There was a time before Doom and before the first consoles took over living rooms. Microsoft was working on the very first version of Windows, and if anything, most people had a Commodore 64 at home. Computer games were often still simple, and text-based adventure games were very popular – ‘Ferret’ is one of them.
This is what you can expect from Ferret: The adventure game falls into the Interactive Fiction genre. This means that you can influence the gameplay narrative through written commands. Mostly, simple inputs like ‘tell me more’ or ‘take the keys’ are sufficient. When you start the game, your character wakes up in a dark room after spending years in cryo-sleep. Your body is heavy, and you begin to search for an exit. In a post-apocalyptic world, you must explore your new surroundings. There are many secrets to discover and puzzles to solve. You need to find out if you are the only survivors – a classic adventure. If that sounds too old-fashioned to you, there are now adventure games written by an AI while you play them.
Here you can watch the launch trailer of Toem, a picture-based adventure game:
40 Years of Development
Ferret is a very extensive game: Overall, you can explore 1,785 rooms and interact with thousands of objects. You control the game with over 400 words or phrases. Ferret impresses with its humor and attention to detail: If you make a wrong decision, the game describes in great detail how a laser drone vaporizes your skull.
Why was the game in development for so long? The first version of Ferret was developed in 1982 for the Data General Nova, a 16-bit mini-computer. Games like Wing Commander, Doom, or Tomb Raider were still far away. At this time, graphics processors were not really widespread, games were mostly played in arcade halls.
Who was actually responsible for the development remains unknown to this day. What is certain is that the developers worked at Data General (via computerhistory.org) in the UK at that time. The company no longer exists.
A first free PC version of Ferret was released in 2009. In August 2022, the final version of the game was published. So between the first and the last version of the game, there are an impressive 40 years! Thus, Ferret can boast with the record for the longest development time of a video game.
How can one get the game? If you want to try Ferret for yourself, you can download it for free. However, the regular version might be flagged by your antivirus software since files are moved to protected directories. Fortunately, blogger Jason Dyer (via bluerenga.blog) has created a version where these issues do not occur – you can find it here on his blog.
Are you a fan of retro and arcade games? Then check this out: The first commercially successful game is already 50 years old – do you know it?
