<!--
	Title: (Atari Playfield) At Long Last, Fooblitzky
	Author: Gregg Williams
	Source: Computer Gaming World, v6(3)
	Date: April 1986
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

<img class="float-left" src="/public/img/articles/cgw-atari-playfield-fooblitzky/atari-playfield-logo.png" alt="Atari Playfield logo">

## The Atari 1040 ST

The big news in January was the introduction of the Atari
1040 ST. Tramiel, for all his faults, has created a computer
that breaks an important price barrier--the first computer with
a megabyte of memory (1024 K) for under $1000! The Atari 1040
ST sells for $999 with a monochrome monitor and $1199
with a color monitor. It includes an internal power supply and
internal double-sided 720 K disk drive, a full 1 megabyte of usable
memory (the TOS operating system that ate up much of the
520 ST's memory is in ROM on the 1040 ST), an RF modulator
(so you can hook it up to a color TV set), and Atari BASIC and
Logo.

At the moment, the only advantages to having a 1040 ST are
that you have more space for BASIC and Logo programs and
that the unit boots up much faster (in about 5 seconds). The
real advantage will come when someone writes some software
that really takes advantage of all that memory.

Atari will continue to sell the 520 ST, but they're unbundling
the $800 package to $300 for the computer, $200 for the disk
drive, $200 for the monochrome monitor, and $400 for the color
monitor. You can now use the 520 ST with a color TV, too,
which means that you can buy a working 520 ST system for $500.
All this is hard to imagine for someone whose first computer
cost $700 and had cassette storage and 16 K of memory, but
it's sure a lot of fun!

## At Long Last, Fooblitzky

Now I finally have the room to talk about **Fooblitzky**, a game
that I first saw a prototype of in (I think) 1983 during a visit to
Infocom. This game is noteworthy in two ways. First, it's a
multiplayer game with some graphics (from a company best
known for its solitaire puzzle-oriented text adventures). Second,
it's not out on the market yet but is (by the time you read
this) at the tail end of a six-month test promotion to regular
Infocom customers.

I shelled out $39.95 for the game, sight unseen, largely because
I'm very involved in multiplayer games -- but also because,
if the game is never (God forbid) officially released, I'll
have a real collector's item.

I *love* multiplayer games. Solitaire games are wonderful to
have around, but nothing beats a well-designed game that immerses
(and brings together) several people in the cozy soup
of human interaction. My favorite multiplayer games are
**M.U.L.E.** (an Atari game from Electronic Arts -- one of the best
games ever designed) and **Cosmic Encounter** (a multiplayer board
game). Fooblitzky isn't as interactive as these two games, but
it's still a fun way to spend time with a few friends. Like many of
my favorite games, it has a whimsical premise, a definite
element of luck, and delightfully unexpected turns of fortune.

*Fooblitzky* requires two to four players (no solitaire option,
unfortunately) and includes four folding workslates and erasable
markers. Each workslate contains a replica of the on-screen playing
board and an area for keeping notes. You play using your
Atari and either one joystick or the keyboard. The software (not
copy-protected, by the way) is the electronic equivalent of paper
maps, dice, and plastic tokens -- the Atari shows you the
board, sets up the hidden portions of the game, and tells you
what you're entitled to know.

As advertised, *Fooblitzky* is very much like a cross between
*Mastermind* and *Clue*. At the beginning of the game, each player
secretly chooses one item from a list of 18 (the computer chooses
for any absent player positions). The object of the game is to
discover what the four secret items are and get them to a
checkpoint. Checkpoints are maddening because they tell you
how many correct and incorrect items you have, but not which
items are which (this is where the game resembles Mastermind).
Deductions you make from observations about where certain
items are and aren't provide the resemblance to Clue.

## Playing Fooblitzky

Several things influence your actions during the game. You
may get sent to the hospital if you cross a dangerous street intersection,
you can buy or sell items at the pawn shop, and, if
you're on the street at the end of your turn, you may get "flashed"
by the Chance Man, who may do you a favor or really mess you
up. If you're sufficiently sneaky, you can also "bump" an opponent
and grab some of his or her items. If you run out of money
(called "foobles"), you can earn some more by washing dishes in
a restaurant.

Fooblitzky uses a highly stylized "doggy" motif throughout
the game (for example, their one ad promises that "this is one
game that's really going to bow wow you"). The game board
represents the town of Fooblitzky, with its shops, sidewalk
squares, and crosswalks (some of which, from move to
move, become dangerous to cross). The city is divided into
four quadrants, each of which has six stores (drug, grocery,
hardware, pet, sport, and toy stores). Each store sells three
items -- for example, the pet store sells fish, snakes, and pigs. Each
item costs either 4, 8, or 16 foobles, and there is one item of
each price in each store. (At the beginning, the computer tells you
the prices of the four secret items. If the items cost, say, 4, 4,
16, and 16 foobles, you can automatically ignore the six items
that cost 8 foobles each.) You can carry only four items, so you
must sometimes discard an item to be able to pick up another
one -- and woe is you if you discard the wrong item!

## The Importance of Being Watchful

It gets complicated: at the beginning of the game, each store
in each quadrant has one of each item -- except that one of the
four copies of an item is removed if it is chosen as a secret
item. (This means that, if you walk into a store that nobody's
been in and the item is missing, it's one of the four secret items.)
Items stolen by the Chance Man or given away to Charity Central
appear randomly in pawn shops (this makes things difficult in a
four-player game, when there are four players and only four
copies of a given item). If you get tired of running around
town, you can either take the UGH (Underground Highway) or
you can call a distant store from a phone booth.

I don't have the room to explain some of the finer details
(like what happens when two players choose the same item),
but you get the idea. The game goes to the player who takes
good notes, has some good luck, and is careful enough make absolutely
no wrong inferences --  one wrong inference can severely
damage your chances of winning. Fooblitzky was designed by
Michael Berlyn, Brian Cody, Poh Lim, and Paula Maxwell. It was
originally started by Berlyn (who's no longer with Infocom)
as an exercise to see if it was possible to write games with
graphics that can easily be moved to different computers
(which is Infocom's trademark with its text adventures). The
answer is a qualified yes. Fooblitzky currently runs on
Apple, Atari, and IBM computers. The game makes occasional
sounds and uses graphic images (nicely designed by Maxwell),
but the moving graphic images are jerky and slow; fortunately,
both sound and graphics are ornamental and can be tolerated.
Mike Berlyn says that Infocom has removed some of the satirical
aspects of the game as he designed it; given his sense of humor
and sharp wit (as seen in his adventure Planetfall), that's our
loss.

Fooblitzky is an interesting game that is a moderate but not
overly taxing workout of brain cells -- it's not Pac Man, but
(fortunately) it's not chess, either. It has numerous game options,
and the mechanics of play are well engineered. I like it,
especially when you have three or four players. I don't know the
eventual status of the game, but you can order it from Infocom's
mail-order service at 800-262-6868. If all goes well, perhaps
Infocom will eventually design more multiplayer games.

That's all for now. Until then, remember -- he who laughs, lasts.
