When I was poring over my stacks of old comics and nerd magazines, all to depart my custody in anticipation of the arrival of a baby, my agreement with my wife was that I would scan the ads first, so that I could continue my amateur scholarship into gaming history through these primary (but poorly-sourced -- I didn't keep notes of which publications, issues or pages scans came from, making them useless for scholarly application!) documents. I jumped ship quickly scanning ads in my huge and sadly, long-departed stack of Nintendo Power mags -- the entire thing it turns out was ads in a house organ. The comics had a nice representative sampling, especially in the late '70s and early '80s where you can see the emergence of the video game advertisement as a distinct artform!
But it was in the early issues of Dragon Magazine that the most tantalizing fruit were to be found, ads for long-shuttered MUDs available exclusively on dimly-remembered online services and ads that took some wrapping your head around to understand them as computer games: "Play By Mail" games that were "computer-moderated", played by ... filling out a card with instructions regarding which activities you'd like your character / army / nation to perform this turn, mailing it in, where it is fed into a supercomputer, then finding out how successful your attempts were after it printed out the results of your instructions and had them mailed back to you. They were computer games wrapped in a hard-copy package! (There's an odd resonance with many of the BBS door games I played in my youth, with the "log back in tomorrow to see whether your orders succeeded" dynamic in place there without needing to mess with postage or pay a per-turn fee.)
I never got around to posting or doing anything with these ads, because there was no clear application for them. I couldn't document them as computer games without further (but unobtainable) details about the hardware and software backend that made the magic happen, so they remained gathering dust in a subdirectory of a subdirectory. But then yesterday I found that the distinguished Aaron Reed had made one of them the subject of a recent post to his (eminently worthwhile) "50 Years of Text Games" blog series. Finally the wool was being lifted from my eyes, and indeed, the focal game in his article was one I'd scanned an ad for! I went to talk up the article to the folks on the MobyGames Discord, where I discovered that... unlike when I made these scans eight years ago, the PBM games beat was now pretty well documented on Wikipedia and on BoardGameGeeks. So I'll just set the stage, provide the scan and transcription, and allow them to do the rest of the heavy lifting. If all goes well, I'll exhaust my little pool of these scans over the next couple of weeks before this blog returns to its terminal torpor, satisfied that the exclusive data is out there and people are putting the puzzle pieces together. So without further ado: Monster Island! (W, BGG)
You've just washed ashore — your favorite sword lost on the ocean floor...there's a 12-foot Octopaw staring at you. He'd like to eat your eyeballs for lunch. Welcome to...Not a ton to say about the ad. Clearly it's written for the benefit of people who are already well-acquainted with the genre, with comparisons to other leading PBM games. The tiny landscape tiles are so cute, and I appreciate the "it's 1989 and we have a brand new Mac to do desktop publishing with" aesthetic -- they make a big deal of the fact that output is LASER PRINTED rather than spat out of a dot matrix printer, the difference is subtle but profound.Monster Island
A huge Fantasy Role-Playing campaign of Exploration, Survival, Magic, and High Adventure.
This state-of-the-art Play-By-Mail game is unlike any you've ever seen.We've been moderating Play-By-Mail games for 10 years. In all of that time we've never received so much praise about a game from our players, including It's a Crime!, the most successful PBM game ever created. Here's what they have to say...
"...I'm having a blast-and-a-half playing Monster Island. I've only played one other PBM game before, but this is just the kind of PBM game I would wish for...The Knowledge Blurbs and battle scenes are excellent..." - John Perry
It's the game players rave about!"I also wish to express my complete and enthusiastic satisfaction with your service. Monster Island is a complete joy! The game itself is great fun, but it's the professional way you handle it that impresses me most. When there was a problem with the results, you were right there to handle it, and sent along a revision quickly; when I've made an invalid entry, it's nice to get a personal note explain-ing where I went wrong." - Mark Berman
"First let me thank you for a wonderful game! Simply...beastly. You did a super job in writing and running the game; even if it is 100% computer moderated..." - Brian Leach
"I have enjoyed playing Monster Island; it is truly a fine piece of game design and program-ming. I am a game designer/programmer myself..." - Brian Booker
"Monster Island is a great game, much better than It's a Crime! There are more things to do each turn with a wider range of results. For and away this is the best role-playing PBM I have ever played." - Alan Santa "Overall, Monster Island is an original, humorous and exciting PBM game. Its strong points include clearly written rules, simple order format, detailed descriptions of creatures and actions, and a sense of humor...you never feel like the entire game is just a collection of numbers or a giant equation." - Gail Chotoff, American Gamer
"Keep up the great work! I'm on turn 42 and they keep getting better and better. I showed my last few turns to the guy I started with back in '89 - he really wishes he'd kept in the game. Can't wait for newsletter #3." - Steve Lindemann "This is an iceberg of a game. It shows...only a tenth of its detail above the water: As you play you get not just new equipment but new orders and whole new game modules rolling open before your eyes...the early turns really are very good fun and worth the money." - Dr. Nicholas Palmer, Flagship
YOU, Stalwart Adventurer, will:
FREE Rulebook. FREE Entry Results.
- Interact with hundreds of players on an island that's more than three times the size of Australia!
- Explore bat-infested caves and other dark, dangerous places...where you never know what cave denizen (or treasure?) is lurking around the next bend.
- Kowtow to strange Gods. Serve them well and you'll be able to cast dozens of spells.
- Loot and vandalize ancient graveyards. Watch out for the Cemetery Creepers!
- Harvest Somanda Dust, Purple Lotus Leaves, etc., and use them to make all sorts of Voodoo concoctions.
- With friends, rebuild exotic ruins and sanctify them to your God.
- Hack Knolltir into hamburger meat with one of your fine weapons, such as a Spiked Club or Tooth Sabre.
- Battle horrible creatures including Ghoul Buzzards, Xanxu Cave Spiders, Sand Thugs, and Tomb Leeches. Some guard exotic treasures, such as Dragon Ikor.
(Examine the game for free. No obligation to continue.)Inexpensive! Continue play at L1.75 or S4 per turn, 3 times per month.
Same-day turnaround. All results are Laser-printed.
In Europe: KJC Games
Ref: MI1 Freepost Cleveleys Blackpool Lancs. FY5 3BR U.K. Phone (0253) 866345 Fax (0253) 869960Write, Phone, or Fax us your name and address.
In North America: Adventures By Mail POB 436-D1 Cohoes, NY 12047 Phone (518) 237-4870 Fax (518) 237-6245
OK, that's all for now! See you next ad!
