Knapsack Problem, The

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs

GAME DESIGNER:Leonard Richardson
GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware
GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware
Copyright 2001, Leonard Richardson

A fun Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style entrant in the LOTECHComp, although its essentially just a clever implementation of a logic puzzle. As Mark Silcox points out, The Knapsack Problem is …a dressed-up optimization problem rather than a game in any strict sense, this one nonetheless has its charm. You have to figure out how to fit as many objects of different weights into a traditional IF-ers finite inventory repository without getting stuck in the Djinni’s cave. I’m afraid I did so very, very many problems of this sort in high school math that I couldn’t be bothered to fiddle with my tally of objects for very long, but I still ran the file a good half-dozen times just to watch the game generate random but highly funny names for each of its heavy artifacts. Playing this for a while would be a good way to “warm up” before starting out on a Graham Nelson game, maybe. Recommended if you enjoy IF games with a strong bent on mathematical logic (like The Magic Toyshop), or want to see an original use of CYOA format. I liked it for the 10 minutes that it lasted, but its certainly not for everyone — especially if you hate math.