#Dopewars clone tutorial how to
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Unlike Cube, these games match the general pattern of Minesweeper more closely: make a random guess to start, then start using the information provided by that first guess to uncover the hidden items. Bud Valenti's Mugwump has multiple hidden targets, and after each guess, you get the approximate distance to each of them. Dana Noftle's Depth Charge is the same, but in three dimensions. After each guess, you're told in what general direction the Hurkle lies. For example, in Bob Albrecht's Hurkle, you have to find a creature hiding on a ten-by-ten grid. However, there are a number of very early 'hide and seek' games about locating hidden spots on a grid. You walk over a landmine and you die you can't avoid the landmines or know where they are before you take a chance. In Cube, the mines are placed randomly and the only way to discover where they ends the game. But although Cube features 'landmines,' it's hard to consider this a predecessor of Minesweeper.

Wikipedia cites the earliest ancestor of Minesweeper as David Ahl's Cube. Minesweeper has its origins in the earliest mainframe games of the '60s and '70s. Look closely, and you'll find that those old game programs are the primitive origins of most programmers, the reptile brain stem we all collectively carry around in our heads.Įven a humble, simple little pack-in game like Minesweeper has deep roots going back to the days of punch cards:

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We learned how to program by typing in those simple games from magazines and books. The personal computer industry grew up with us. That's why it's so fascinating to retrace the earliest computer games. At the time I was a bit disappointed (OK, crushed) but now. He said if I wanted to play games then I could write one myself.

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I've been developing software for 25 years, since I was 8, starting with a book called 'Your First BASIC Program' that my dad bought me because we had a PC while all my friends were playing StarBlazers on their Apple IIs.

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He sat there for hours typing in the code for Space Invaders, and we played it maybe 30 minutes before turning the machine off and undoing all his work. One of my few memories of early childhood is of him coming home with a Sinclair 2000 and a book of games. I was born in 1976, the same year as Apple, so my dad was just the right age to get into the early results of the home-brew movement. That's not exactly what I had in mind at the time, of course, but that fateful decision launched a career that spans thirty years.Įvidently, I'm not alone.

Instead of the shiny new Atari 2600 game console I wanted, I got a Texas Instruments TI-99/4a computer instead. For many programmers, our introduction to programming was our dad forcing us to write our own games.