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Precursor to Doom Racks Up 30 years of Fragging

Posted by michael on from the eye-of-the-beholder dept.

VirtualUK writes "Back in 1974 the first 3D networked multiplayer first person shooter game Maze War set the ball rolling for todays games like Quake and Doom. Initially written on a Imlac PDS-1 players represented as an eyeball fought it out inside what could be considered a minimalistic graphical adventure in comparison to the texture mapped, hi-res extravaganzas on the shelves today. On November 6-7 at the Vintage Computer Festival 7.0 held at the Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) there's a special 30th anniversary special event for Maze War. Brude Damer's digibarn site has a great article about it here."

12 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Anyone remember Dungeons of Daggorath? by synaptik · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anyone remember Dungeons of Daggorath? It's not as old as this game, but it looked very much like it. The most fun I ever had on a TRS-80 Color Computer!

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    1. Re:Anyone remember Dungeons of Daggorath? by Guncrazy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I wasn't lucky enough to have the TRS-80 Color Computer. My first PC was the TRS-80 Model III.

      I played my first 3-D game on it. It was called "Asylum", and was really more like an Infocom game, in that you had to type in commands to perform actions. Still, you moved around in a low-res monochrome environment, finding keys, solving puzzles, avoiding guards, etc.

    2. Re:Anyone remember Dungeons of Daggorath? by jonabbey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Asylum was incredible. I played it on a 16k cassette Model I, and was amazed at the complexity the game had in it for its small size. Absolutely huge maps, full sentence parser, suspense, mystery.. best game ever on the Model I.

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      Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
  2. Duke University by JabberWokky · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I remember playing this for hours in the Mac labs at Duke University around 1987-1988. Mazewars was a great game. That and the 2D action NetTrek.

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    1. Re:Duke University by pHatidic · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If these games were so great why aren't they still played today? Nethack is almost this old and is still played by thousands of people daily.

  3. Ultima Underworld by 3770 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I fail to understand is why Ultima Underworld never is mentioned in this context.

    That was the first 3d game I played and it was awesome. You'd run around in a dungeoun system and hack and slash monsters a la single player RPG. The dungeon was not limited to a "flat 2d floor" you could run arund and end up running under a bridge that you had just run over.

    I can't remember if it came before or after Doom. But it must have been at about the same time.

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  4. Richard Garriott by pHatidic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Richard Garriott, the creator of the Ultima series of CRPGS, has cited this game as an inspiration of his first commercial game Akalabeth in an interview on the Ultima Collection CD. He says this game was the current 3D state of the art at that time.

  5. FPS, circa 1987: MIDI Maze by dstone · · Score: 4, Interesting

    FPS on Atari STs, networked with MIDI cables in a ring configuration. Now that's a nice little hack.

    Maybe today's equivalent would be an FPS on cell phones with Bluetooth or IRDA. No, too obvious.

  6. PLATO: Moria, circa 1975 by RealProgrammer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I spent many nights in junior high "hacking" in the PLATO labs at the University of Illinois (UIUC). One of the grad students there at the time, the unspoken Hacker King, was one Rob Kolstad. We wrote (ok, so the other guys wrote and I pretended to write) software for student instruction, and were rewarded with computer time.

    Anyway, back on topic: we used that time mostly to play a game called "moria" ("MOR-ee-uh" or "mor-EYE-uh"). It was a multiplayer, 3D action game drawn in bitmap graphics and text. Wireframe walls and corridors. You formed teams, managed your resources, fought battles to gain experience, and the rest.

    Ah, nostalgia.

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  7. Faceball 2000 by rayde · · Score: 3, Interesting

    don't forget the semi-sequel, Faceball 2000. it's a 4 player 3D fps for Gameboy!

  8. Wolfenstein by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For me it is THE precursor of Doom (even III). Back in the 90's, was a true revolution what that game started. Of course, Maze Wars is even older, but Wolfenstein had all the components in the right place, not just a 3D view.

  9. SuperMazaWar (PPC) by DJCF · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Never played MazaWar but I used to have hours of fun on the succesor - supermazewar. Like Mazewar, only with colour and sound. Anyone else here play it much?