The Sumerian Game
1964 · Strategy · IBM 7090
Overview
The Sumerian Game was an early text-based strategy video game of land and resource management. It was developed as part of a joint research project between the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Westchester County, New York, and IBM in 1964–1966 for investigation of the use of computer-based simulations in schools. It was designed by Mabel Addis, then a fourth-grade teacher, and programmed by William McKay for the IBM 7090 time-shared mainframe computer.
Deep Dive
The Sumerian Game was an early text-based strategy video game of land and resource management. It was developed as part of a joint research project between the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Westchester County, New York, and IBM in 1964–1966 for investigation of the use of computer-based simulations in schools. It was designed by Mabel Addis, then a fourth-grade teacher, and programmed by William McKay for the IBM 7090 time-shared mainframe computer. The first version of the game was played by a group of 30 sixth-grade students in 1964, and a revised version featuring refocused gameplay and added narrative and audiovisual elements was played by a second group of students in 1966.
Developer Story
The Sumerian Game was created in 1964 by Mabel Addis, a school teacher, and William McKay, an IBM programmer, as an educational tool for sixth-grade students in Westchester County, New York. It is one of the earliest known educational computer games and one of the first games designed for children. Addis wrote the narrative and game design; McKay implemented it on an IBM 7090 mainframe. The project was funded by the Board of Cooperative Educational Services.
Did You Know?
- The Sumerian Game is considered one of the earliest known computer role-playing and strategy games, predating the commercial game industry by over a decade.
- Players managed grain supplies, population, and land in ancient Sumeria — economic simulation concepts that resurfaced in M.U.L.E., Civilization, and countless strategy games.
- It was played by typing commands on a teletype machine connected to a mainframe, with the computer printing responses in plain English.
- Mabel Addis was one of the first women to design a video game, doing so before the term "video game" even existed.
- The game later inspired Hamurabi (1968) and its many derivatives, making it an indirect ancestor of the entire resource management genre.
