The Sumerian Game, the “First” Strategy Game Ever Was Rebuilt

Despite being lost for 60 years, the first strategy game video game, The Sumerian Game, once again lives and is available on Steam!

The Sumerian Game Revived

Every different genre of game has its own “first”. The first FPS, the first platformer, the first MMO, etc. Often these genre-defining titles are decades old, but one game is arguably amongst the first computer games to ever be created. The Sumerian Game, which could be seen as the first strategy game ever, emerged way back in 1964. While its source code was scattered for decades, the title has now returned and is even available on Steam.

The designer, Mabel Addis, is one of the great unsung legends of videogame history. She was a fourth-grade teacher who wrote and designed the game for her students, while IBM employee William McKay completed the programming. The Sumerian Game featured is a text-based educational mainframe game that featured tape decks, slide projectors, and computer terminals, making it a true multimedia experience.

Its first version, debuting in 1964, saw some initial success in its testing phases at various schools. However, as the video game industry as a whole was nonexistent, it was not long before the title faded into obscurity. In 1971, Doug Dyment expanded The Sumerian Game into a more commercial city builder called Hamurabi, but the original was forgotten.

However, owing to the research of academic, gaming historian, and author Andrea Contato, The Sumerian Game has been recreated. A large portion of the original programming was lost, but using physical printouts of the code, Contato managed to recreate a working and slightly modernized version of the game. The Sumerian Game is available on Steam and even has mostly positive reviews!

What’s the Gameplay Like?

At first glance, The Sumerian Game seems like a simple text-based narrative-driven strategy game set in, you guessed it, Ancient Sumer. The player takes the role of the ruler of Lagash, an ancient city between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers around the year 3500 BC. Periodically, the player will receive a visit from an advisor who will tell them what’s happening in the kingdom. Here’s how many people the player rules over, here’s what resources we have, here’s how many crops we can plant, etc.

Players will be given this information and asked what to do next. For example, they have to write down how much of the harvested grain should be put aside for feeding the people, and how much should be used for planting. While it starts off fairly simply, the game quickly becomes rather complicated. For example, there might be a complication with the crops, that the player will have to deal with. Maybe there’s been a drought or a locust infestation that diminishes the harvest.

The Sumerian Game was actually divided into three stages. The first one dealt with the various agricultural aspects of managing an ancient city. However, the second stage added the option to use the excess grain to develop different crafts in your city. Imagine this is like the tech tree in many modern strategy games. Finally, the third stage of the game introduced trade and a changing economy, challenging players to manage various aspects of running a city.

Interestingly, in 1966, Mabel Addis rewrote much of the second stage of the game and also reduced the game to 30 turns. Multiple tape-recorded cabinet discussions were also added to the game to enhance the narrative of the story. This was like the first massive content patch of a game ever.

Conclusions

While the game is relatively short and simple and might seem somewhat boring to modern gamers, it is nevertheless revolutionary for its time. Not only was it arguably the first computer strategy game in existence, but it also used a lot of media to enhance the experience beyond its relatively simple text-based gameplay.

The Sumerian Game and its creators rightfully deserve to be remembered in the history of video games and computer science. We should also be thankful that we can play this game today on Steam, 60 years after it was first created and thought to have been lost.