Adventure (1978) (VG)

Genre:

Adventure | Animation

Plot Keywords:

Video Game | Chalice | Castle | Bridge | Dragon

Country:

USA

Color:

Color

Company:

Atari

Trivia:

Contained the first ever video game Easter Egg: if you drop the correct items in specific spots, the game gives you access to a secret room that shows the name of the programmer. In the late 70s and early 80s, Atari frowned on the programmers giving themselves individual credit for their games, so Warren Robinett snuck this feature in Adventure in order to give himself the credit he felt he deserved.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Homestarrunner.com: Everything Else, Volume 1 (2005) (V)

Timeless. In terms of fun-factor, it puts most games of today to shame.

Though Warren Robinett's ADVENTURE was not actually the first adventure game ever written (the text-only COLOSSAL CAVE for mainframe computers preceded it), it was the first one to feature color graphics and sound. And up until Sierra On-Line's release of KING'S QUEST in 1984, it was really the only one worth a damn.

With the Atari 2600's limit of only 4 kilobytes per cartridge, Robinett had succeeded in condensing an exciting and somewhat complex medieval role-playing adventure game onto a single cart. For its time, ADVENTURE was a groundbreaker. Every other game released for Atari thus far was extremely limited in scope, usually taking place on a single backdrop and requiring the player only to shoot at the moving targets (like SPACE INVADERS and COMBAT). ADVENTURE, on the other hand, allowed the player to explore multi-screened mazes, lock and unlock doors, take and use objects, and fight dragons--all with the standard joystick controller. And with three separate difficulty settings and a random placement of the game's objects and monsters each time, ADVENTURE had infinite replay value.

The game also made history by containing the first ever "Easter egg", or feature cleverly hidden within the game by its programmer, with the secret room that reveals the author's name. Once discovered in the early eighties, it inspired many other game programmers to follow suit, and soon everyone was searching for "Easter eggs" in their favorite video games. Rather than angering the suits at Atari (who contractually forbade programmers from crediting themselves individually), the company loved the idea, and soon released a line of games (the SWORDQUEST series) whose whole purpose was to search for "Easter eggs". The popularity of the "Easter egg" has since remained strong, and slipping a hidden image or message into a game, computer program, or DVD is still a common practice.

Even with the breathtakingly complex graphic-adventures of today, ADVENTURE still remains among the best of all time, despite its age and primitiveness. Today, it has a strong cult following, and has even inspired clones, remakes, and unofficial sequels (see INDENTURE). And though the graphics are blocky and the music is tinny, ADVENTURE is much more fun to play than RESIDENT EVIL or TOMB RAIDER could ever be.