Wander

Wander
Developer	Peter Langston
Publisher	https://github.com/shmup/wander
Platforms	C, cross-platform
Released	1973-1984
Added to Museum	August 23, 2019

Wander is a scripting language for creating text adventure games that was first created by Peter Langston in 1973. He continued working on it until 1984.

Versions

Peter Langston created the first version of Wander in HP Time-Shared BASIC, likely on an HP 2000. He converted to the C programming language in 1974. It was released it on a mainframe running UNIX V5 at Harvard University in 1974. In 1980, it was released on a PSL Games collection for Unix.

Release

It was thought lost until an interactive fiction enthusiast, with the handle "ant", contacted Peter Langston in 2015. The 1980 version of the Wander game creation system was discovered in an e-mail archive by Lou Katz, but it only contained a version of Colossal Cave Adventure partially converted to Wander. The entire 1980 version was discovered when Doug Merrit found the files included with the PSL Games collection. A 1984 version was also discovered and, as that version was said to be easier to compile than previous versions, it was used to make Wander able to compile on modern systems.

Games created with Wander

Title	Developer	Release	Added to museum	Notes
A3	Peter Langston, Nat Howard	1977	August 23, 2019
Castle	Peter Langston	1974	August 23, 2019
Colossal Cave Adventure	Peter Langston	1981	August 25, 2019	Partial conversion
Library	Nat Howard	1978	August 23, 2019
Tut	Peter Langston	1978	August 23, 2019