Money Munchers

From the December 1982 issue of Creative Computing

The Company

Datamost was founded in 1981 by David Gordon in Chatsworth, California. Gordon had previously started Programma International in the late 1970s. Programma International was one of the first companies to produce software for the new personal computer industry. When Hayden Publishing bought Programma International in 1981, Gordon started Datamost.

Datamost produced both games and computer books for the Apple ][, Commodore 64, Atari, and IBM PC.

The books published by Datamost include:

• How to Program the Apple II Using 6502 Assembly Language

• How to Write an Apple Program

• p-Source (A Guide to the Apple Pascal System)

• Games Apples Play

• The Elementary Commodore-64

• Inside Commodore DOS

• Programming for profit

• The Apple Almanac

You can find a complete list of Datamost books here.

The Creator

Before we continue talking about the game, I want to take a quick detour to talk about its creator, Bob Bishop. Bishop had an interesting career path. He worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Apollo 17, the last mission to the moon. He wrote several games for the Apple ][, including Rocket Pilot, Saucer Invasion, and Space Maze. Bishop also wrote Apple-Vision, which demonstrated the ability of the Apple ][ to create simple animation. He also created AppleTalker, which was the first program to create human speech on the Apple ][.

During this time, Bishop caught the attention of Atari, who offered him a job in October of 1978. Bishop turned down the offer, but Atari offered him a better salary. Bishop accepted the offer, then got a call from Apple. He met with Steve Wozniak and Michael Scott and was offered a better salary and stock options. In December of 1978, Bishop became Apple employee #187.

At Apple, Bishop was given the freedom to work on anything he wanted. He worked on speech recognition and synthesis. He spent some time on the Apple III project. Together, he and Woz created the Apple R&D department. In 1981, Bishop and half of the Apple ][ team were fired by CEO Michael Scott. A day after, he was called by someone at Apple offering him his job back without stock options. Bishop declined and started working for Datamost.

For more info on Bob Bishop, read this article.

Main screen of Money Munchers

The Game

Money Munchers was released by Datamost in 1982. According to Wikipedia, the following the goal of the game was for the player to:

guide a small figure through a randomly generated maze, picking up the dollar signs and avoiding the deadly "Money Munchers": creatures that attempt devour the money before you can collect it. The goal is to clear each level of money to advance to the next. The second level adds deadly spiders, while the third adds snakes.

I found a review for the game in the February 1983 issue of Creative Computing. It was mixed with several other games for the Apple ][. They start the section on Money Muncher by saying: “When we first got Money munchers, some of us were heard to mutter, "Not another maze game." When the mutterers went away, our play-testing panel was left with the game. Soon after, they were heard to say, "No, it is not just another maze game."“

After describing the gameplay, the reviewer concluded by saying: “The game is quite insulting if you don't get more than $50 or $60 on the first board. However, once you accumulate $400, you get encouraging messages between boards or upon elimination of your player. You are also rewarded with a delightful graphic between screens, but don't let it lure you into a sense of complacency because the next screen will be faster and more challenging.”

Unfortunately, I could not find a video of gameplay. However, you can try Money Munchers for yourself on Archive.org.

Did you (or anyone you know) ever own Money Munchers? Let us know how it was in the comments.

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