The Best of Creative Computing Volume 1 (published 1976)
Hunt The Wumpus (birth of Wumpus, sample run)
start coding it. This saves MUCH confusion.) yet I felt it was a bit dull. Once
you found the Wumpus all you had to do was shoot it. To fix this, the Wumpus was
given a little life. If you shot an arrow or moved into his cave, he woke up and
chose to move to a neighboring room or to the same room (one of 4 choices). If
you and the Wumpus were in the same room after he moved, he ATE YOU UP!!
Around here I noticed that the pits and the bats didn't affect the Wumpus. To
explain this, I added some color by making him heavy and with the legendary
sucker feet. After all, evolution works in strange ways!! If you are a Wumpus
fiend,make a version of Wumpus in which he avoids pits and superbats can carry
him only one room (with the possibility of being dumped into your cave). This
can be done by making the wumpus moving procedure a subroutine.
I wrote Wumpus and dropped it off at PCC. Then I went home and dreamed up Wumpus
II which will be covered in
the next issue of Creative Computing.
***
The Birth of Wumpus
Around a month later, I went to the Synergy conference at Stanford, where many
of the far-out folk were gathered to share their visions of improving the world.
PCC had a few terminals running in a conference room and I dropped by. To my
vast surprise, all of the terminals were running Wumpus and scraps of paper on
the floor with scrawled numbers and lines testified that much dedicated
Wumpus-hunting was in progress. I had spawned a hit computer game!!!
Later, PCC published Wumpus in its newsletter (If you haven't seen it, write
them for a subscription: P.O. Box 310, Menlo Park, Cal. 94025), and Wumpus
appeared in all sorts of unlikely places. I have reports of Wumpus written in
RPG, a listing of one in FORTRAN, a rumor of a system command of 'to Wumpus' on
a large corporation's R&D computer system and have even seen an illustrated
version for the Hazeltine CRT terminal!!
WUMPUS TAPES, ETC.
I can be found at:
Gregory Yob
PO Box 354
Palo Alto, Calif. 94301
Paper tapes of Wumpus, Wumpus 2 and Wumpus 3 are available and cost $5.00 each.
May your arrows remain straight. -Gregory Yob.
***
SAMPLE RUN
INSTRUCTIONS (Y-N)?Y
WELCOME TO 'HUNT THE WUMPUS'
THE WUMPUS LIVES IN A CAVE OF 20 ROOMS: EACH ROOM HAS 3 TUNNELS LEADING TO OTHER
ROOMS. (LOOK AT A DODECAHEDRON TO SEE HOW THIS WORKS. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT A
DODECAHEDRON IS, ASK SOMEONE)
***
HAZARDS:
BOTTOMLESS PITS - TWO ROOMS HAVE BOTTOMLESS PITS IN THEM
IF YOU GO THERE: YOU FALL INTO THE PIT (& LOSE!)
SUPER BATS - TWO OTHER ROOMS HAVE SUPER BATS. IF YOU GO THERE, A BAT GRABS YOU
AND TAKES YOU TO SOME OTHER ROOM AT RANDOM. (WHICH MIGHT BE TROUBLESOME)
WUMPUS:
THE WUMPUS IS NOT BOTHERED BY THE HAZARDS (HE HAS SUCKER FEET AND IS TOO BIG FOR
A BAT TO LIFT). USUALLY HE IS ASLEEP. TWO THINGS WAKE HIM UP: YOUR ENTERING HIS
ROOM OR YOUR SHOOTING AN ARROW.
IF THE WUMPUS WAKES, HE MOVES (P=0.75) ONE ROOM OR STAYS STILL (P=0.25). AFTER
THAT, IF HE IS WHERE YOU ARE, HE EATS YOU UP (& YOU LOSE!)
YOU:
EACH TURN YOU MAY MOVE OR SHOOT A CROOKED ARROW
MOVING: YOU CAN GO ONE ROOM (THRU ONE TUNNEL)
ARROWS: YOU HAVE 5 ARROWS. YOU LOSE WHEN YOU RUN OUT.
EACH ARROW CAN GO FROM 1 TO 5 ROOMS: YOU AIM BY TELLING THE COMPUTER THE ROOMS
YOU WANT THE ARROW TO GO TO. IF THE ARROW CAN'T GO THAT WAY (IE NO TUNNEL) IT
MOVES AT RANDOM TO THE NEXT ROOM.
IF THE ARROW HITS THE WUMPUS: YOU WIN.
IF THE ARROW HITS YOU: YOU LOSE.
WARNINGS:
WHEN YOU ARE ONE ROOM AWAY FROM WUMPUS OP HAZARD, THE COMPUTER SAYS:
WUMPUS - 'I SMELL A WUMPUS'
BAT - 'BATS NEARBY'
PIT - 'I FEEL A DRAFT'
***
HUNT THE WUMPUS
BATS NEARBY!
YOU ARE IN ROOM 2
TUNNELS LEAD TO 1 3 10
<image>
SHOOT OR MOVE (S-M)? M
WHERE TO? 1
ZAP -- SUPER BAT SNATCH! ELSEWHEREVILLE FOR YOU!
YYYIIIIEFEE . . . FELL IN PIT
HA HA HA - YOU LOSE!
SAME SET UP (Y-N)?Y
HUNT THE WUMPUS
<image>
BATS SUPERBATS PUT ME IN A PIT SOMEWHERES
BATS NEARBY!
YOU ARE IN ROOM 2
TUNNELS LEAD TO 1 3 10
SHOOT OR MOVE (S-M)?M
WHERE TO?3
YOU ARE IN ROOM 3
TUNNELS LEAD TO 2 4 10
