View Full Version : Ender's Game "Fantasy Game"
8bitgamer
03-07-2009, 10:10 PM
I've been reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card this week and was struck by the description of a "fantasy game" Ender was playing on his desk top (which basically acts like a computer screen). Ender stopped playing the game for an extended period, and when he came back to it things within the game had changed considerably, somewhat like Animal Crossing or any number of modern computer games. The book was published in 1985, so the concept was clearly ahead of its time. I'd be curious to ask Mr. Card how he came up with the idea.
Curious: What was the first video or computer game that would continue (characters age, die, get hungry, etc.) when the gamer was not playing?
squirrelnut
03-07-2009, 10:51 PM
I know its not the first but there's been plenty of times nature called and i came back to find my simcity destroyed.
Phosphor Dot Fossils
03-07-2009, 11:15 PM
Wasn't it Infocom's Deadline? I never could keep the poor bastard from getting murdered no matter what I did. I was quite a defective detective.
Orson Scott Card was a freelance writer for a Commodore 64 magazine called "Ahoy!" at that time. I've never read it, but I understand he had a regular column on the subject of game programming.
8bitgamer
03-09-2009, 03:00 PM
Orson Scott Card was a freelance writer for a Commodore 64 magazine called "Ahoy!" at that time. I've never read it, but I understand he had a regular column on the subject of game programming.
That would certainly explain it. Thanks for the info!
jb143
03-09-2009, 03:04 PM
Curious: What was the first video or computer game that would continue (characters age, die, get hungry, etc.) when the gamer was not playing?
Weren't a lot of the early online multi-player RPG's like that? I remember trying one that was updated to html once and couldn't get into it because every time I came back my stuff was destroyed.