Logic Land

Once I was aware of 2600s and text adventures, I wondered if someone could write a 2600 text adventure. I learned reasons why it would not be practical or profitable or, for newer programmers, wise. But I did not learn any reasons why one couldn't. I saw various implementations of text adventures, and I enjoyed seeing homebrew Atari projects getting more and more complex. I wondered if anyone would take up the text adventure mantle for the Atari, as others did for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.

And someone did, and finally, there is evidence a person could, and, in fact, SHOULD maybe even do so again beyond "because it is there." And it's by someone I'd thought would be a prime candidate for something odd and interesting, given their previous work. I'm glad they came back to give us more. Because while Logic Land runs into the limitations of the 2600, it's more than competent, a weird experience in mostly a good way. I stayed up later than I thought to solve it, which is mostly good.

Logic Land doesn't have many of the niceties we expect, but it's an impressive feat of engineering, and it does have that retro charm, or what qualifies as retro charm. Given the 2600's lack of power, it's no surprise you are given no real background or story as to what to do. You are simply a classic everyperson, with items to pick up and experiments to run. They are related to many classic puzzles and thought experiments. For instance, you meet Einstein, and there is a Chinese room, and ancient Greek philosopher for appears somewhere else. The items you receive may seem nonsensical, and in a bigger game, it might be annoying, but Logic Land only has 23 rooms with only one thing to do in each. Eventually you wind up at three different gates. They all require items, one of which needs to be prepped in a way that didn't make sense until I got through. (This was my own fault. It was a classic thought experiment.)

However, the simplicity comes at a price: the text and puzzles are simple and direct, but the controls are not. They make sense once you fiddle with them, but they're still, well, fiddly. It's hard to imagine how they could be better, and while the parallel move/verb menus are toggled with the fire button, and moving is not hard, I had problems scrolling left and right to get the action I wanted. Sometimes things got sticky and I wouldn't move between any of the options, and sometimes I'd skip one. Said actions include use, take, talk, and act, and you can't act for a while. Which is nice to narrow things down, and it IS at the end of the list.

If not for this, Logic Land would be a very quick play. It's quick enough, but by the time you're comfortable with the controls, it's close to over. And along the way brute forcing runs into general problems with futzing with the controls as you try to TAKE everything in each room or USE it. Also, sometimes rooms don't update after you solve a puzzle, which makes it tricky if you want to restart.

So I think the time on the website for completion is a low estimate. It may be frustrating if other people get stuck and try to brute force. I missed two room locations. The map is classically done and not super sparse, e.g. each room is one unit away from the next, and if you can go east/north, you can't go north/east. I saw 23 rooms in a 7x6 map. I missed two of them for a bit, again partially because of the lack of descriptions. I recommend making a map--the game keeps it simple, and there are no loops, which cuts down on the directions you need to search. I was worried I soft locked myself out, and if you do so, you probably just missed a room. I missed that (Spoiler - click to show)you could go north from the sea and, beyond that, (Spoiler - click to show)south from the first lab. Once I saw the rooms, things clicked into place.

These are the main obstacles to enjoyment. I hope knowing them lessens potential frustration. People who aren't big on the technical side of things, or who never had an Atari 2600, may find them too much. But despite my criticisms, I spent a while thinking "Wow! It's cool a game like Logic Land could be made on the 2600!" My experience with the 2600 is replete with flimsy games my family overpaid for, as well as games I bought on clearance and then found out WHY they were on clearance. Logic Land stacks up very well against these paid efforts, indeed.

Philosophy isn't my background so I can't vouch for how seminal the game's examples are, or how rigorously appropriate, but I recognized a few (Chinese room, Occam's razor) and did not recognize others. So it turned out to be educational. I spent some time googling the stuff I didn't know. It's something I would never dare to try, because I don't have the knowledge for that sort of thing. And it seems it would be very hard to do better with the 2600's severe memory limitations, too. My technical side walked away with a grasp on a pretty neat world and enjoyed guessing why the author made the stylistic/technical decisions they did to include certain features and not others, and my imaginative side (such as it is) had a list of things to wonder about and look at.

I hope more people take up the challenge to work through this. It might not be for everyone, but it clearly has other places it will find a home for beyond IFComp. It may have suffered from a lack of a hint-through. If there were a better way to show available exits, that might save people time and frustration. But I'm amazed and glad it exists at all.