An adventure in Rocky’s Boots

April 22nd, 2019 1:04 PM
by 		Filed under Game trail, History;
2 comments.

My reputation as any workplace’s resident (and only) Apple II expert began at my first salaried job as a high-school teacher. I’d often annoy the computer-science teacher, Ms. Lang, by extolling the virtues of BASIC as a programming language (she preferred Scheme); and when I had to substitute for her for a day, I taught her students how to use VisiCalc, as detailed in a Juiced.GS article.

One day, that same teacher came to me for help. She’d recently come back from a conference with a copy of an old Apple II program used to teach programming logic using circuits and gates — could I boot it in my emulator so she could assess its usefulness to her class? I’d never heard the game, but as soon as it started, I gasped. "This is the work of Warren Robinett!"

In Rocky’s Boots, players control a simple square as it navigates single-screen rooms, picking up items by colliding with them and transporting them through exits. Sword-like arrows guide the player from room to room.

It was the exact same design and interface as a game I’d grown up with: Adventure on the Atari 2600. Using a joystick and a single button, I’d guided that square on expeditions to distant castles, raiding their treasure while dodging and defeating terrifying, duck-like dragons, all while hoping not to be abducted by a random bat. Adventure’s place was cemented not just in my memory but also in history for featuring the first-ever Easter egg: a hidden room with the developer’s name, Warren Robinett.

Warren Robinett's name in Adventure's hidden room

Warren Robinett’s name in Adventure’s hidden room.

It was thanks to that Easter egg that I knew who must be responsible for Rocky’s Boots. It’s rare for a developer to have such an identifiable style, but when I saw Rocky’s Boots, I knew it had to be, if not the same developer, then at least the same engine. I’d never researched Robinett’s portfolio beyond that historical Atari 2600 game; until that moment in my high school office, I didn’t realize Robinett had adapted his work to any other platform. But in a video demoing the 1982 eudcational title, Robinett describes it: "It uses some of the same ideas from the Adventure game for Atari: A network of interlinked screens, objects that you could pick up…"

I haven’t played Rocky’s Boots since that day in 2005, but it recently become easier to explore this educational curiosity, thanks to the work of 4am:

My thanks to 4am for preserving this classic, to Robinett for developing it, and to Karen Lang for introducing me to it. Now go try it yourself and enjoy this adventure on the Apple II!