# Talk:Marienbad (video game)

This does not sound like a video game, as CRTs were not used back then, but more like a computer game.  How was the output presented? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:09, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@PresN:, given your amazing work on Early mainframe games, perhaps this article is of some interest to you?--Coin945 (talk) 02:37, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Somehow I missed this? Yes, this should get a mention in Early mainframe games, as well as early history of video games. --PresN 01:38, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
Pinging Indrian to this article on the off chance that you've ever heard of it; seems like it's not anything special on it's own merits for the time or influence on video game history (even within Poland), but mainly notable because it was in Poland rather than the US or UK. I think I'll try to expand it if I can, though Polish sources aren't my usual. --PresN 01:56, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, nim was pretty common in this time period, between 1950 and 1965 it showed up on computers in Norway, Sweden, Australia, France, the Netherlands, and no doubt several other countries.  It was also not the second instance after Nimrod, with the Norwegian, Swedish, and Australian iterations all appearing in the 1950s (I removed this claim from the article, but was accidentally not logged in).  Singling this game out in any other context but the history of the Polish industry specifically would be giving it undue weight. Indrian (talk) 19:25, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
That was my mistake regarding Marienbad being the second adaption of Nim. It was taken from a secondary source, who - I believe - took their citation from the video gaming book Bajty polskie  (I am unable to read the original source, so used this secondary source). If you have more information on these other early Nim games I can research them. At the moment Early mainframe games has undue weight to the Anglosphere (USA/Canada/UK), so adding a bit of multiculturalism might be nice. :)--Coin945 (talk) 00:39, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
@PresN:, I've done a lot of the legwork by translating all the Polish sources and shoving the info into the article. You're welcome to take another stab at it. Could use a copyedit or two. Don't worry about an edit war. I'm done with it for now. :)--Coin945 (talk) 04:03, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Bartholomew Noodle Mariusz Rozwadowski. The first Polish game . "CD-Action". 10/2011, p. 96. Bauer Publishing. ISSN 1426-2916 ( English ).
--> @PresN: I emailed the source to you.
Start - History of Polish Games # 1 youtube video
The history of Polish computer games episode 1 - Marienbad, Web master
Well, can't understand the 2 youtube sources, so that's out for now; the magazine article appears to be a rework of that section of Kluska's book, which is also used in other sources; I'll see if I can OCR and translate it for use. --PresN 21:31, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Since the forum post you emailed me is blacklisted- the 2 pages are: [1] [2]
Okay, added the CD-Action page. Turns out there's online OCR tools now that are pretty good at converting images to text even with all the non-English characters, though it got confused by the column layouts in spots. --PresN 03:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Here is the original description of the game in Przekrój's archive: [3]. I am not fluent in Wiki editing and do not know all the rules. Is it worth adding it as a source?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:470:71:103F:5C0:A0B0:567A:257 (talk) 14:12, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! I've added it as a source to the section where it describes that article as being an inspiration. --PresN 20:50, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on the terminology, but it somehow feels wrong to call it a "video game", if it had no video output (you had to play it via a teletypewriter and card perforator). Wouldn't "computer game" be more accurate? — Kpalion(talk) 09:21, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Agreed; I've made it more clear in the article, though I'm still thinking about whether to move the article to (computer game) or not. --PresN 02:23, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm hesitant on 3 sources currently in the article- #4 (https://www.blog-wajkomp.pl), #11 (https://tomiga.wordpress.com), and #19 (http://www.polskie-gry.net), all 3 of which appear to be blogs. Upon closer inspection, wajkomp is a small Polish laptop/accessory dealer, and the articles are all written by G. Shamot as 'Admin2017'; they're mostly product reviews of the stuff they sell, plus computer history blog articles. I don't think this blog is an RS; I can't prove individual contributor reliability for Shamot and the store isn't helping in that regard either. Tomiga is the personal blog of Tomasz Samczuk; as far as I can tell he's just some IT professional who has a blog on film and games. Not an RS. Polskie Gry... is an enigma. No author names, no about page, not even posting dates, just looks like a wordpress site with small articles on polish games writen by... someone. I don't think this is an RS either. I'm going to pull all 3 sources; none of them are referencing much, thankfully. I still have a few sources to integrate (listed above, also the see also section of the article) and some polishing to go. --PresN 21:04, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Did a bit more of an internet dig. Haven't properly vetted these get but they look interesting: --Coin945 (talk) 14:48, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

http://czytelnia.frse.org.pl/media/jows_01_2014_0.pdf
http://www.komputerswiat.pl/gamezilla/publicystyka/2012/11/inwazja-tektury-i-plastiku-o-przenikaniu-sie-planszowek-i-gier-komputerowych
https://steemit.com/strimi/@zenfil/strimi-pierwsza-polska-gra-komputerowa-bya-nie-do-przejcia-maszyna-zawsze-wygrywaa-20180511t120524439z
https://www.pcformat.pl/Polskie-technologie,a,4613
https://www.gram.pl/artykul/2011/12/12/bajty-polskie-kluska-i-rozwadowski-recenzja-ksiazki.shtml
https://issuu.com/kwartalnik_horyzonty/docs/horyzonty_04
http://dspace.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11089/22818/Kamil-Jędrasiak-Gracz-jako-model-uczestnika-współczesnej-kultury-dysertacja-doktorska-UŁ-2017-v.1.1.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=n
https://napograniczu.net/nie-tylko-wiedzmin-historia-polskich-gier-komputerowych/
https://www.ppe.pl/blog/42079/7549/czy-to-jest-polska-gra.html
http://www.sukcesmagazyn.pl/artykul/1252756.html
https://steemkr.com/strimi/@zenfil/strimi-pierwsza-polska-gra-komputerowa-bya-nie-do-przejcia-maszyna-zawsze-wygrywaa-20180511t120524439z

This review is transcluded from Talk:Marienbad (video game)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 19:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Early video game history by PresN? That must mean I am doing the GA review! Indrian (talk) 19:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Haha, it is traditional. In the interest of clear disclosure (though you already know this), this one is a co-nomination with Coin945‎, who did his usual impressive job of finding obscure and non-English sources and writing them up. --PresN 20:25, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I was out of town last week, but will have this reviewed shortly. Indrian (talk) 00:26, 31 July 2018 (UTC)


### Lead
Is Mr. Witold Podgórski notable enough that he should really have his own article, and even if he is are there enough English-language sources to provide one?  If yes, that's fine; I just want to make sure the red link is justified.
I don't think so; his notability is entirely for this game, as far as I can tell. Delinked.
"and an ancestor of the modern Polish video gaming industry" - I know some of the sources go there, but is this really a supportable statement or just mere puffery?  It seems to me from the minuscule distribution that it had there is no direct line between this game and any future developments in Polish games.  I would go so far to say that not even a solid indirect line exists.  Its okay to keep the mention in the legacy section since its a quote from a scholar, but it seems like something to leave out of the lead.
It's puffery; it's summarizing statements from an RS but that was puffery too. Maybe "precursor" would be more accurate, but that's just another way to say first. Dropped.


### Gameplay
"The game allowed for a single player" - The game could only be played by a single human, right (or at least a single human side, I mean technically an unlimited number of people could take the side against the computer)?  Therefore, we need a better limiter here, as "allowed" does not on its own identify the game as exclusively one player.
Agreed, reworded.


### Development
Having first heard about the existence of "electronic brains" in 1955 - Do our sources say where or how he first learned about them?  If not, its no big deal.
The quote is "My contact with IT began in 1955 in high school. Hearing about the existence of "electronic brains", I designed a binary doubler on the relays and I chose the Communications Department as the field of study. This name, based on the USSR, was later changed to Electronics." ("Mój kontakt z informatyką rozpoczął się w roku 1955 w szkole średniej. Słysząc o istnieniu „mózgów elektronowych” zaprojektowałem sumator dwójkowy na przekaźnikach i za kierunek studiów obrałem Wydział Łączności. Ta wzorowana na ZSRR nazwa, została później zmieniona na Elektronikę.") So I've added the high school bit, as it's relevant to note that he was young, not an older guy who went back for a masters, but he didn't way how he learned about computers.


### Legacy
"Garda's paper claims, however, that regardless of its simplicity the game has importance as one of one the earliest computer or video games that did not come from the United States" - I would leave this out as its really badly inaccurate.  The five earliest known digital computer game implementations, Bertie the Brain (1950), Nimrod (1951), Dietrich Prinz's "mate-in-two" chess program (1951), Christopher Strachey's draughts program (1952), and A.S. Douglas's tic-tac-toe program (1952) were all developed in either the United Kingdom or Canada.  Swedish, Norwegian, and Australian computers also hosted nim variants in the 1950s.  The claim just does not hold up to scrutiny.
Agreed, I've changed it to "first in the region", but that's stretching the source a bit so if you're not cool with that I can drop it altogether.
And that's it.  Relatively minor issues here, so I'll go ahead and put this review  On hold as these concerns are addressed. Indrian (talk) 19:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

@Indrian: Alright, responded inline and addressed all your points. Thanks for reviewing! --PresN 02:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
@Indrian: ping. --PresN 02:43, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Everything looks good.  Promoting.  Indrian (talk) 13:41, 10 August 2018 (UTC)