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The Sumerian Game: The Most Important Video Game You've Never Heard Of (2021)


Long before Carmen Sandiego or The Oregon Trail there was The Sumerian Game. Not only was it the first edutainment game, it was the first narrative game.

The BASIC conversion also added colorful end-of-game assessements, ranging from “Charlemange, Disraeli, and Jefferson combined could not have done better” to “people would dearly like to see you assassinated but we all have our trivial problems.” And thanks to the heroic efforts of historian Devin Monnens ⁠— who managed to track down Mabel Addis’ daughter ⁠— we have additional documents, including a small set of slides a few printouts of the first stage circa 1964, which have been donated to the Strong Museum Of Play. SPECIAL THANKS: David H. Ahl, Frank Cifaldi, Doug Dyment, Dale Geddes, Ethan Johnson, Devin Monnens, Alex Smith, and the Secret Writers Society.

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