Windham Classics

The Windham Classics Corporation was an American publisher ( game publisher ), which existed from 1984 to approximately 1985/86. The company's headquarters was Cambridge, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Windham Classics published computer games belonging to the genre of Adventures and based on the presentation of children's and young adult books. In addition to English versions partly Spanish versions of the game were published.

History ( 1984 to approximately 1985/86 )

Windham Classics, a subsidiary of Spinnaker Software, had the form of a U.S. corporation, so a corporation. The company was thus able to act as a legal person formally relatively independently. In fact, there was a close connection to the Mother House Spinnaker Software, founded in 1982, notably in distribution.

Windham Classics was founded in 1984 as part of the marketing strategy of Spinnaker Software to open up new market segments: While the Telarium Corporation, also a subsidiary of Spinnaker, their focus put on the target group of adult adventure gamers to Windham Classics turned to younger adventure gamers.

Content -based, the Windham Classics Adventures on children's and young adult books. Its development was partly on the basis of public domain classic texts. The Adventure Below the root based on a contemporary book and was co-developed by Zilpha Keatley Snyder the author. In order to meet the target group of younger adventure gamers the game solutions were relatively simple and the players were supported by didactic solution hints. Partial made ​​adaptations for the Spanish-speaking market. As a product manager Seth Godin was - partly together with the game developer Byron Preiss - involved in the development of the Windham Classics Adventure.

Technically, the Adventures of typical platforms of the 1980s, such as C 64, TRS -80, DOS, Atari ST, MSX and Apple II were implemented. The control was carried out via keyboard with a text parser, but also partly a joystick or mouse. The Adventures had two-dimensional, the game illustrative graphics and theme songs.

It would appear Windham Classics adventures were published only in the two fiscal years 1984 and 1985. After Windham Classics presented the business a well; further adventures were indeed planned but not published. The market for text-based adventure games gradually began to shrink at this time due to changes in the user interests; as presented eg Telarium the business in 1987 and Infocom 1989.

The Mother House Spinnaker Software Corporation was acquired by the company SoftKey 1993/94. SoftKey took over 1996 competitors The Learning Company and changed its name since then under that name. In the meantime taken over by the toy company Mattel is one of The Learning Company now a subsidiary of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to Publishing Company and publishes educational software and adventure games.

Adventure titles

1984

• Below the Root ( with Zilpha Keatley Snyder developed on the basis of their Youth Code Below the Root, 1975, from the trilogy The Green Sky)
• Swiss Family Robinson (after the children's classic The Swiss Robinson by Johann David Wyss from 1812 )

1985

• The Wizard of Oz ( by Lyman Frank Baum's classic children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the year 1900. Spanish version under the title El Mago de Oz)
• Alice in Wonderland ( by Lewis Carroll's classic children's book Alice in Wonderland from 1865 )
• Treasure Iceland ( by Robert Louis Stevenson's classic book Treasure Island youth of 1883. Spanish version under the title La Isla del Tesoro )

Announced in the preview program was the adventure Robin Hood. The title, however, was no longer published. In planning ( The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame after the children's book ), and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea were probably also the two other titles The Wind in the Willows ( based on the novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne ). They should be developed under the auspices of Byron Preiss Byron Preiss and his company Video Productions. Ultimately, these two tracks are no longer published.

Importance

In the 1980s, the Windham Classics Adventures were recognized in Games Reviews German and American computer game magazines for the quality of its graphics and texts and the target group didactic preparation.

Windham Classics Adventures were also treated in several study the history and theory of the computer game:

The example of the Swiss Family Robinson Adventures Laurene Krasny Brown lifted (1986 ) shows that the involvement of children in text adventures is stronger in the plot, as the traditional reading of stories ( "What Differs is the children's involvement in the plot. Interactive Demand's fiction children did participate participation. ").

David F. Lancy / Bernard L. Hayes ( 1988) used some of the Windham Classics games Swiss Family Robinson, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz for an empirical study. They noted that with these text adventures just such students could be well achieved, the little read otherwise.

William V. Costanzo ( 1989) called the "electronic novels" Treasure Iceland and Alice in Wonderland as examples of the computer game adaptation of classic children 's books ( "interactive versions often the classics ").

Sharon Franklin ( 1992) emphasized the example of the Swiss Family Robinson Adventures, that the imagination of children and young people will support through the combination of text, graphics and interaction.

Jimmy Maher ( 2006) compared in his study on Interactive Fiction (IF) the gameplay of Windham Classics - Treasure Adventures Iceland and Swiss Family Robinson with the ambitious literary adaptations, the sister company Telarium ( " IF games in the Telarium mode" ).

Olli Leino / Hanna Wirman / Amyris Fernandez ( 2008) found the development of the adventure game principle that to graphic adventures visual representations of the player characters were common during the transition from text adventures. As examples, among others, the characters Jim Hawkins were used in Treasure Iceland and Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. The graphic representations pursued the goal of enabling the player an easier identification with the play action.