#0013 Eamon

Alright! Time for another installment of “1001 Games to Play Before You Die” where I play my way though video game history one game at a time. Today I played Eamon, a 1980 Text based RPG developed by Donald Brown for the Apple II. It is one of the earliest Computer RPGs (though not the first by far, that honor goes to Dungeon, which isn't on the list). And one of the first games that was made famous not by it's game play, but by it's community.

In 1980, Mr. Brown created the game not with the intent on selling it, not to make a profit, but with the intent on creating an open source game that anyone could play, and create games for. And he succeeded! The Eamon community grew quickly and wrote nearly 250 different adventures spanning nearly every genre. While not every one was a jem, the fact that these fans, all came together, writing newsletters, and reviews long before the days of internet is simply astounding. We take for granted these days just how easy it is to create a fan base. I couple of clicks and you can have a dedicated facebook page for nearly any fandom you want.

The game it's self is fairly simple, you start out in the “Main Hall” naming yourself one of several humorous names including Floyd the Barber, Tom Zucchini, Bill of Accounting or my favorite, Zeus Hightower Flabbergibungander. Yeah, as you can tell, the humor is fairy meta and quirky, and honestly reminded a lot of EarthBound's humor. From the main hall you can go on an adventure, buy weapons, buy spells deposit/withdraw money etc. Once you choose one of dozens of adventures that come with the stock Eamon Deluxe, you can then explore the world that is described to you by entering commands for example, if it indicates that there is a wand in front of you, you can say “get wand” and your character will obtain the wand. All commands are done this way and it's surprisingly intuitive, the only hiccup I had was trying to communicate with NPCs, which apparently is not allowed, the closest thing you can do is “smile” at them, and see how they react. And while I can imagine getting lost in some of the more complex maps, the one I played was fairly straight forward, and honestly, very nicely written. Considering there's no graphics, all imagery must be described to you, and the adventure I played wrote a very detailed account of just where I was and what was going on, it's not often video games these days make you use your imagination, but when this game forced me to, I was surprised at how immersive it could be after a while. After a little bit, I no longer saw simple text on a screen, but a sprawling dungeon with a gorilla that's trying to kill me. And like I said earlier, the humor is actually pretty funny, I found myself chuckling a little while I played through most of games.

Overall, the game was a lot of fun! This is the first game on the list that I actually played for more than an hour and did not feel like I experienced everything in the game. And the best part is, it's still free! You can still download the game completely free and start playing and even creating your own games here! I highly suggest anyone who has a couple hours to spare download this game and give it a shot, you might be surprised at just how much fun you can have with words on a screen.

Next up! Missile Command.

One more thing, for those who don't know or haven't figured it out yet, I'm using the book “1001 Games You Must Play Before You Die” and using it as a literal challenge, I'm playing every game in this book in chronological order. From 1971's Oregon Trail to 2013's Bioshock Infinite. So far I've completed 13 games. I have a few more to go before I reach the end, but as I was searching the internet, I realized something. A lot of people have tried this before, and by a lot I mean like maybe a dozen, max. Do you know how far these bloggers and youtubers have gotten?The furthest I've seen so far is Lunar Lander, and none are still updating. Which means that as far as I know, I'm the only person to have ever gotten this far! So yeah, you guys are lucky enough to be witnessing video game and internet history here! Aren’t you guys lucky!