Wander (computer game)

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Screenshot from Wander (World: Castle)

Wander is a text adventure for mainframes and was developed by Peter Langston in 1974 or possibly as early as 1973 .

Game principle and technology

The program ("Fantasy Story Tool") has a modular structure and can load different "game worlds" (level), ending with .WRLD. Own worlds (stories) can be created. The game status can also be saved. The program is started with

wander [WORLD] [-r[savefile]] [-t#]

The parameter -t means tracing and is used for diagnostic purposes. As usual, it is operated by entering English commands, i.e. one or more, usually two words. In the first adventure a maiden has to be freed from a castle. The following game worlds were developed at that time:

  • Castle (1974), Peter Langston
  • A3 (1977-1988), Keith Laumer and Peter Langston
  • Tut (1978), Peter Langston
  • Library (between 1974 and 1978), Nat Howard
  • Advent (Colossal-Cave-Adventure port, 1981), Peter Langston

Production notes

Wander was considered lost until the source text of a version from 1980 was rediscovered in a software archive in early 2015 . The existence of the game was well known; The British mathematician and Inform developer Graham Nelson described it in 1993 as a "text-based world modeling program" and "Proto-Adventure". It can be seen as the first (known) text adventure ( Interactive Fiction ). Previously, Adventure / Colossal Cave Adventure from 1976 was considered the first genre representative. A copyright notice was only added afterwards in 1978.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Graham Nelson: The Inform Designer's Manual . 4th edition. The Interactive Fiction Library, St. Charles 2001, ISBN 0-9713119-0-0 , pp. 363 .