Adventure (1980 video game)

Lore & Background

Adventure was conceived as a graphical version of the 1977 text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure. He used a Hewlett-Packard 1611A logic analyzer to develop the game around May to June 1978. The final game used nearly all available memory, with only 15 unused bytes. Robinett credited Ken Thompson with teaching him about programming in general. Due to conflicts with Atari's management, which denied public credit for programmers, Robinett programmed a secret room within the game that contained his name. This room was only found by players after the game shipped and Robinett had left Atari. While not the first Easter egg, Robinett's secret room pioneered this idea within video games and other media. The game's prototype code was not used as the basis for the 1979 Superman game (that game was developed by John Dunn), and a planned sequel eventually formed the basis for the Swordquest games.

Reader's Guide

Adventure is significant as one of the first action-adventure and fantasy games for home consoles, inspiring many later games in the genre. The game introduced concepts novel to video games at the time, including thirty different rooms, off-screen object movement, and a continue-game option through resurrection of the avatar. Its Easter egg became a part of popular culture, referenced in the climax of Ernest Cline's 2011 novel Ready Player One and its 2018 film adaptation. Adventure received positive reviews at release and has been included in numerous Atari game collections for modern computer hardware. The game's legacy includes influencing game design with its open-ended exploration, item carrying, and enemy behaviors such as the bat that randomly steals and moves items.

Did You Know?

• The game's dragons were originally intended to look like dragons but due to low-resolution pixels, they look more like ducks.
• The bat was to be named 'Knubberrub' but the name is not in the manual.
• The game's Easter egg used a negligible amount of cartridge storage, far less than 5%.
• A planned sequel to Adventure eventually formed the basis for the Swordquest games.