The Thing

The Good
Text-based games that involve you killing a mythical creature called the Wumpus made their debut sometime in the Seventies, and one of the companies that had a go creating their own version of the game was Apogee Software, who previously did ASCII-based games back in the day. Kudos to them for not following suit and putting the word Wumpus anywhere in the title. The Thing is also part of the Adventure Fun-Pak, a collection of games made by independent developers and submitted to Apogee for publication.

After the game asks you what type of graphics card you have – color or monochrome – the game gives you instructions on how to play the game if you are unfamiliar with the concept. There are a few advantages to it. Whereas other Wumpus games asks you to enter the number of the cave you wish to enter, The Thing only requires you to press one of the arrow keys to enter the appropriate cave. This is a much quicker way of getting through the game. Besides the Wumpus, you have other hazards to deal with, including pits and bats that carry you to another cave. You also have the opportunity to pick up gold nuggets that lie about in the caves, and this adds up to your score total. The commands at the bottom also require a one-key press.

When you are about to encounter the Wumpus or stumble into pits, the game gives you a warning, such as “You feel a small draft” or “You hear loud snoring nearby.” If you manage to hit the Wumpus, it retreats to a level below you. You can quit the game at any time, but the point is to go down to another level and go hunting again, repeatedly doing so until the game ends.

There is hardly any sound in the game, except when you hit the Wumpus or it’s game over, But for text-based games like this, you should not need sound anyway.

The Bad
You can pick up some miscellaneous items which have no use at all. One of the items I picked up was a wooden plank. With it, you could put it over the pits, then cross them. But the game wasn't programmed to let you do this.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, The Thing is another text-based Wumpus game, this time for the PC. What makes it unique from most Wumpus games before it is not only do you have to hunt down and shoot the mythical creature, but you can navigate from cave to cave just by pressing an arrow key and collect gold to increase your score. I don’t understand why Apogee decided not to use ASCII-based graphics, considering they already did it for their Kroz games. It would look so much better.