''Puszka Pandory'' (English: ''Pandora's Box'') is a Polish computer text game created in 1986 by :pl:Marcin Borkowski for the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

computer. The game achieved popularity after trading on the Grzybowska Commodity Exchange (including trade from a lot of pirates, which were rampant in the country at the time due to a Communist approach to copyright). The first version of the game was written in

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

, and was wiped after the tape was accidentally placed into a tape recorder. Borkowski lost enthusiasm for the game and didn't have a second attempt. He returned to the project in 1986 when house sitting for a friend. The text compression on the ZX Spectrum computer (due to the fact that it only had 48 kilobytes of memory) imposed many restrictions on programmers, and the game was created as a challenge to see if these restrictions could be bypassed. According to the book ''Polish Bytes'', the game is the first one written by a Pole, attempted to be sold in Poland, and whose description appeared in the Polish press. Bajtek's review of the game is notable for being the first extensive description of a Polish video game in the media. However, Borkowski actually wrote the review himself, under the anagram pseudonym "Karol B. Mirowski".

Legacy

On the game's 25th anniversary, 100 limited edition copies were released at the Poznań Game Arena, with each copy signed by Marcin Borkowski. The games worked on the ZX Spectrum.

References

{{Video game stub 1980s interactive fiction 1986 video games Adventure games Video games developed in Poland ZX Spectrum games ZX Spectrum-only games