Storing 30 or more images on disk as simple grids of pixels would consume far more space than Ken had available on a single disk. In doing so, he actually solved his second challenge almost accidentally.
MYSTERY HOUSE GAME SOFTWARE
Like a good hacker, he promptly set to work writing his own software to operate it. Now he needed to find a way to make it work. Still uncertain about this whole enterprise and desiring to do it on the cheap, Ken went with the VersaWriter. Apple's tablet, however, cost $650, while the VersaWriter could be had for less than $200. Apple itself had actually released a drawing tablet much more suitable for illustrations the previous year. into the Apple II its packaged software did not deal very well with the irregular lines and patterns typical of full-blown pictures. The device was marketed as a tool for getting diagrams - flowcharts, circuit diagrams, floor plans, etc. The user was rather expected to insert a sketch under the transparent surface of the drawing area, and then to trace it using the stylus. The VersaWriter was far too persnickety to allow for free-hand drawing. Ken and Roberta therefore ended up purchasing an ungainly contraption called a VersaWriter. This latter problem arose because Ken and Roberta were determined to provide pictures for every single location in the game, amounting to some 30 illustrations in all.Ĭreating pictures on the Apple II was a dicey proposition in early 1980, due not only to a dearth of usable paint programs but also to the lack of a suitable input device to use with them mice were still years away, while drawing with a joystick, trackball, or keyboard was an inevitably sloppy, frustrating process.
MYSTERY HOUSE GAME HOW TO
Still, pulling it off would require them to overcome two other challenges: how to get the pictures into the Apple II in the first place, and how to store them in such a way that they didn't consume too much space on disk. Roberta would be the first to admit that she was no artist, but she was up to creating some sketches that would suit the purpose in a world with no graphic adventures at all, people after all wouldn't be too inclined to criticize the aesthetics of the first one to appear.
When we left Ken and Roberta, they had just made the momentous decision to use the Apple II's bitmap graphics capabilities to create an adventure game that featured pictures in addition to text. The making of Mystery House, written by Jimmie Maher at The Digital Antiquarian)
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