would anyone of you have an idea how to find out what the first C64 adventure was? I assume one should probably split that question into three groups: Commercial games, type-in games and (impossible to trace) homebrew games.
I find it very hard to find information on this topic. There’s plenty databases for C64 games (MobyGames, Lemon64, GameBase64, you name it) but they’re super sloppy about the release dates - often games were released for e.g. the TRS-80 a few years earlier and then ported to the C64 (which was available in August or September 1982), but the databases just list the TRS-80 date, for example leading to GameBase64.com listing C64 games from 1975. Also, exact dates from back then are generally hard to tell - as an Infocom Imp once said in an interview (recalled from memory, actual phrasing surely differs) “You shipped the master copy to the pressing plant, and an undefined time later the games popped up in the stores”.
Despite these problems I’d really love to know what the first (commercial/type-in) C64 text adventure was. It preys on my mind. Does anyone have a clue, or an idea?
A reason of the confusion is that many early 64 text adventure (in interpreted Basic v2) was direct ports of PET or VIC text adventures, so is an hard question to answer in the commercial field; for the type-ins, for obvious reasons we can have the release date exact to the month, all is needed is a patient sifting here:
True that. Some Basic games for Vic-20 were loaded into a C64 by an amateur, maybe fixing a few things that needed to be altered to make it run, but then they were done and started distributing it. Some hadn’t been fully reformatted to the different screen width of the C64, some would poke values to set the background colour, but on the C64 they would just be poking some address in the middle of Basic RAM, etc. Not sure if these should be counted as the first adventure games for the C64, but in a way they probably were.
Theoretically they should (“homebrew” segment), but those could never be stamped with a “release” date. Maybe with a “released before” date, if a reliable contemporary source mentions having played it.
Agree with Grueslayer: 8 bit machine’s filesystems generally lack timestamping and 16-bit machines’s filestamping are easily alterable (and the files alterable without touching the timestamp, a serious problem in dealing with virus-type malware)
of course, Infocom came quickly with a viable solution, so for the majority of their story files, the compilation date is literally set in (binary) stone.
(btw, in TADS, at least a3Lite, is “simple” to get an inform-style timestamp:
// infocom-style serial number :)
serialNum = static releaseDate.findReplace('-', '', ReplaceAll, 1)
ok, simple but not obvious, I admit…)
now, the issues with another dating tool: the reviews. Often during the 8-bit era, the advance copies sent to press was often sent with too much advance, and the issue (publishing sense) where the review (in reality, more preview than review…) was published is historiographically not to be 100% trusted, albeit can narrow the release timeframe.
I’d research this through the TPUG archives. All things considered they’re the bunch most likely to do early “this worked on PET/VIC-20 and so we’ll just snip this and adjust that and voila, now we have C64 text adventure!” work.
The first BASIC adventures were ported across to the PET and would’ve been early adventures on the C64. So all the usual suspects like Dog Star Adventure and other vintage late 1970s type-ins are likely to be the first titles many played on C64.
So “the first” C64 adventure cannot be determined? What would be sourced candidates? Like, which magazine states on its e.g. october 1982 issue that adventure X is available? Like, Lemon64.com lists 19 titles for 1982, but there’s no details such as the month, and Lemon64 is generally unreliable since its focus ain’t history. Is there any source that deals with the history of adventures on the C64?
Isn’t easy to say what was the proper first (that is, developed for the 64) C64 adventure, many early adventures was port of PET, and even VIC, adventures.
GB64’s advanced search can give some insight, but AFAIK, there’s no PET or VIC equivalent (that is, a GBPET or GBVIC) for doing a solid pruning of the ports.
A Google search tells me that the Commodore 64 was released in August 1982, so a search of magazines around that time should reveal something. Just keep in mind that:
Magazines generally have a two-month lead time and the cover date is normally later than the publication date. For example a magazine with a cover date of August 1982 may have been released to newsagents in mid to late July 1982.
Magazines quite often announce or preview software before it has actually been released. This information is based on press releases and/or pre-release copies of the software issued to the magazine for review purposes.
Advertisements in magazines usually start to advertise software before it has been released to the general public.
Software catalogues are another good source, but only the bigger companies produced these on a regular basis.
I think advertisements from retailers would be a fairly reliable indicator, as they’re only going to advertise stuff that they have in stock.
I searched CASA for C64 adventures released from 1974 to 1982. This showed dozens of games released prior to 1982 because their simple database only lists the earliest release date for all of the platforms that the game was released on. If a game was released on (say) the TRS-80 in 1978, then released for the C64 in 1982, the release date is the TRS-80 release date, not the C64 release date.
MobyGames does list the release dates for each platform. A search there revealed 15 C64 adventures released in 1982. These may be potential candidates. Notably, a couple of these were merely ported from the PET and one is a port from a type-in, so that doesn’t really count. MobyGames also has scans of advertisements and links to reviews, where recorded, but all the reviews were much later than 1982.