1973 - Mugwump

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

Mugwump

What To Do After You Hit Return. It looks like the mugwump was meant to be a fictional creature as well, although the only references I can find are like the Oxford one. Anyone know of a 1973-or-earlier story that uses the word in a different sense?

I’m not going to spend too long on this one, as it was a direct adaption of Hide and Seek. The only changes were

1.) to reduce the number of “players” to 1

2.) to change the “player” to a “mugwump”

3.) throw grammar to the wind and write UNIT(S) as UNIT, leading to the possible phrase “YOU ARE 1 UNITS FROM THE MUGWUMP.”

4.) to modify the maximum number of guesses from 10 to 4. (The exact value is tweakable by a line in the source code.)

THE MUGWUMP IS HIDING. TRY TO FIND HIM.

WHAT IS YOUR GUESS
?0,0
YOU ARE 9 UNITS FROM THE MUGWUMP.

WHAT IS YOUR GUESS
?9,0
YOU ARE 1 UNITS FROM THE MUGWUMP.

WHAT IS YOUR GUESS
?8,0
YOU ARE 1.4 UNITS FROM THE MUGWUMP.

WHAT IS YOUR GUESS
?9,1
YOU FOUND HIM IN 4 GUESSES!!!

Note the rounding is still in effect: this is why I was told the mugwump was 9 units away at (0,0) even though (9,1) is a little more than 9 units away. I don’t mind the issue since it makes the game slightly less mechanical.

Also, while it’s not relevant enough for us to get too deep into, there were multiple versions of Mugwump within PCC itself. The first version (based on the February 1973 transcript) had a limit of 4 guesses, whereas a version printed in 1974 had unlimited guesses. Perhaps there was some interplay between “pedagogical tool” and “game”; as a game it’s (maybe?) better to have the ability to lose and add tension to a fourth guess, whereas when trying to teach the specific topic of distance on a coordinate grid it might be better not to cut the player’s calculations short. (Although again, maybe? … perhaps the tension would be more motivating to find a good method of winning, as opposed to trying repeatedly.)

The game starts with the following instructions:

THE OBJECT OF THIS GAME IS TO FIND FOUR MUGWUMPS

HIDDEN ON A 10 BY 10 GRID. HOMEBASE IS POSITION 0,0.

ANY GUESS YOU MAKE MUST BE TWO NUMBERS WITH EACH

NUMBER BETWEEN 0 AND 9, INCLUSIVE. FIRST NUMBER

IS DISTANCE TO RIGHT OF HOMEBASE AND SECOND NUMBER

IS DISTANCE ABOVE HOMEBASE.

YOU GET 10 TRIES. AFTER EACH TRY, I WILL TELL

YOU HOW FAR YOU ARE FROM EACH MUGWUMP.

Game file (Basic):

http://www.vintage-basic.net/bcg/mugwump.bas

Source:

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