''Adventure'' is a
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
developed by
Warren Robinett
Joseph Warren Robinett Jr. (born December 25, 1951) In the A. Miller interview, Robinett says he was 26 in November 1977. is a designer of interactive computer graphics software, notable as the developer of the Atari 2600's ''Adventure'' — ...
for the Atari Video Computer System (later renamed
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor- ...
) and released in
1980
Events January
* January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
* January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC.
* January 9 – ...
by
Atari, Inc.
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry.
Based primarily around the Sunny ...
The player controls a square
avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...
whose quest is to explore an open-ended environment to find a magical
chalice
A chalice (from Latin 'mug', borrowed from Ancient Greek () 'cup') or goblet is a footed cup intended to hold a drink. In religious practice, a chalice is often used for drinking during a ceremony or may carry a certain symbolic meaning.
Re ...
and return it to the golden castle. The game world is populated by roaming enemies: three dragons that can eat the avatar and a bat that randomly steals and hides items around the game world. ''Adventure'' introduced new elements to console games, including a play area spanning multiple screens and enemies that continue to move when offscreen.
The game was conceived as a graphical version of the 1977 text adventure ''
Colossal Cave Adventure
''Colossal Cave Adventure'' (also known as ''Adventure'' or ''ADVENT'') is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the pl ...
''. Warren Robinett spent approximately one year designing and coding the game, while overcoming a variety of technical limitations in the
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor- ...
console hardware, as well as difficulties with management within Atari. As a result of conflicts with Atari's management which denied giving public credit for programmers, Robinett programmed a secret room that contained his name within the game, only found by players after the game shipped and Robinett had left Atari. While not the first such
Easter egg
Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...
, Robinett's secret room pioneered this idea within video games and other forms of media, and since has transcended into popular culture, such as the climax of
Ernest Cline
Ernest Christy Cline (born March 29, 1972) is an American science fiction novelist, slam poet, and screenwriter. He wrote the novels '' Ready Player One'', '' Armada'', and '' Ready Player Two'' and co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation ...
's book and film adaption ''
Ready Player One
''Ready Player One'' is a 2011 science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story, set in a dystopia in 2045, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality ga ...
''.
''Adventure'' received mostly positive reviews at the time of its release and in the decades since, often named as one of the industry's most influential games and
among the greatest video games of all time. It is considered the first
action-adventure
The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres.
Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyli ...
and console
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
game, and inspired other games in the genres. More than
one million cartridges of ''Adventure'' were sold, and the game has been included in numerous Atari 2600 game collections for modern computer hardware. The game's prototype code was used as the basis for the
1979 ''Superman'' game, and a planned sequel eventually formed the basis for the ''
Swordquest'' games.
Gameplay
In ''Adventure'', the player's goal is to recover the Enchanted
Chalice
A chalice (from Latin 'mug', borrowed from Ancient Greek () 'cup') or goblet is a footed cup intended to hold a drink. In religious practice, a chalice is often used for drinking during a ceremony or may carry a certain symbolic meaning.
Re ...
that an evil magician has stolen and hidden in the kingdom and return it to the Golden Castle. The kingdom is made of a total of thirty rooms, with various obstacles, enemies, and mazes located in and around the Golden, White, and Black Castles. The kingdom is guarded by three
dragons
A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
the yellow Yorgle, the green Grundle, and the red Rhindlethat protect or flee from various items and attack the player's avatar. An enemy bat can roam the kingdom freely, carrying an item or a dragon around; the bat was to be named Knubberrub but the name is not in the manual.
The bat's two states are agitation and non-agitation. When in the agitated state, the bat will either pick up or swap what it currently carries with an object in the present room, eventually returning to the non-agitated state where it will not pick up an object. The bat continues to fly around even offscreen, swapping objects.
The player's avatar is a simple square shape that can move within and between rooms, each represented by a single screen. Helpful objects include keys that open the castles, a magnet that pulls items towards the player, a magic bridge that the player can use to cross certain obstacles, and a sword which can be used to defeat the dragons. The player may only carry one object at a time. If eaten by a dragon, the player can then opt to resurrect the dead avatar instead of completely restarting the game. The avatar reappears at the Golden Castle and all objects remain at their latest location, but all slain dragons are resurrected. The ability to resurrect the avatar without resetting the entire game is considered one of the earliest examples of a "continue game" option in video games.
The game offers three different skill levels. Level 1 is the easiest, as it uses a simplified room layout and doesn't include the White Castle, bat, Rhindle, nor invisible mazes. Level 2 is the full version of the game, with the various objects appearing in set positions at the start. Level 3 is similar to Level 2, but the location of the objects is randomized for a greater challenge. The player can use the difficulty switches on the Atari 2600 to further control the game's difficulty; one switch controls the dragons' bite speed, and one causes them to flee when the player carries the sword.
Development
''Adventure'' was designed and programmed by Atari employee Warren Robinett
Joseph Warren Robinett Jr. (born December 25, 1951) In the A. Miller interview, Robinett says he was 26 in November 1977. is a designer of interactive computer graphics software, notable as the developer of the Atari 2600's ''Adventure'' — ...
, and published
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
by Atari, Inc.
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry.
Based primarily around the Sunny ...
At the time, Atari programmers were generally given full control on the creative direction and development cycle for their games, and this required them to plan for their next game as they neared completion of their current one to stay productive. Robinett was finishing his work on '' Slot Racers'' when he was given an opportunity to visit the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Stanford University has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center ...
by Julius Smith, one of several friends he was sharing a house with. There, he was introduced to the 1977 version of the computer text game ''Colossal Cave Adventure
''Colossal Cave Adventure'' (also known as ''Adventure'' or ''ADVENT'') is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the pl ...
'', created by Will Crowther
William Crowther (born 1936) is an American computer programmer, caver, and rock climber. He is the co-creator of ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' from 1975 onward, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of video game design and ins ...
and modified by Don Woods Donald Woods (1933–2001) was a South African journalist and activist.
Donald or Don Woods may also refer to:
* Donald Woods (actor) (1906–1998), Canadian-born American film and television actor
* Donald Devereux Woods (1912–1964), British m ...
. After playing the game for several hours, he was inspired to create a graphical version.
Robinett began designing his graphics-based game on a Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
1611A microprocessor computer around May to June 1978. He was soon aware that memory use was critical because Atari 2600 cartridge ROMs have only 4096 byte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
s (4 KB),[ and the system has 128 bytes of ]RAM
Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:
Animals
* A male sheep
* Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish
People
* Ram (given name)
* Ram (surname)
* Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director
* RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch
* ...
for program variables. In contrast, ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' uses hundreds of kilobytes of memory on a large computer. The final game uses nearly all of the available memory (including 5% of the cartridge storage for Robinett's Easter egg
Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...
), with 15 unused bytes from the ROM capacity. Robinett credits Ken Thompson
Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programmi ...
, his professor at University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, with teaching him the skills needed to use the limited memory efficiently. Thompson had required his students to learn the C programming language
''The C Programming Language'' (sometimes termed ''K&R'', after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the language, as well as ...
that he had invented at AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...
, and Robinett carried C techniques into assembly language.
Robinett first identified ways to translate the elements of ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' into simple, easily recognizable graphics that the player interacts with directly, replacing text-based commands with joystick controls. Due to the system's low resolution pixels, Robinett noted the dragons look more like duck
Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form t ...
s. Robinett developed workaround
A workaround is a bypass of a recognized problem or limitation in a system or policy. A workaround is typically a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed. But workarounds are frequently as creative as true solut ...
s for various technical limitations of the Atari 2600, which has only one playfield and five memory-mapped registers available to represent moving objects. Only two of these registers are capable of representing more complex sprites, so he used those for objects and creatures within the game. He used the register originally designated for the ball in games such as ''Pong
''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcor ...
'' to represent the player's avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...
. Finally, he used the registers assigned for missiles, such as the bullets in ''Combat
Combat ( French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed ( not using weapons). Combat is sometimes resorted to as a method of self-defense, or ...
'', for additional walls in the playing field to be able to represent different rooms within the game with the same playfield. Another hardware limitation forces the left and right sides of nearly every screen to be mirrored, which fostered the creation of the game's confusing mazes. The exceptions include two screens in the Black Castle catacombs and two in the main hallway beneath the Golden Castle. They are mirrored, but contain a vertical wall object in the room to make an asymmetrical screen, as well as provide a secret door for an Easter egg. Robinett originally intended for all rooms to be bidirectionally connected, but programming bugs make a few such connections unidirectional, which are explained away as "bad magic" in the game's manual.
Robinett overcame these limitations to introduce concepts novel to video games. He constructed thirty different rooms in the games, whereas most games of the time present only a single screen. Furthermore, off-screen objects such as the bat continue to move according to their programming behavior.
In addition to the technical limitations, Robinett had struggled with Atari's management over the game. Around the time of ''Adventure''s development, Atari, now owned by Warner Communications
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
, had hired Ray Kassar
Raymond Edward Kassar (January 2, 1928 – December 10, 2017) was president, and later CEO, of Atari Inc. from 1978 to 1983. He had previously been executive vice-president of Burlington Industries, the world's largest textile company at the t ...
as general manager of their Consumer Division, and he was later promoted to president and CEO of Atari in December 1978. Kassar interacted with the programmers rarely and generally treated their contributions with indifference. Robinett was initially discouraged from working on ''Adventure'' by his supervisor, George Simcock, who said the ambitious game could not be done on Atari 2600 based on knowing how much memory ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' uses. When Robinett developed a working prototype within one month, Atari's management team was impressed, encouraging him to continue the game. The management later tried to convince Robinett to make it a tie-in work for the upcoming ''Superman
Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and publi ...
'' movie, which was owned by Warner Communication, but Robinett remained committed to his initial idea. Instead, Atari developer John Dunn agreed to take Robinett's prototype source code to make the 1979 ''Superman'' game.
A second prototype was completed near the end of 1978, with only about eight rooms, a single dragon, and two objects. Robinett recognized that it demonstrated his design goals, but was boring. He put the game aside for a few months and came back with additional ideas, finishing it by June 1979. Two changes were the possibility of being eaten by the dragon and resetting the avatar, and the addition of the sword object with which to kill the dragon. Robinett found that the various possibilities that arose from this combination of elements improved the excitement of the game, and subsequently made three dragons, reusing the same source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
for the behavior of all three. The magnet was created to work around a potential situation where the player could irretrievably drop an object into a wall space.
To develop the plot for the game, Robinett worked with Steve Harding, the author for nearly all Atari 2600 game manuals at that time. Harding developed most of the plot after playing the game, with Robinett revising elements where he saw fit. Robinett states that he had come up with the names for the three dragons and offered a friend's suggestion for naming the bat "Knubberrub".
Robinett submitted the source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
for ''Adventure'' to Atari management in June 1979 and soon left Atari. Atari released the game in early 1980.
Easter egg
Generally defined as a "message, trick, or unusual behavior hidden inside a computer program by its creator", the Easter egg concept was popularized by ''Adventure'', influenced by the corporate culture at Atari. After Atari's acquisition by Warner Communications
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
in 1976, there was a culture clash between the executives from New York, and the Californian programmers who were more laid back. Atari removed the names of game developers from their products, as a means to prevent competitors from identifying and recruiting Atari's programmers. This also was used as a means to deny the developers a bargaining chip in any negotiations they may have with management, according to Robinett. These attitudes led to the departure of several programmers; notably, David Crane, Larry Kaplan
Larry Kaplan is an American game designer who was the co-founder of Activision.
Kaplan studied at the University of California, Berkeley from 1968 through 1974 and graduated with a degree in Computer Science.
He started at Atari, Inc. in Augus ...
, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead
Robert A. Whitehead (born November 1, 1953) is an American video game designer and programmer. While working for Atari, Inc. he wrote two of the nine Atari Video Computer System launch titles: ''Blackjack'' and ''Star Ship''. After leaving Atar ...
all left Atari due to lack of recognition and royalty payment
A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
s, and formed Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...
as a third-party 2600 developer, making many hit games in competition with Atari.
Unknown to anyone else, Robinett embedded his name in his game in the form of a hidden and virtually inaccessible room displaying the text "Created by Warren Robinett", inspired by popular rumors that the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
had hidden messages in songs. In 2015, Robinett recalled the message as a means of self-promotion, noting that Atari had paid him only around US$22,000 per year without any royalties, while Atari would sell one million units of a game at US$25 apiece. This secret is one of the earliest known Easter eggs in a video game.
Robinett kept the secret for more than one year, even from all Atari employees. He was unsure of whether it would be discovered by other Atari personnel prior to publishing. It is not mentioned in the game's manual, as the manual's author was unaware. After the game was released, Adam Clayton, a fifteen-year-old from Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
, discovered it and sent a letter of explanation to Atari. Robinett had already quit the company by this point, so Atari tasked designers with finding the responsible code. The employee who found it said that if he were to fix it, he would change the message in the game to say "Fixed by Brad Stewart". Furthermore, the cost of creating a new read-only memory
Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing sof ...
(ROM) mask
A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment and often they have been employed for rituals and rights. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practic ...
, or memory chip Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is a type of immunoprecipitation experimental technique used to investigate the interaction between proteins and DNA in the cell. It aims to determine whether specific proteins are associated with specific genom ...
, was around at the time of the game's release, making this change a costly endeavor. Steve Wright, the director of software development of the Atari Consumer Division, argued for retaining the message, believing it gave players additional incentive to find it and play their games more, and suggested these were like Easter egg
Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...
s for players to find. Atari eventually decided to leave the Dot in-game, and dubbed such hidden features "Easter eggs", saying they would be adding more such secrets to later games. Wright made it an official policy at Atari that all future games should include Easter eggs, often limited to being the initials of the game developer.
The Easter egg is accessed by setting difficulty levels 2 or 3 and first retrieving the Gray Dot from the Black Castle catacombs. The dot is a single pixel object which is invisibly embedded in the south wall of a sealed chamber accessible only with the bridge, and the player must bounce the avatar along the bottom wall to pick it up. The dot can be seen when in a catacombs passage or when held over a normal wall, and becomes again invisible when carried or dropped in most rooms. The dot is not attracted to the magnet, unlike all other inanimate objects. The player must bring the dot along with two or more other objects to the east end of the corridor below the Golden Castle. This causes the barrier on the right side of the screen to blink rapidly, and the player avatar is then able to push through the wall into a new room displaying the words "Created by Warren Robinett" in text which continuously changes color.
The text was removed from the version on the Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Games standalone gaming unit, replaced with "TEXT?" It has been included in most subsequent reissues of the game.
Reception
''Adventure'' received mostly positive reviews in the years immediately after its release and has generally been viewed positively since then.
Norman Howe reviewed ''Adventure'' in ''The Space Gamer
''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the la ...
'' No. 31. Howe commented that "''Adventure'' is a good game, as video games are measured. It is neither as interesting nor as complex as ''Superman'', but it shows great promise for things to come."
Bill Kunkel and Frank Laney in the January 1981 issue of ''Video
Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...
'' called ''Adventure'' a "major design breakthrough" and that it "shatters several video-game conventions" such as scoring and time limits. They added that it was "much more ambitious" than average home video games, but the graphics were underwhelming, such as the hero being a square. The 1982 book ''How to Win at Home Video Games'' called it too unpredictable with an "illogical mission", concluding that "even devoted strategists may soon tire of ''Adventure''s excessive trial and error." ''Electronic Games
An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common ...
'' in 1983 stated that the game's "graphics are tame stuff", but it "still has the power to fascinate" and that "the action adventure concepts introduced in ''Adventure'' are still viable today".
Jeremy Parish of '' 1UP.com'' wrote in 2010 that ''Adventure'' is "a work of interpretive brilliance" that "cleverly extracted the basic elements of exploration, combat and treasure hunting from the text games and converted them into icons", but also conceded that it "seems almost unplayably basic these days".
Atari Headquarters scored the game 8 of 10, noting its historical importance while panning the graphics and sound, concluding that ''Adventure'' was "very enjoyable" regardless of its technological shortcomings. In 1995, Flux
Flux describes any effect that appears to pass or travel (whether it actually moves or not) through a surface or substance. Flux is a concept in applied mathematics and vector calculus which has many applications to physics. For transport ph ...
magazine ranked Adventure 35th on their Top 100 Video Games. They described the game as: "challenging and incredibly fun."
Legacy
As the first action-adventure video game
The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres.
Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyli ...
and first console fantasy game
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and dra ...
, ''Adventure'' established its namesake genre on video game consoles. In addition to being the first graphical adventure game on the Atari 2600 console, it is the first video game to contain a widely known Easter egg, and the first to allow a player to use multiple, portable, on-screen items while exploring an open-ended environment, making it one of the first examples, even as small and primitive as it is, of an open world game. The game is the first to use a ''fog of war
The fog of war (german: links=no, Nebel des Krieges) is the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability, ...
'' effect in its catacombs, which obscures most of the playing area except for the player's immediate surroundings.
The game has been voted the best Atari 2600 game in numerous polls, and has been noted as a significant step in the advancement of home video games. ''GamePro
Gamepro.com is an international multiplatform video game magazine media company that covers the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software in countries such as Germany and France. The publication, GamePro, was originally la ...
'' ranked it as the 28th most important video game of all time in 2007. In 2010, '' 1UP.com'' listed it as one of the most important games ever made in its "The Essential 50" feature. ''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' named ''Adventure'' as one of the top 10 games for the Atari 2600.
A sequel to ''Adventure'' was first announced in early 1982. The planned sequel eventually evolved into the ''Swordquest'' series of games. In 2005, a sequel written by Curt Vendel was released by Atari on the Atari Flashback 2
The Atari Flashback series are a line of dedicated video game consoles designed, produced, published and marketed by AtGames under license from Atari SA. The Flashback consoles are "plug-and-play" versions of the Atari 2600 console. They conta ...
system. In 2007, AtariAge
AtariAge is a website focusing on classic Atari video games. The site features gaming news, historical archives, discussion forums, and an online store. It was founded in 1998.
Taking its name from the 1982–84 '' Atari Age'' magazine, the site ...
released a self-published
Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pri ...
sequel called ''Adventure II
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...
'' for the Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200 is a home video game console introduced in 1982 by Atari, Inc. as a higher-end complement for the popular Atari Video Computer System. The VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600 at the time of the 5200' ...
, which is heavily inspired by the original; its name is used with permission from Atari Interactive
Atari Interactive is a name used by several separate groups and corporations since the mid-1990s. In 1996, it was the name of Atari Corporation's PC publishing division, bringing games like the Atari Jaguar's ''Tempest 2000'' to the PC platfor ...
. Robinett himself took the idea of using items from ''Adventure'' into his next game, ''Rocky's Boots
''Rocky's Boots'' is an educational logic puzzle game by Warren Robinett and Leslie Grimm, published by The Learning Company in 1982. It was released for the Apple II series, Apple II, TRS-80 Color Computer, CoCo, Commodore 64, IBM Personal Comput ...
'', but added the ability to combine them to form new items.
In both the 2011 novel ''Ready Player One
''Ready Player One'' is a 2011 science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story, set in a dystopia in 2045, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality ga ...
'' and its 2018 film version the Easter egg in ''Adventure'' is prominently mentioned as the inspiration for a contest to find an Easter egg hidden in the fictional virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...
game OASIS, and finding the secret room within ''Adventure'' is a core plot element within both versions, with footage from the game (specifically the Easter egg) incorporated into the film version.
The Lego
Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...
Atari 2600 set includes three "cartridges" that open to reveal scenes inside them. The cartridge for ''Adventure'' has a scene of the game's castle with an egg hidden at its center, reference the Easter egg.
Re-releases
* Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Games (Standalone hardware unit, 2003)
* '' Atari: 80 Classic Games in One'' (PC, 2003)
* Atari Flashback
The Atari Flashback series are a line of dedicated video game consoles designed, produced, published and marketed by AtGames under license from Atari SA. The Flashback consoles are "plug-and-play" versions of the Atari 2600 console. They conta ...
(Standalone hardware unit, 2004)
* ''Atari Anthology
''Atari: 80 Classic Games in One!'', known as ''Atari Anthology'' on consoles, is a video game collection developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Atari Interactive. The title is a compilation of 80 video games previously published by Atari, I ...
'' (PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...
, Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...
, 2004)[
* Atari Flashback 2 (Standalone hardware unit, 2005)
* ]Game Room
Game Room was a social gaming service for the Xbox 360 video game system, Microsoft Windows PCs, and Windows Phone 7. Launched on March 24, 2010, Game Room let players download classic video games and compete against each other for high scores. ...
(Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
, PC, 2010)
* '' Atari Greatest Hits'' (Nintendo DS
The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...
, iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
, 2010)
* Atari Flashback 3 (Standalone hardware unit, 2011)
* Atari Flashback 4 (Standalone hardware unit, 2012)
*'' Atari Vault'' (PC, 2016)
*Atari Flashback Classics, Vol. 2 (PS4, Xbox One, 2016 and Switch
In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...
2018)
* Atari Flashback Portable, 60 game and 70 game versions (2016, 2017)
* Atari Flashback 8 (2017)
*''Atari Collection 1'' (Evercade
The Evercade is a handheld game console developed and manufactured by UK company Blaze Entertainment. It focuses on retrogaming with ROM cartridges that each contain a number of emulated games. Development began in 2018, and the console was rel ...
, 2020)
See also
*List of Atari 2600 games
This is a list of games for the Atari Video Computer System, a console renamed to the Atari 2600 in November 1982. Sears licensed the console and many games from Atari, Inc., selling them under different names. A few cartridges were Sears exclu ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
External links
''Adventure''
at Atari Mania
at AtariAge
Warren Robinett's ''Adventure'' page
including game map and software design presentation (PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPoi ...
)
''Adventure'' manual
at the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
{{Authority control
1980 video games
Action-adventure games
Atari 2600 games
Atari 2600-only games
Atari games
Video games about dragons
Maze games
Assembly language software
Single-player video games
Video game remakes
Video games developed in the United States
Video games set in castles