Scorch

The Mother of all Essays

The video game experience isn’t what it used to be, in fact it kind of sucks. In thinking about what was missing I kept thinking about this one game. The honest truth is I only played it for a few months. Total playtime was maybe ten hours. A minuscule amount compared to other games I love. Still, I remember it more clearly than most. Not because it was better but because of how it existed in the world at that time and place.

School was also a different experience. This was America in the mid-90s. A time that wasn’t just pre-9/11 it was pre-Columbine. A time when boys could talk about things like guns, pipe bombs, napalm, and nukes without having to talk to a guidance counselor. We were also the generation to get our hands on a new IBM compatible personal computer in the classroom. With no internet connection it was assumed to be safe to let kids take turns using the various educational programs and games by themselves or in small groups. Then one day someone smuggled in a 3.5” floppy disc with a shareware copy of Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games. To the boys of Mr. Volter’s sixth grade class it was known simply as “Scorch” after the DOS command we would type to run the program.

A game of Scorch in progress

This game still exists and is playable on any modern computer. While there are web based versions available go with DOSBOX for the closest thing to recreating those magic days huddled around a CRT monitor. Close but not at all close enough to the real thing. A player today won’t be waiting for a turn to command his monochrome pixel tank and fire off a funky bomb at a friend. Hoping that John K. doesn’t target him with his hot napalm like he did in the last round blowing up his tank before he even got a turn. Players today will search in vain. There is no way to emulate it, no compatibility layer to place the player back into a classroom with half a dozen blood thirsty boys plotting murder and mayhem while the teacher thinks they’re reading Encarta articles about ancient Egypt and the pharaoh Tutankhamen.

Here we are now on the cusp of 2025. Video games boast better graphics than ever, beyond photo realistic. Games that those boys in the mid-90s would have died for the chance to play. There’s the problem. All that immersion and the game becomes a pure fantasy. Transcending the world and existing as a singular thing. Games like Scorch were grounded in time and place. They demanded cognitive participation. They forced the player’s mind to do some of the work. In other words, You had to be there, kid.

The closing text of the shareware version. A different quote was randomly printed with each exit from the game.