1973 - Hurkle

All info stolen from Regna in Blue blog (see below):

Hurkle

Hurkle changed the thing hiding from a “mugwump” to a “hurkle”. Instead of giving a distance after making a guess, the game gave a direction of indicating which way where the hurkle was hiding relative to the last guess.

THE HURKLE IS HIDING. TRY TO FIND HIM.

WHAT IS YOUR GUESS
?5, 5
GO SOUTHWEST

WHAT IS YOUR GUESS
?3, 3
GO SOUTHWEST

WHAT IS YOUR GUESS
?1, 1
GO EAST

?2, 1
YOU FOUND HIM IN 4 GUESSES!

This essentially took a relatively complex mathematics exercise and turned into one for younger children. Again, the original game had a guessing limit (5) that was removed in a printed 1974 version.

Technically it’s possible to always win in 4 moves. Think of the first coordinate alone: it could be at any one of

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Pick 5 (guess #1), which is either correct, or cuts the list to 0 1 2 3 4 or 6 7 8 9. Suppose it is the longer of the two lists:

0 1 2 3 4

Now pick 2 (guess #2), which is either correct, or cuts the list to 0 1 or 3 4. Suppose it is 0 1:

0 1

Now pick either choice (guess #3), which if it is the right choice it means you have the right number for that coordinate, and if it is the wrong choice then there’s only one possibility left (which can be used for your guess #4).

The other coordinate can be treated independently with the same method.

In practice, this easier than I’m making this sound, which is why I said this game was for younger children; just go “halfway” in the right direction at each prompt and you’ll make it to the hurkle in time.)

The game starts with the following instructions:

A HURKLE IS HIDING ON A";G;“BY”;G;“GRID. HOMEBASE

ON THE GRID IS POINT 0,0 IN THE SOUTHWEST CORNER,

AND ANY POINT ON THE GRID IS DESIGNATED BY A

PAIR OF WHOLE NUMBERS SEPERATED BY A COMMA. THE FIRST

NUMBER IS THE HORIZONTAL POSITION AND THE SECOND NUMBER

IS THE VERTICAL POSITION. YOU MUST TRY TO

GUESS THE HURKLE’S GRIDPOINT. YOU GET”;N;“TRIES.

AFTER EACH TRY, I WILL TELL YOU THE APPROXIMATE

DIRECTION TO GO TO LOOK FOR THE HURKLE.

Game file (Basic):

https://archive.org/details/hurkle.qb64

Source:

https://bluerenga.blog/2019/03/15/before-adventure-part-2-mugwump-hurkle-snark-1973/