Tommy Heath

My first computer game experience, on my buddy's computer (Apple 2c, was it?), had a profound effect on me. The minimal UI actually helped the development of my brain, IMHO, because I had to visualize this imaginary world and all its layers. The different "Floors' of the castle were like layers in the brain to me. I especially liked the cloaked rooms - that had no feedback at all - and were very confusing, until I realized that in these rooms, the world became non-linear, so one couldn't rely on a step-by-step logic anymore. I remember the graph paper I used to use to try to map these spaces. Actually, I had a similar experience, with the kid's game "The Oregon Trail, which is equally important, I feel, in the development of early minimal-graphic fantasy games. I played it with my kids on their Commodore computer, and on Apple 2's at elementary schools, where I was a teaching assistant. I guess both of these games were actually 2nd generation. They were preceded by text-only fantasy games like Zork, that were played on main-frames way back in the 70's and even in the late 60's. I don't play any of these games anymore, but I'll always have fond memories of Wizardry, 1st generation.