Games 444-445: Early Mindscape

1985 introduces our first two whales on Apple's new Macintosh computer - Balance of Power and Deja Vu: A Nightmare Comes True, both by publisher Mindscape. A subsidiary of Scott Foresman, then the USA's largest educational textbook publisher, Mindscape quickly carved its niche as a clearing house for edutainment and other studious software. The Mac, which Apple had hoped to market as a serious, grown up computer, would be a good fit for Mindscape's serious, grown up games.

But what of their ancestors?

We've got two lines of ancestry here - first there are the prior games of BoP's designer Chris Crawford, of which I've only played one - Avalon Hill's Tanktics. Certainly there's a non-whale or two since then worth playing!

Second, there are the earlier games published by Mindscape themselves. Mobygames lists Tink!Tonk! Tonk in the Land of the Buddy-Bots, an early childhood educational game with characters by prolific author Mercer Mayer as a 1983 Atari release. It's a little unclear if this is accurate; the manual states a software copyright of 1984, but also states a 1983 copyright for TINK TONK, Inc, suggesting that these were pre-existing characters, though I can't find any evidence they existed before Mindscape's software.

However, it shows in a 1984 Mindscape catalog, so this is at least among the company's first wave of releases, as part of the Sprout line of ages 4-8 educational software. Only Crossword Magic is verifiably older, and that's because it was initially self-published on the Apple II by developer L&S Software - Mindscape handled the ports to Atari and C64.

So, I've picked my introductory Mindscape title. An educational title meant for very young children.

 

Game 444: Tink!Tonk!: Tonk in the Land of Buddy-Bots

Tonk is not impressed by the Buddy-Bots.

In Tonk's main game mode, you explore an open world in the style of Atari's Adventure in search of robot parts to assemble your buddy-bot, which are won in six minigames that test pattern recognition skills. An alternate mode lets you practice these minigames independently.

 

I beat the hardest difficulty in twelve minutes. Cause I'm that good.

 

The manual has a map of Buddy-Bot Land, which is a big time saver even though it does not show all of the part locations.

Now, there's a nasty secret about the highest difficulty. It's possible to soft-lock your game! The land is randomly seeded with robot guards, who will confiscate a part and take you to King Gork's castle in the south. They are easy to run from and won't follow you across sectors, but they can make crossing certain sectors impossible.

You're not getting through that.

There's a good chance that the southeast quadrant of the map will be completely inaccessible without using the raft. And you get one chance to use it.

Apart from that, this is quite straightforward. Visit each sector, avoid guards and pitfalls, find parts, and play minigames that wouldn't challenge a preschooler.

There's a part right there.

Caves mean minigames

Bot puzzle! Can you reassemble it correctly?

Getting caught is no big deal. Gork just stands there as you leave.

Looks interesting!

But it's pointless. The bots don't do anything and don't even care if they're assembled correctly.

Match the bot with his silhouette for a part.

Can you reassemble this bot from memory? Fail and he'll forlornly sigh YOU FORGOT ME.

GAB rating: Below average. Not much to say here! It's competently programmed, visually appealing, the music is catchy, and like most kid's games, fairly insubstantial overall. The Adventure-style gameplay makes it interesting enough to rate, but not interesting enough to rate any higher than this.

Let's do one more Mindscape release - this time, another educational title, but one that's very much not meant for small children.

 

Game 445: Crime and Punishment

 

We haven't seen Imagic in a while! The short-lived developer of some of the Atari VCS and Intellivision's most technically advanced video games refocused on 8-bit computer game development by 1984, releasing their final titles in 1985. Crime and Punishment, an educational title about American justice, was their sole collaboration with Mindscape.

1984 saw the passing of the Sentencing Reform Act, a culmination of a decade-long research project led by tenured law professor (and Federalist Society speaker) Jack Kress. In an effort to reduce sentencing disparities owing to judge's personal biases, which had long been an issue, the most notable byproduct of the act was the Sentencing Guidelines, a non-binding rubric system for calculating legal remedies for felonious offenses, which is practiced at the federal level and has influenced state-level systems. Other byproducts of the act included mandatory minimums and abolition of federal parole.

Imagic's Crime and Punishment, co-authored by Kress, aims to be a learning tool with two programs; an information module with a brief overview on the history and operations of the U.S. criminal justice system, and a game where you play the judge and must estimate appropriate sentences for convicted felons. As someone who's taken an introductory course in criminal law, I found the module a reasonably good primer and even learned a few things I didn't already know.

This was released more or less simultaneously on C64, IBM, and Apple computers.

Commodore 64

IBM PC

Apple II

There aren't a lot of differences between versions. The PC version probably has the best looking judge graphic, but it doesn't play nice with any version of DOSBox - only PCem runs it without missing graphics. Apple II displays more colors than the others - six as opposed to just four, and actually shows the flag correctly, but the judge looks awfully stupid in it.

Ultimately I decided to use the Commodore 64 version, although it doesn't really take advantage of the platform. Despite some questionable color choices, and some very long loading times at the start, I think it's overall the best looking and sounding version, with better color contrasts, less harsh beeper music, and is the only version with a pleasing gavel-knock sound.

As judge, you may review the facts concerning the case, including details such as the injuries or damages, the relations between offender and victim, the offender's character and reputation, and media coverage before pronouncing sentence, after which you are shown the median sentence according to Kress's guidelines, and scored according to how close yours was. The game claims you are penalized for asking too many questions, but I haven't seen any proof of it.

The guidelines themselves are not provided, even in a simplified form; you have to go by your feelings, your knowledge of comparable real-life cases, or experience playing. By far the most important factor is the crime itself. But sentencing is also affected by factors such as their criminal history, the circumstances surrounding the offense, and others.

You knew this was coming.

Let's look at this case of lockpick and blackjack possession. The defendant pleaded guilty, and said he had to steal in order to support a drug habit. He was raised in the inner city by an alcoholic father, received a merit scholarship, and studies political science. He has four prior convictions including burglary and a juvenile charge of public lewdness. His probation officer urges a stern sentence.

Some more, possibly irrelevant details

 

A first time offender might get away with probation, but I'm going to trust the probation officer. Six months in jail.

I did okay, but after doing a few more cases, I figured I could do better with some proper data analysis. The cases are procedurally generated, but are based on a set of about 80 templates.

I played through 120 cases and took notes on crime type, sentencing, prior convictions, and in cases of white collar crimes, monetary losses, which makes less of a difference than you might think. From this data, I made a table of crimes, in rough order of most to least severe. This is going to wreck my SEO.

Prison and probation sentences are in years/months, jail sentences are in months/days.

Crime	Sentence	First offense	Repeat	Cases
Murder (repeat)	Death			1
Sabotage	Prison		23/8	1
Assassination	Prison	22/10 to 30/1		2
Treason	Prison	21/11	27/3	2
Rape/murder	Prison	21/10		2
Kidnapping/rape	Prison		20/9 to 22/3	2
Sedition	Prison		20/7	1
Murder of a police officer	Prison	19/7 to 21/10		2
Smuggling	Prison		16/7	1
Rape/burglary	Prison		15/2	1
Kidnapping	Prison	13/11	15/2	2
Attempted assassination	Prison		12/8	1
Rape	Prison		11/7	1
Forcible sodomy	Prison		11/7 to 14/11	2
Sexual assault on a child	Prison	12/8	11/6	2
Arson	Prison	10/5		1
Attempted murder	Prison		9/9	1
Hijacking	Prison		8/11 to 9/9	2
Robbery	Prison	7/4 to 8/4	10/2	4
Assault/burglary	Prison		7/0 to 7/8	2
Sexual exploitation of a child	Prison	6/2 to 7/0		2
Cocaine sale	Prison	5/10		1
Attempted rape	Prison	5/2	6/5	2
Burglary of a dwelling	Prison		4/1	1
Forced prostitution	Prison	3/11		1
Assault with intent to rape	Prison	3/11	7/8	2
Daytime burglary	Prison		3/11	1
Terroristic threatening	Prison	3/7 to 4/1		2
Assault	Prison	3/1 to 4/2		2
Unlawful imprisonment	Prison	2/4		1
Burglary of a business	Prison	2/4		1
Computer piracy ($71,000)	Prison		2/2	1
Illegal business practice (tenth offense)	Prison		2/0	1
Unlawful business practice	Prison		2/0	1
Forgery	Prison	1/11	2/2	3
Heroin use	Prison	1/10	3/11	1
Illegal commercial enterprise	Jail		23/14 to 23/26	2
Burglary of a business	Jail		22/4	1
Possession of a deadly weapon	Jail		22/4	1
Computer piracy ($1,695)	Jail		22/0	1
Illegal business practice (second offense)	Jail		19/6	1
Dealing in unsafe products	Jail		18/12	1
Accepting bribes	Jail	17/26	19/26 to 23/14	3
Resisting arrest	Jail		15/22	1
Perjury	Jail	15/0	15/2	2
Cocaine use	Jail	14/28 to 15/2		2
Carrying a concealed weapon	Jail	14/20 to 21/18		2
Drunk driving	Jail		12/8 to 20/16	2
Possession of burglar's tools	Jail		10/24	1
Violation of probation	Jail		10/16 to 10/20	2
Menacing	Jail		8/28 to 16/4	3
Aiding and abetting a felon	Jail		8/20 to 15/22	2
Mail fraud	Jail		7/26	2
Illegal price-fixing	Jail		7/2 to 16/0	2
Theft of trade secrets (tenth offense)	Jail		6/16	1
Bribery	Jail	5/2	14/4	2
Offensive touching	Jail		4/0 to 6/20	2
False alarm	Jail		2/8	1
Criminal trespass	Jail	1/26	9/6	2
Criminal solicitation	Jail		1/22 to 2/16	2
Operating a pyramid scheme	Jail		1/14	1
Theft of trade secrets (second offense)	Probation		9/0	1
Operating a pyramid scheme	Probation		8/2	1
Auto theft	Probation	8/1		1
Criminal impersonation	Probation	8/1		1
Theft by con game	Probation		7/10 to 8/7	2
Unlawful use of a credit card	Probation	7/4	8/1	2
Pimping	Probation		6/8	1
Marijuana use	Probation		6/5	1
False advertising	Probation	6/2		1
Statutory rape	Probation	5/3 to 6/10	7/1	3
Reckless driving	Probation	4/9		1
Prostitution	Probation	4/8	5/4	2
Loitering	Probation		3/9 to 4/9	2
Hunting out of season	Probation		1/4	1

 

There are a few inconsistencies, but not that many. The crimes of operating a pyramid scheme and burglary of a business had to appear twice each because of sentencing disparities that could not be accounted for based on damages. Another surprise is that in the two cases of sexual assault of a child, the first time offender got a longer prison sentence than the repeat offender - but I had not considered factors like the age of the child, or what the prior conviction was for.

The list also shows some questionable priorities in terms of criminal severity. Why is repeat heroin use punished far worse than repeat drunk driving? Why was a home burglar who stole $50 given four years, and a business criminal who defrauded a million dollars given 19 months, both cases being second offenses? But this reflects the real-life priorities of common law, and my critiques are far from the first or the most insightful.

But overall, the list seems like solid groundwork. So let's try out some cases.

Case 1: Perjury

Details on the perjury itself are scant, but the defendant has six prior arrests with one conviction for animal abuse. I opt for a 15 month jail sentence, as per the table above.

Yeah... too harsh. It's worth five gavel taps, but I'm advised to do better.

Case 2: Dealing in unsafe products

The defendant is a Vietnamese immigrant, has a prior conviction for vandalism, had been held in contempt of court, and is a business owner. ACLU urges leniency. I opt for a 15 month jail sentence, given the minor priors.

I should have gone with the table! This is exactly what the last sentence said. Still, this is worth eight gavels.

Case 3: Smuggling

 

This is a serious offense, but it's his first, and he pled guilty. The offender was raised by welfare hippies, and works a steady job. Community opinion wants leniency.

From the table, I estimate a 15 year prison term.

Six gavels for a somewhat excessive sentence.

Case 4: Kidnapping

Not looking good for the defendant, who has ten prior arrests and nine convictions of unspecified crimes. I follow the table exactly and give 15 years, two months.

Should have gone higher still, but this is still worth eight gavels.

Let's do one more.

Case 5: Illegal price-fixing

This is a first-time adult offense, though he used fake I.D. as a juvenile. The defendant informed on his accomplices, has a history of being cold and calculating, and dreams of being a millionaire.

His dreams may be ruined, but owing to this being the first offense, I grant leniency with a five month jail term.

Ouch!

 

I thought I'd perform better than this, but even after 125 cases there are still a lot of holes in my chart. The difference in punishment between first offense and repeat offenses can be very significant for some crimes, and insignificant for others.

GAB rating: Below average. It's a unique concept for sure, but in practice this just isn't very good at all. Without any guidelines to reference, you're just playing a guessing game. Of course this isn't meant to be a conventional game as much as a learning tool, but it's a missed opportunity in that regard as well. Apart from the information module, the game does nothing to discuss criminal law or any of the legal theory behind it. It will teach you that accepting bribes is a more serious crime than offering them, but doesn't foster any discussion on why.

Still, I like the idea, and there's nothing else quite like this. I'm surprised that Crime & Punishment never got revisited in the years to come - one can imagine a CD-ROM edition with interactive sentencing guidelines, gigantic databases of real-world reference cases, Encarta-like articles on legal concepts hyperlinked from the case files, and FMVs of Jack Kress pounding his gavel as he admonishes your weak justice game. I'd play it.