Hamurabi (also known as The Sumer Game)

Hamurabi (also known as The Sumer Game) is a text-based strategy game that was first released in 1968. It was developed by Doug Dyment and was inspired by the electro-mechanical game The Sumerian Game, which was created in 1964.

In Hamurabi, the player takes on the role of the ruler of a Sumerian city-state. The goal of the game is to manage the city’s resources and population in order to survive for ten years. The player must make decisions about land allocation, crop planting, and grain distribution. They must also deal with the challenges of random crop failures and plagues.

Hamurabi was one of the first video games to simulate the management of a city-state. It was also one of the first games to use a text-based interface. The game was popular in its day, and it helped to pave the way for the development of other early strategy games, such as SimCity and Civilization.

Here are some additional details about Hamurabi:

• It was written in the FOCAL programming language.
• It was originally released for the DEC PDP-8 minicomputer.
• It was later ported to a number of other platforms, including the Apple II, Commodore 64, and IBM PC.
• It was one of the first video games to be published in a book. It was included in David Ahl’s 1973 book BASIC Computer Games.
• It is considered to be one of the most important video games ever made. It was a pioneer in the field of city-building games, and it helped to popularize the text-based interface.

Hamurabi is a fascinating piece of video game history. It was one of the first games to simulate the management of a city-state, and it helped to pave the way for the development of other early strategy games. It is a reminder of the early days of video games, when anything seemed possible.