"It was a link to the (now defunct) website. "In 1998 or 1999, my brother sent me an email that said 'Hey, remember that Drug Wars program you wrote? Check this out,'" Dell told. For 15 years, Dell had completely forgotten about the game until a relative alerted him to its cult status. Officer Hardass represents the entire police force – but you can kill him for cash.ĭell created the game for a high school project he got an A but his teacher was unimpressed with the game's R-rated content. Like any IRL drugs market, the value of a substance fluctuates depending on demand and whether a high level dealer's been busted. The premise of Drug Wars is simple: you start the game in debt to a loan shark and you have to negotiate your way around New York buying and selling drugs (speed, weed, coke, quaaludes) in order to pay him back. Crucial to success is keeping on top of trade, as in knowing when to sell and buy. It may not possess the sprawling landscape of GTA and you might not be able to watch a sunset cruising in a stolen Ferrari, but the ethos of both is similar: crime pays. In 1983, Californian high schooler John E Dell wrote a program called Drug Wars, an MS-DOS game which now feels like the 80s precursor to contemporary video game behemoths like Grand Theft Auto. ![]() The games that languish on school computer systems rarely set pulses racing, but in the early 2000s my schoolfriends and I found a game that looked so decidedly unimpressive its retroism only served to exaggerate its thrilling underworld content and gangster gameplay.
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