Maze War
Encyclopedia
Maze War is a video game.
Maze War originated or disseminated a number of concepts used in thousands of games to follow, and is considered one of the earliest examples of, or progenitor of, a first-person shooter
. Uncertainty exists over its exact release date, with some accounts placing it before Spasim
, the earliest first-person shooter with a known time of publication.
Although the first-person shooter genre did not crystallize for many years, Maze War had a profound impact on first-person games in other genres, particularly RPGs
. The Maze War style view was first adopted by Moria
in 1975, an early RPG on the PLATO network, and further popularized by Ultima and Wizardry
, eventually appearing in bitmapped form in games like Dungeon Master, Phantasy Star, Eye of the Beholder and countless others.
Gameplay is simple by later standards. Players wander around a maze, being capable of moving backward or forwards, turning right or left in 90-degree
increments, and peeking through doorways. The game also uses simple tile-based movement
, where the player moves from square to square. Other players are seen as eyeballs. When a player sees another player, they can shoot, or negatively affect, them. Players gain points for shooting other players, and lose them for being shot. Some versions (like the X11 port) had a cheat mode where the player running the server could see the other players' position on the map. Occasionally in some versions, a duck
also appears in the passage.
) in 1972-1973 on the Imlac PDS-1
's at the NASA
Ames Research Center in California
. He had written a program for portraying and navigating mazes from a first-person perspective. The maze was depicted in memory with a 16 by 16 bit array. Colley writes:
Colley, Thompson, and Howard were part of a summer high school
internship program at NASA.
The original Imlac networked version was limited to two players, with the Imlacs directly cabled to each other. At MIT, the game was expanded to a client-server system. The clients ran on Imlacs which had 50 kbit/s serial connections allowing them to communicate with PDP-10
computers running MIT's Incompatible Timesharing System
(ITS). A server program on the mainframe coordinated up to eight clients playing against each other.
By using terminal server
s, Imlacs at other colleges that were connected to the ARPAnet
(the predecessor to the modern Internet) could connect to the server at MIT and play against players located across the United States
.
At some point, a level editor was written so that the playing field could have different designs.
Also, a playing monitor was written. An Evans and Sutherland graphics terminal connected to the mainframe host could display a top-down map with all of the players' positions shown.
had used this approach before. The TTL version of Maze used Tektronix
oscilloscopes to display vector graphics
. This was natural, since the Imlacs also used vector displays. This version introduced a full third dimension, by having a four-level maze with players able to climb up and down between levels. The game was so popular that even though it had been built as a class project it was kept assembled and operational for over a year.
's Palo Alto Research Center
(PARC) rewrote Mazewar for the Xerox Alto
and other Xerox Star
machines. This was the first raster display
version of Mazewar. It made use of the Alto's ethernet
network, using the Xerox PUP network protocol. The Data General
servers used on the network were capable of gatewaying games to remote office locations, allowing people at several Xerox sites to play against each other, making Mazewar capable of being played in four different configurations: peer to peer with two Imlacs, client-server with Imlacs and a PDP-10, in pure hardware, and over ethernet and PUP.
Several programmers at PARC cheated by modifying the code so that they could see the positions of other players on the playfield map. This upset the authors enough that the source code was subsequently stored in an encrypted
form, the only program on the system to receive this protection. This is interesting in light of the fact that this laboratory housed many of the most important programming developments of the time, including the first Graphic User Interfaces.
In 1982, Christopher Kent (later Christopher Kantarjiev) saw Mazewar at RAND.
Kent later interned at Digital Equipment Corporation
's Western Research Lab (DEC WRL) in Palo Alto during his Ph.D. studies. Several former PARC employees worked at WRL, and one of them, Gene McDaniel, gave Kent a hardcopy of the Mesa source code listing from the Xerox version of Maze, and the bitmap file that is used for the display.
The X Window System
had been newly released as a result of collaborative efforts between DEC and MIT. Kent wrote a networked version of Mazewar which he released in December 1986. This version used UDP port 1111, and could be played by Unix workstations running X Window across the Internet. This was probably the second game which directly used TCP/IP, and the first which could be played across the Internet (1983's SGI
Dogfight used broadcast packets and thus could not transit a router).
Using Kent's code, Oracle created a version of Maze running over Oracle SQL*Net over TCP/IP, Novell SPX/IPX, DECnet, and Banyan Vines at Fall Interop 92 on a number of workstations, including Unix machines from Sun, IBM, and SGI, as well as DEC VMS workstations and MS-Windows. Attendees could play against each other at stations placed throughout the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.
A 30th anniversary retrospective was hosted by the Vintage Computer Festival
held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View CA on November 7th, 2004.
technology for NASA
, and found that his 3D perspective work on Maze Wars was useful for this project.
Maze War originated or disseminated a number of concepts used in thousands of games to follow, and is considered one of the earliest examples of, or progenitor of, a first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
. Uncertainty exists over its exact release date, with some accounts placing it before Spasim
Spasim
Spasim was a 32-player 3D networked computer game by Jim Bowery involving 4 planetary systems with up to 8 players per planetary system, released in March 1974...
, the earliest first-person shooter with a known time of publication.
Although the first-person shooter genre did not crystallize for many years, Maze War had a profound impact on first-person games in other genres, particularly RPGs
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
. The Maze War style view was first adopted by Moria
Moria (PLATO)
Moria is a dungeon crawl style computer role-playing game first developed for the PLATO system around 1975, with copyright dates listed as 1978 and 1984...
in 1975, an early RPG on the PLATO network, and further popularized by Ultima and Wizardry
Wizardry
Wizardry is a series of computer role-playing games, developed by Sir-Tech, which were highly influential in the development of modern console and computer role playing games. The original Wizardry was a significant influence to early console RPGs, such as Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. ...
, eventually appearing in bitmapped form in games like Dungeon Master, Phantasy Star, Eye of the Beholder and countless others.
Gameplay is simple by later standards. Players wander around a maze, being capable of moving backward or forwards, turning right or left in 90-degree
Right angle
In geometry and trigonometry, a right angle is an angle that bisects the angle formed by two halves of a straight line. More precisely, if a ray is placed so that its endpoint is on a line and the adjacent angles are equal, then they are right angles...
increments, and peeking through doorways. The game also uses simple tile-based movement
Tile-based video game
A tile-based video game is a type of video or computer game where the playing area consists of small rectangular, square, or hexagonal graphic images, referred to as tiles. The complete set of tiles available for use in a playing area is called a tileset...
, where the player moves from square to square. Other players are seen as eyeballs. When a player sees another player, they can shoot, or negatively affect, them. Players gain points for shooting other players, and lose them for being shot. Some versions (like the X11 port) had a cheat mode where the player running the server could see the other players' position on the map. Occasionally in some versions, a duck
Duck
Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...
also appears in the passage.
Mazewar Innovations
Features either invented for Maze War or disseminated by it include:- First-person 3D PerspectiveFirst person (video games)In video games, first person refers to a graphical perspective rendered from the viewpoint of the player character. In many cases, this may be the viewpoint from the cockpit of a vehicle. Many different genres have made use of first-person perspectives, ranging from adventure games to flight...
. Players saw the playing field as if they themselves were walking around in it, with the maze walls rendered in one point perspective. This makes the game one of the first, if not the first first-person shooterFirst-person shooterFirst-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
. It also could be considered a very early virtual realityVirtual realityVirtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
system. - AvatarsAvatar (virtual reality)In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
. Players were represented to each other as eyeballs. While some earlier games represented players as spacecraft or as dots, this was probably the first computer game to represent players as organic beings. - Player's position depicted on level map. Representation of a player's position on a playing field map. Unlike the playing field of a side-view or second-person perspective, this is only used for position reference as opposed to being the primary depiction of play. It does not normally depict opponents. The combination of a first-person view and a top-down, second-person view has been used in many games since.
- Level editor. A program was written to edit the playing field design.
- Network play. Probably the first game ever to be played between two peer-to-peerPeer-to-peerPeer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
computers, as opposed to earlier multiplayer games which were generally based on a minicomputerMinicomputerA minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
or mainframeMainframe computerMainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
with players using either terminals or specialized controls, in 1973. - Client-server networked play. An updated version may well have been the first client-serverClient-serverThe client–server model of computing is a distributed application that partitions tasks or workloads between the providers of a resource or service, called servers, and service requesters, called clients. Often clients and servers communicate over a computer network on separate hardware, but both...
game, with workstations running the client connecting to a mainframe running a server program. This version could be played across the ARPANETARPANETThe Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
, in 1977. - Observer mode. In the 1977 version, a graphics terminal could be used by observers to watch the game in progress without participating.
- Internet play. Yet another port was probably the first network-aware game which could be played across the modern Internet, in 1986.
- Online chat between players. While probably not the first game to feature this, it certainly was a very early example.
- Modifying clients in order to cheat at the game.
- Encrypting source code to prevent cheating.
1973, Imlacs at NASA
It was originally written by Steve Colley (later founder of nCUBENCUBE
nCUBE was a series of parallel computing computers from the company of the same name. Early generations of the hardware used a custom microprocessor...
) in 1972-1973 on the Imlac PDS-1
Imlac PDS-1
The Imlac PDS-1 is a graphical minicomputer made by Imlac Corporation of Needham, Massachusetts. The PDS-1 debuted in 1970 and is considered to be the predecessor of all later graphical minicomputers and modern computer workstations. The PDS-1 had a built-in display list processor and 4096 16-bit...
's at the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Ames Research Center in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He had written a program for portraying and navigating mazes from a first-person perspective. The maze was depicted in memory with a 16 by 16 bit array. Colley writes:
- Maze was popular at first but quickly became boring. Then someone (Howard or Greg) had the idea to put people in the maze. To do this would take more than one Imlac, which at that time were not networked together. So we connected two Imlacs using the serial ports to transmit locations back and forth. This worked great, and soon the idea for shooting each other came along, and the first person shooter was born.
-
- (Excerpted from Colley's reminisces for the 30th anniversary of Maze War)
-
- ( "Greg" refers to Greg Thompson and "Howard" is Howard Palmer)
Colley, Thompson, and Howard were part of a summer high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
internship program at NASA.
1974, Imlacs at MIT
In 1974, Greg Thompson brought the game with him when he went away to college at MIT.The original Imlac networked version was limited to two players, with the Imlacs directly cabled to each other. At MIT, the game was expanded to a client-server system. The clients ran on Imlacs which had 50 kbit/s serial connections allowing them to communicate with PDP-10
PDP-10
The PDP-10 was a mainframe computer family manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation from the late 1960s on; the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". The first model was delivered in 1966...
computers running MIT's Incompatible Timesharing System
Incompatible Timesharing System
ITS, the Incompatible Timesharing System , was an early, revolutionary, and influential time-sharing operating system from MIT; it was developed principally by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, with some help from Project MAC.In addition to being technically influential ITS, the...
(ITS). A server program on the mainframe coordinated up to eight clients playing against each other.
By using terminal server
Terminal server
A terminal server enables organizations to connect devices with an RS-232, RS-422 or RS-485 serial interface to a local area network . Products marketed as terminal servers can be very simple devices that do not offer any security functionality, such as data encryption and user authentication...
s, Imlacs at other colleges that were connected to the ARPAnet
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
(the predecessor to the modern Internet) could connect to the server at MIT and play against players located across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
At some point, a level editor was written so that the playing field could have different designs.
Also, a playing monitor was written. An Evans and Sutherland graphics terminal connected to the mainframe host could display a top-down map with all of the players' positions shown.
1977, TTL at MIT
For a class in 1977, Thompson and others built a version of Maze entirely from TTL hardware, essentially creating a computer dedicated solely to playing Maze. Arcade games such as PongPong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
had used this approach before. The TTL version of Maze used Tektronix
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation....
oscilloscopes to display vector graphics
Vector graphics
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...
. This was natural, since the Imlacs also used vector displays. This version introduced a full third dimension, by having a four-level maze with players able to climb up and down between levels. The game was so popular that even though it had been built as a class project it was kept assembled and operational for over a year.
1977, Xerox
In 1977, a staff member at XeroxXerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
's Palo Alto Research Center
Xerox PARC
PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....
(PARC) rewrote Mazewar for the Xerox Alto
Xerox Alto
The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...
and other Xerox Star
Xerox Star
The Star workstation, officially known as the Xerox 8010 Information System, was introduced by Xerox Corporation in 1981. It was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based...
machines. This was the first raster display
Raster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
version of Mazewar. It made use of the Alto's ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
network, using the Xerox PUP network protocol. The Data General
Data General
Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
servers used on the network were capable of gatewaying games to remote office locations, allowing people at several Xerox sites to play against each other, making Mazewar capable of being played in four different configurations: peer to peer with two Imlacs, client-server with Imlacs and a PDP-10, in pure hardware, and over ethernet and PUP.
Several programmers at PARC cheated by modifying the code so that they could see the positions of other players on the playfield map. This upset the authors enough that the source code was subsequently stored in an encrypted
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
form, the only program on the system to receive this protection. This is interesting in light of the fact that this laboratory housed many of the most important programming developments of the time, including the first Graphic User Interfaces.
1986, Digital Equipment Corporation
In 1982, Christopher Kent (later Christopher Kantarjiev) saw Mazewar at RAND.
Kent later interned at Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
's Western Research Lab (DEC WRL) in Palo Alto during his Ph.D. studies. Several former PARC employees worked at WRL, and one of them, Gene McDaniel, gave Kent a hardcopy of the Mesa source code listing from the Xerox version of Maze, and the bitmap file that is used for the display.
The X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
had been newly released as a result of collaborative efforts between DEC and MIT. Kent wrote a networked version of Mazewar which he released in December 1986. This version used UDP port 1111, and could be played by Unix workstations running X Window across the Internet. This was probably the second game which directly used TCP/IP, and the first which could be played across the Internet (1983's SGI
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
Dogfight used broadcast packets and thus could not transit a router).
1992, Oracle SQL*Net
Using Kent's code, Oracle created a version of Maze running over Oracle SQL*Net over TCP/IP, Novell SPX/IPX, DECnet, and Banyan Vines at Fall Interop 92 on a number of workstations, including Unix machines from Sun, IBM, and SGI, as well as DEC VMS workstations and MS-Windows. Attendees could play against each other at stations placed throughout the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.
Other versions
- 1982, Snipes by SuperSet Software. This used semaphores in a shared file which resided on a network drive. It was written as a demonstration program for SuperSet's Local Area NetworkLocal area networkA local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...
system, which became Novell NetwareNovell NetWareNetWare is a network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, with network protocols based on the archetypal Xerox Network Systems stack....
. - 1987, MacroMindMacroMindMacroMind was an Apple Macintosh software company founded in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Canter, Jay Fenton and Mark Stephen Pierce. The company's first product was SoundVision, a combined music and graphics editor. Before the release, the graphics editor was removed, and SoundVision became MusicWorks...
MazeWars+ for the Apple Macintosh. Fully 3D (multiple vertical game levels) and could be played over AppletalkAppleTalkAppleTalk is a proprietary suite of protocols developed by Apple Inc. for networking computers. It was included in the original Macintosh released in 1984, but is now unsupported as of the release of Mac OS X v10.6 in 2009 in favor of TCP/IP networking...
networks. It was distributed by Apple with new Macintoshes for some period of time. - 1987, MIDI MazeMIDI MazeMIDI Maze is an early first person shooter maze video game for the Atari ST developed by Xanth Software F/X, published by Hybrid Arts, and released around 1987. It owes a significant debt to what may be the first of its genre, Maze War...
, a Maze War-inspired game for the Atari STAtari STThe Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
home computers, which used the MIDI interface for network connection - a version has been written for NeXTNeXTNext, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
computers - a version has been written for Palm OSPalm OSPalm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...
- a version has been written for iPhoneIPhoneThe iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
and iPod TouchIPod TouchThe iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
Retrospective
A 30th anniversary retrospective was hosted by the Vintage Computer Festival
Vintage Computer Festival
The Vintage Computer Festival is an international event celebrating the history of computing. It is held annually in various locations around the United States and various countries internationally...
held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View CA on November 7th, 2004.
Maze alumni
Steve Colley subsequently worked on very early versions of Mars roverMars Rover
A Mars rover is an automated motor vehicle which propels itself across the surface of the planet Mars after landing.Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers: they examine more territory, they can be directed to interesting features, they can place themselves in sunny positions to...
technology for NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
, and found that his 3D perspective work on Maze Wars was useful for this project.
External links
- The DigiBarn Computer MuseumDigiBarn Computer MuseumThe DigiBarn Computer Museum, or simply DigiBarn, is a computer history museum in Boulder Creek, California, United States. The museum is housed in a 90-year-old barn constructed from old-growth Redwood in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which is adjacent to Silicon Valley...
's Maze War 30 Year Retrospective: "The First First-person Shooter" (Contains additional text and images that include screenshots) - Image of Maze War on a Xerox Alto
- Ad and press release for MacroMindMacroMindMacroMind was an Apple Macintosh software company founded in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Canter, Jay Fenton and Mark Stephen Pierce. The company's first product was SoundVision, a combined music and graphics editor. Before the release, the graphics editor was removed, and SoundVision became MusicWorks...
MazeWars+
