Finishing The Game

For the longest time, the idea of "finishing" a game was silly. When you went to the arcade and you put your quarter into the machine, whether it was pinball or Pac-Man, you already knew no matter how well you played, the game was going to eventually beat you. That's what they were designed to do. Best you could hope for was to pop your initials on the high score table, but that wasn't beating the game, that was just being better at it than somebody else.

Then came Pitfall II: Lost Caverns. As noted in earlier stories, our first home computer was a Tandy Color Computer, and most of the games we had for it were clones of arcade titles. But Pitfall II was different. This was a non-linear side-scrolling adventure, where you, as Pitfall Harry, had to navigate both above-ground and underground spaces, collect treasure, rescue your niece Rhonda and her animal companion Quickclaw the lion, and discover the whereabouts of the fabled Raj diamond.

The game featured a points system, so the immediate and obvious goal was to obtain the highest score possible. But what I didn't realize was that unlike the original Pitfall, the sequel came with a built-in end state. If you managed to nab Rhonda, Quickclaw, and the Raj diamond, Harry celebrated by doing a little jumping dance, and the game reset to the attract mode.

Realizing we owned a game it was possible to "finish", sibling rivalry took on a whole new form as my brother and I now fought to see who could complete the game with the most points. Since dying negatively impacted your score, the goal became learning how to best navigate the map, avoiding unnecessary rooms and hazards, and dodging the ones you had to deal with.

At this point, it's been so long that I genuinely don't remember which of us wound up with the highest/best score. Not long after playing Pitfall II to conclusion, our family added Zork to our game shelf, and that opened an entirely new obsession. But Pitfall II will always hold the distinction of being the first home computer game I ever "beat". All hail, David Crane! :)