Adventure (1980 video game)
A pioneering action-adventure game with a hidden Easter egg.
Adventure is a 1980 action-adventure game for the Atari 2600, created by Warren Robinett and published by Atari, Inc. Players control a square avatar on a quest to find a magical chalice and bring it back to the Golden Castle. The game world is open-ended and populated by roaming enemies: three dragons that can eat the avatar, and a bat that randomly steals and moves items around the environment. Notably, these enemies continue to move even when off the visible screen, a new feature for console games at the time. The game was inspired by the 1977 text adventure *Colossal Cave Adventure*, which Robinett encountered while visiting the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He spent roughly a year designing and coding the game, working within severe technical constraints: the Atari 2600 cartridge had only 4 kilobytes of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM. Robinett used nearly all of this memory, leaving only 15 unused bytes. During development, conflicts with Atari management, who refused to give public credit to programmers, led Robinett to secretly program a hidden room containing his name. This room, discovered only after the game shipped and Robinett had left the company, is considered one of the first Easter eggs in video games and has since become a cultural touchstone, referenced in works such as Ernest Cline’s novel *Ready Player One* and its film adaptation. *Adventure* sold over a million copies, making it one of the best-selling Atari 2600 titles. It received positive reviews and is recognized as one of the earliest action-adventure and fantasy games, inspiring many later titles. The game’s prototype code was later used as the basis for the 1979 *Superman* game, and a planned sequel eventually evolved into the *Swordquest* series.
- release_year
- 1979
Lore & Background
Adventure was conceived as a graphical version of the 1977 text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure. He used a Hewlett-Packard 1611A logic analyzer to develop the game around May to June 1978. The final game used nearly all available memory, with only 15 unused bytes. Robinett credited Ken Thompson with teaching him about programming in general. Due to conflicts with Atari's management, which denied public credit for programmers, Robinett programmed a secret room within the game that contained his name. This room was only found by players after the game shipped and Robinett had left Atari. While not the first Easter egg, Robinett's secret room pioneered this idea within video games and other media. The game's prototype code was not used as the basis for the 1979 Superman game (that game was developed by John Dunn), and a planned sequel eventually formed the basis for the Swordquest games.
Reader's Guide
Adventure is significant as one of the first action-adventure and fantasy games for home consoles, inspiring many later games in the genre. The game introduced concepts novel to video games at the time, including thirty different rooms, off-screen object movement, and a continue-game option through resurrection of the avatar. Its Easter egg became a part of popular culture, referenced in the climax of Ernest Cline's 2011 novel Ready Player One and its 2018 film adaptation. Adventure received positive reviews at release and has been included in numerous Atari game collections for modern computer hardware. The game's legacy includes influencing game design with its open-ended exploration, item carrying, and enemy behaviors such as the bat that randomly steals and moves items.
Did You Know?
- The game's dragons were originally intended to look like dragons but due to low-resolution pixels, they look more like ducks.
- The bat was to be named 'Knubberrub' but the name is not in the manual.
- The game's Easter egg used a negligible amount of cartridge storage, far less than 5%.
- A planned sequel to Adventure eventually formed the basis for the Swordquest games.
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