of Lagash in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC in several phases . To control.
The player is introduced to the game with a spoken introduction from the cassette and pictures from the slide projector. It is then his task to determine the grain production and distribution in the state in each round. It is important to provide the population with enough grain as food and at the same time hold back enough bushels as seeds for the coming season. The respective harvests are quite different. However, the player is supported by his court advisor with tips on determining the necessary quantities.
The first phase ends after six game rounds. Then the narrator adds new pictures to the frame story and continues the game with slightly changed conditions. Additional resources can now be invested in the development of arts and crafts. After the second phase, the frame story is told in another cutscene, and the final rounds of the game follow, which now also allow trade with other cities and the expansion of the national territory.
Emergence
Mabel Addis was known for regularly staging elaborate performances with educational content for her students. She used her acquaintance with the IBM programmer William McKay and a support program from the US education authority to gain access to an IBM 7090. Because of the enthusiasm for science fiction then prevalent in the United States , she rightly found the inclusion of a computer in her performance extremely attractive to her students. The project was so successful that it was refined and improved until 1967.
The time-consuming installation of the multimedia components was then given up in favor of pure computer versions of the game. Remnants of the original hardware, especially the slides used , can be viewed in the National Museum of Play at the Brian Sutton-Smith Library in Rochester (New York) .
Both the source code and printouts of phases 2 and 3 as well as all audio recordings are lost.
Game historical significance
The game founded the genre of business simulation and, thanks to the innovative use of sound and image technology, was also the first real multimedia game long before the term was coined. It had a groundbreaking influence on numerous later computer games, especially the global strategy games . A direct further development of the game is the much better known game Hamurabi , which is still available today in numerous variants , which was also published in a German translation.
literature
- Christian Wirsig: The great lexicon of computer games. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag , Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89602-525-2 .
Web links
- The Sumerian Game at MobyGames (English)
- Eugen Pfister: Raiders of the Lost Game - IBM: The Sumerian Game. In: Working Group on History and Digital Games. January 8, 2018, accessed December 11, 2019 .
- Winnerling: Sumerian Game Project: Digital reconstruction of a game as a simulation of a model. In: Working Group on History and Digital Games. January 9, 2018, accessed December 11, 2019 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ MABEL ADDIS MERGARDT. In: Legacy.com. Retrieved December 11, 2019 (English, Nekrolog from the print edition of The Journal News of August 31, 2004, mentions, among other things, the development of the 'Sumerian Game').
- ↑ a b The Sumerian Game: The Most Important Video Game You've Never Heard Of. In: acriticalhit! Retrieved on December 11, 2019 (English, contains a photo that shows an operator operating the console and a slide of the game in the background, as well as an (indistinct) shot of Mabel Addis from 1984).
- ^ Richard L. Wing (with Mabel Addis et al.): The Production and Evaluation of Three Computer-Based Economics Games for the Sixth Grade . Final report. New York June 1967 (English, archive.org [accessed December 11, 2019]).
- ↑ thestrong - National Museum of Play. Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, Rochester, NY, USA.
- ↑ David H. Ahl: Basic Computer Games - Microcomputer Edition. SYBEX-Verlag , Düsseldorf 1982, ISBN 3-88745-009-4 , pp. 75-76.