I've been reading Brenda Laurel's groovy Computers as Theatre book and saw that she classifies Robinett's old Adventure cartridge for the Atari 2600 (or VCS) as the first graphical adventure game. According to Robinett's homepage, Adventure was released in 1978, a year earlier than Roberta William's Mystery House, which was released in 1979. At first I dismissed Laurel's classification as a simple misunderstanding of the genre, but now I'm not so sure. I am especially piqued by Robinett's Powerpoint lecture on the history and development of the game, where he juxtaposes the original text Adventure with what he was able to accomplish in his Atari cartridge. The lecture makes for very interesting reading. Robinett calls his game an "action adventure," a genre I would associate with games like Tomb Raider.

After reading the lecture, playing the game, and seriously thinking not only about Robinett's Adventure but also his intentions behind it, I'm now inclined to agree with Laurel that this VCS cartridge really is the first graphical adventure game. Sure, it's simple--almost fiendishly simple--but, in principle, it's based on the same concept as Myst or any later GAG we want to talk about. I suppose we could argue that it is really more of an arcade game since you have to dodge giant chickens (er, dragons), but we see the same kind of precision manuevering required in Williams' King's Quest, which no one to my knowledge denies its GAG classification. To win Adventure, you have to manipulate objects and chart your progress through a maze. There's even a secret room with an arcane message (the famous first easter egg).

I want to know what other people think. Is Robinett's Adventure cartridge for the Atari 2600 a graphical adventure game, and thus the first of its kind, or is it merely an arcade or "twitch" game that happens to bear some resemblance to other games in the genre?

Better yet, how do you define the terms "adventure game" and "graphical adventure game?" Or do you lump them together under the moniker, "Interactive Fiction?"

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