Game 512: Futurewar (1977)

 

Most of my screenshots use a white font because I prefer it, but I thought the title screen should have the era-accurate orange glow.

      

Futurewar

United States

Independently developed

Released 1977 for the PLATO mainframe at the University of Illinois

Updated several times between 1977 and 1980; recreated for Cyber1 in 2017

Date Started: 26 April 2024

           

The impossible nature of my project to play every CRPG is perhaps best encapsulated not in the fact that we can't seem to ever finish all the CRPGs of the 1980s (new ones get added to online databases all the time) but rather that we can't even seem to exhaust all the CRPGs for the first CRPG platform. (For a history of games written for the PLATO mainframe, see this entry.) But while I may groan every time I have to fire up the TRS-80 or VIC-20 emulators for some obscure 1980s commercial title, the PLATO games rarely disappoint.

   

Futurewar, in particular, needs to be better remembered. Developed without reference to prior CRPGs, it manages to anticipate elements of Dungeon Master, Fallout, and the entire first-person shooter genre. I missed it on my first pass through the 1970s because it wasn't available on Cyber1 yet; only in 2017 did the original authors recreate it with printouts of the code and graphics. It is not only the first known science fiction CRPG, it may be the first 3D CRPG. Although Moria (1975) precedes it, Moria did not get its 3D perspective until later in the 1970s. Oubliette (1977), which also had a 3D view, and Futurewar were roughly contemporaries, and it's not clear 50 years later which was first available to students.

                   

Futurewar has you battling mutants and robots in 2020.

      

The framing story starts the game in 1978. You, a member of an "elite S.W.A.T. team," have breached the castle of the evil Doctor Brain. Brain intends to take over the world by transporting mutants from an apocalyptic future. He escapes in his time machine, and you follow him--to the unimaginably distant year of 2020. Admittedly, there were aspects of that year that felt post-apocalyptic.

   

A nuclear holocaust has destroyed the world, sending the remnants of humanity underground, fighting a constant battle with other factions and various mutants. The factions are the Americans ("a mixture of rednecks, bikers, and convicts"), Guerillas (former soldiers and police), Barbarians (feral humans), Martians (colonists returned to Earth), and Cyborgs (enhanced with technology). As the game begins, you pick a faction and roll your character. Attributes are strength, quickness, endurance, technology, and intellect, with derived attributes of power and hits. Assuming you get the minimum values necessary, you can choose from professions of leader, techno, soldier, hunter, spy, medic, assassin, or holy man.

       

Character creation. Note the "rating" tells you how good the aggregate statistics are for your chosen faction.

       

The game takes place in a 20-level dungeon of 20 x 20 levels. The top 5 levels supposedly belong to the factions, although you can find plenty of enemies there. You always start the game at coordinates (2,1) or (1,2) (counting from the northwest). On each dungeon level, coordinates (1,1) are an "exit" where you can recharge your hit points and power, get cash converted to experience points, and leave the game.

      

My map of the Guerilla Zone.

     

The character starts with no equipment except an unnamed rifle with as many shots as you have "power." It disappears the moment that you find any other weapon. As you can see from the shots, the barrel hovers at the bottom of the character's 3D field of vision, much like a modern first-person shooter. When you fire, you even see a little bullet travel to the enemy and either hit or miss. If you have an automatic weapon, it's a burst of bullets.

   

Combat still only occurs when you enter an enemy's fixed square, and on the faction levels, those squares are always marked from a couple of squares away. Combat itself is not turn-based, but it is timed, with characters having a limited number of seconds to aim, shoot, switch equipment, use an item, or run in between enemy attacks. You'll notice "aim" in there. The gun barrel can be moved to the right or left to get a more direct shot against foes, who also continually move. These mechanics are the basis for the game's "first first-person shooter" status, although I wouldn't go quite that far.

   

Enemies are drawn liberally from popular culture and monster tropes. In the civilized zones, I got tentacles, daleeks, PUDs, and pudbots. The War Zone level (the first level below the faction zones) brought giant grubs, x-men, aquamen, R2-D2s, and cylons, some of which had to have been added after the first release.

      

My submachine gun barrel is too far to the left of center to hit this dalek.

     

Players can join into teams, although a single character's life isn't as short here as it is in Moria or Oubliette. The hunter is described as a "jack of all trades" and has the lowest attribute requirements, so I've mostly been focusing on him. I frankly haven't seen many places where technological or intellectual skills come in handy, let alone the "diplomatic and social skills" that the backstory promises will be relevant. Both combat victories and treasure contribute to your experience pool. Leveling is swift and rewarding, accompanied by increases in maximum power, maximum health, and attributes. Attributes also go up as they're exercised during combat.

    

As I fight this enemy, oddly called a "cookie," my strength increases by 1 point.

      

In addition to enemies, levels also have random loot, mines, pits (taking you to the next level), areas of sewage and radiation that cause damage when you walk through, and rubble that you cannot pass at all. Each faction level has a "base," but they're all "closed" in the current edition. I'm not sure what's supposed to happen there; perhaps they offer some place to spend all the money you accumulate.

      

You only do this once.

      

Some other notes:

   

• Every door is depicted visually with a board over the door, and it must be kicked open, which sometimes takes a few attempts. It's possible to create a character so weak that he cannot break down any doors and thus cannot progress in the game. This is particularly true of the Martian area, which requires you to break down a door to even get out of the starting hallway, and yet Martians routinely roll strength in the single digits.
  

• There are secret doors found by just kicking through blank walls.

• Levels can wrap, although most do not. When they do, their coordinates become offset by 1; that is, a character on Row 7 walks east from Column 20 and finds herself on Row 8 in Column 1.

• There is sometimes creative graffiti spraypainted on random walls.

       

Are there any other kinds?

      

• Miscellaneous items that you can find include metal detectors and flashlights. I'm not really sure what they do or how to use them. There are a few commands I have not yet explored.

• Every time you enter a new square, there's a chance you'll find a first aid kit (restores health) or a battery (restores power).

       

I can survive a little longer before heading to the exit.

       

• Only technos and holy men can use some forms of technology, which are basically this game's version of spells. They include "Sleeping Gas," "Flame Bomb," and "Death Ray." The minimum attribute requirements for either class are so high that I think only Martians have a chance to qualify. I played a Martian techno for a little while but I didn't find any of the supposed technology that he could use. I did find that the Martian level is a lot harder than the other ones that I'd tried.

• You can get a full set of enemy stats during combat, which is a nice feature.

       

"Securitron!" The game really does anticipate Fallout.

      

• The instructions suggest there are clubs that can be used as melee weapons (without requiring power) with the "f" key. I've never found one, and for me the key otherwise does nothing.

• I guess you can fight players in other factions. No one else has been around during my sessions.

It took me a long time to keep a character alive for more than a few minutes. You have to stay near the exit and refresh every time you get below 50% or so. Power often runs out faster than health. You're well into your teens before it becomes advisable to leave the starting level by taking the elevator down to the War Zone.

     

My best character so far.

      

This act is particularly risky because the elevator deposits you at (1,1) and you have no idea, until you map it, how to find the elevator back to previous levels. For the most part, I found enemies in the War Zone to be the same difficulty level as those found on the faction levels except for one--something called a man-beast. He's 20 times as hard as any other creature. Most enemies on the early levels have 1-10 hit points; he has close to 50 and he damages you for almost as much. I had a character up to Level 15, with a submachine gun and a ballistic vest, and he died when he was unable to successfully escape from a man-beast. Losing him was a real gut punch.

    

Sob.

      

The theoretical way to "win" the game is to defeat Doctor Brain on the lowest levels of the dungeon. When Nathan Mahney at CRPG Adventures attempted this in 2020, he only managed to map a couple of levels before the game glitched and wouldn't let him go down any more. He dropped a note in the lab files to the game's author, Erik Witz, who later fixed the problem, but by then Nathan had moved on to other games. Lacking such an excuse, I'll try to finish it, but there are a number of other bugs in the game, and I can't guarantee that winning is even possible.

 

Note that El Explorador de RPG also covered the game fairly recently. 

   

I was briefly #4 in the hall of fame.

         

Author Erik Witz's father was a professor at the University of Illinois and got Witz interested in PLATO programming as early as age 11. Later, Witz attended the University High School, which was on the PLATO system. He began Futurewar when he was 15, later collaborating with university student Nick Boland. I was able to get in touch with him just a few hours before I scheduled this entry for publication. I included some of what he told me here, but I saved a bit more for the next entry.

          

This isn't one of my "official two" games, so it will be in the background until I have something new to report. 

   

Time so far: 5 hours