[HN Gopher] The Sumerian Game: The Most Important Video Game You...
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       The Sumerian Game: The Most Important Video Game You've Never Heard
       Of (2021)
        
       Author : Bluestein
       Score  : 52 points
       Date   : 2024-07-07 10:21 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.acriticalhit.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.acriticalhit.com)
        
       | Bluestein wrote:
       | "Long before Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego or The Oregon
       | Trail, there was The Sumerian Game.
       | 
       | Designed in 1964 for classrooms, it was as innovative as it is
       | forgotten."
        
       | ahazred8ta wrote:
       | Later rewritten as Hammurabi. Not to be outdone - the classic Old
       | Testament Text Adventure game: You have 100 goats. You have
       | pottage.
       | 
       | https://old-testament-text-adventure.com/
        
         | Bluestein wrote:
         | What more could one possibly want? :)
        
       | com wrote:
       | I played HMRABI on a DEC-10 with a teletype and a modem with an
       | acoustic coupler when I was a kid - literally a game changer
       | since affordable 8-bit computers came out shortly after and we
       | could build rubbish games a bit similar to this. It was always a
       | blast to script - in BASIC - the subservient computer advisor!
        
       | jhbadger wrote:
       | Hammurabi (which as mentioned in another comment seems to be a
       | later rewrite of this) was very popular in schools in the 1980s.
       | As was "Lemonade Stand", which at first glance seems to have
       | nothing to do with Hammurabi, but the style of the game (player
       | enters a set of numbers reflecting various decisions to be made
       | in the turn) and the computer returns the results (how much wheat
       | harvested, how many cups of lemonade sold) according to its
       | calculations, is very similar.
        
         | egypturnash wrote:
         | The second half of the article deals with the evolution from a
         | 1964 mainframe game to a simplified version that fit into 4k of
         | FOCAL on a PDP-8, and then to the BASIC version found in David
         | Ahl's well-known "BASIC Computer Games" books under the name
         | "Hamurabi" (with one M).
        
       | geoelectric wrote:
       | I remember typing in the David Ahl version from the 1978 edition
       | back in the 80s, on my TRS-80 CoCo. As soon as I started reading
       | the article I realized they were referring to the same game.
       | 
       | I don't think I realized the game itself was so venerable though!
        
       | einpoklum wrote:
       | Ok, enough chit-chat, you want the mobile app, right?
       | 
       | https://www.appbrain.com/app/hammurabi/com.papacut.hammurabi
       | 
       | (also available on Google Play and Apple Store, although
       | Sumerians wouldn't recommend using those companies' services.)
        
       | lostmsu wrote:
       | There's a Russian take on that game with more features:
       | http://akasoft.genliga.ru/index_e.php
       | 
       | The web site is also very old-school.
        
       | zem wrote:
       | i had the bbc version of that as a kid. it was surprisingly
       | immersive and addictive.
        
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       (page generated 2024-07-11 23:00 UTC)