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First conquest in a long time...
Posted by: olePigeon on 2019-01-30 08:14:46
Just got an unopened (still shrinkwrapped) copy of Through the Looking Glass.

This is going on my Very Special Shelf. 🙂

I'm not sure I want to even open it.  It's so pretty. |)

Posted by: olePigeon on 2019-01-30 08:18:29
Oops, forgot pics.
Posted by: pcamen on 2019-01-30 08:50:31
You know, years ago I bought one of those too, for, a lot as I recall.  Now, I'm struggling to remember what makes this game so important, especially when a disk image is available online.  Mine was (is still I think) shrink wrapped too.  I see them for sale on eBay for quite a bit. 
Posted by: EvilCapitalist on 2019-01-30 09:04:01
I think the "special" factor comes from the fact that it's the only game both written and published by Apple.
Posted by: olePigeon on 2019-01-30 11:05:07
I believe they did a handful of Apple II titles, but it's certainly the only classic Macintosh game ever written and published by them.
Posted by: Dog Cow on 2019-01-30 12:29:23
but it's certainly the only classic Macintosh game ever written and published by them.
No, the Puzzle desk accessory was the first game written and published by Apple for Macintosh, and its inclusion on the System disk was controversial. See the Folklore blog, or Revolution in the Valley.
Posted by: olePigeon on 2019-01-30 12:59:53
According to Folklore, it was apart of the OS as a desk accessory.  It wasn't a game that was written and published to be sold.  Wikipedia makes that distinction as well.  Through the Looking Glass wasn't the first game, but it's the first game to be written and published by Apple as a game.
Posted by: Dog Cow on 2019-01-30 20:40:52
According to Folklore, it was apart of the OS as a desk accessory. 
I read that article before. The Puzzle

It says, in part 

This made some of the Macintosh marketing folks a bit leery about the more whimsical aspects of the design, and the puzzle, being an actual game, became somewhat controversial.


It wasn't a game that was written and published to be sold. 
It was a game, and it was published, and it was sold. It was bundled on the System disk that was sold as part of the Macintosh package.

Through the Looking Glass was a stand-alone game written by Steve Capps and published by Apple.
Posted by: PB145B on 2019-01-30 21:35:27
Great score! That’s super cool.

I’ll have to see if I can find a disk image of it and see what it’s like 🙂  
Posted by: Crutch on 2019-01-31 04:50:33
I love Through the Looking Glass.  It’s beautifully designed and the graphics are just slightly creepy enough to be fascinating.  The perspective chessboard on a completely black background with no other visible UI really pops on the small screen.  I remember seeing it running on ‘84 Macs being demoed at the computer section of my local department store as a kid (Marshall Field’s growing up here in Chicago ... weird to think they sold computers, but they did, in the ‘80s).  Maybe for that reason, in my mind it’s the archetype Mac game.  (The Puzzle is fun too, though 🙂 )

It’s still a fun game, but the speed is processor-dependent, and both of my Mac Pluses have accelerators, so it runs too fast to play properly, though on the slowest setting it’s barely winnable (nice that Capps had the foresight to include a speed control slider).  I can’t get it to run when I boot from my HD 20 running 6.0.8, so I have to start up from the Alice floppy, which I actually rather enjoy (that’s how it was meant to be played after all).  Probably due to the System version, that floppy won’t boot on my SE/30 with 32-bit clean ROMs (sad Mac) so I can’t run it on that machine (obviously it would be way too fast, anyway).  Sometime soon I will try it on the unmodified Fat Mac I have still boxed up (inspired to pick that up by your excellent blog, @Dog Cow!), I think it will be perfect.
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