The Making Of Venture
Back in the early eighties adventure games were still a very new concept and this was especially true in the arcades of the time. So when exidy’s Venture arrived it broke new ground. Kieren Hawken speaks to creator Howell Ivy to learn more
Howell Ivy reveals how a pen-and-paper RPG inspired his arcade-based dungeon crawler
It’s the year 1981 and arcades are booming thanks to titles such as Pac-man and Space Invaders. As great as all these new games were for everyone, the vast majority of them were just variations on the same overall theme. There were, of course, some notable exceptions to this statement, outstanding coin-op titles such as Frogger, Donkey Kong, Defender and, indeed, Exidy’s Venture all broke new ground and introduced some fresh game design to the masses. Designed and coprogrammed by Howell Ivy, who was also one of the owners of Exidy, Venture is notable for being the very first ‘adventure’ game released in arcades. Two years earlier, Atari had introduced the very first game of this type on a console, simply titled Adventure. Both games share similar origins, as Howell himself remembers, “The inspiration for Venture, much like Atari’s own game, was the popular paper-and-pin roleplaying game Adventure. We tried to capture the spirit and excitement of the game while keeping with a simple storyline.” With that in mind, we are interested to find out who came up with the idea to turn this into an arcade game, and how much of it was Howell’s own work? “In those days there was no difference between the designer of the game and the role of the programmer, hardware designer and even the artist,” Howell explains. “Game ideas and gameplay came from many different places back then. Yes, the general idea of ‘let’s do an adventure game’ I can say was mine, however there were many contributors to the gameplay and ideas, some of which came from my coprogrammer Vic Tolimoni.”
Obviously, a full-on adventure game in the arcades just wouldn’t have been possible for several reasons. Firstly, because a coin-op needs to be designed to eat people’s money, keep people playing and provide just enough action for your coin. Also, because arcade games need to be easy to just pick up and play, there is no time to learn complicated controls or read long tutorials. So, with this in mind, the designers at Exidy tried to take the key elements of an adventure game and combine them with the popular themes of other arcade titles. In went exploring, varied locations, maps, collectable items and intelligent enemies, along with more arcade-like aspects such as the ability to shoot, high scores, different levels and simple controls. Starring a character called Winky, your mission is to recover the stolen treasures from a series of dungeons. There are three levels in total, which each contain four rooms, and these are contained within a sort of overworld map
(years before titles such as Zelda
popularised the format). The map allows you to decide in what order you want to tackle the rooms and how you want to enter them, as each room has multiple entrances/exits. But even negotiating this part of the game is tricky enough, as there are the hall monsters to contend with. These invincible foes not only patrol the corridors trying to stop you even entering a room but will also follow you in if you take too long and take you out in seconds. Once in a room, Winky can then use his bow and arrow to fight off the guards and other creatures that lurk within before grabbing the treasure and escaping.
One of the most outstanding features of Venture for the time was the enemy AI. Back in 1981, enemy intelligence was basic at best and so there were usually patterns you could learn to beat it. That is not the case in Venture as this represents one of the earliest examples of an arcade game where the enemies adapt to what you do. For example, when you go in a room the veracity of your opponents increases with each one you kill. They will also attempt to dodge your fire and gravitate towards any treasure within the room to protect it. There are also elements of stealth as you try to avoid the hall monsters in the corridors. Howell is particularly proud of his achievements in this area.
“This was one of the key elements we wanted to capture in the game,” he says. “Each enemy, room and hallway element was given a role and a reason to be. Each and every game should be similar in play, but depending on the decisions the player made, the game’s AI reactions would get more or less intelligent. For me this is the game’s most important feature.” And this leads us nicely onto another feature we admire: the genuine scare factor of Venture when a hall monster follows you into a room, announcing their arrival before going for the kill, almost like an early attempt at survival horror. We quiz Howell on how intentional this was. “I would like to say every
Depending on the decisions the player made, the game’s ai reactions would get more or less intelligent Howell Ivy