''Island of Kesmai'' was an early commercial online game in the multi-user dungeon (MUD) genre, innovative in its use of roguelike pseudo-graphics. It is considered a major forerunner of modern massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs).

Launch date

In the summer of 1980 University of Virginia classmates John Taylor and

Kelton Flinn Kelton Flinn is an American computer game designer who is a major pioneer in online games. He is a co-founder (with his University of Virginia classmate John Taylor) of the seminal online game company Kesmai, which they began in 1982. His be ...

wrote ''Dungeons of Kesmai'', a six player game inspired by '' Dungeons & Dragons'' which used Roguelike

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

graphics. They founded the Kesmai company in 1982 and in 1985 an enhanced version of ''Dungeons of Kesmai'', ''Island of Kesmai'', was launched on

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

. Later, its 2-D graphical descendant '' Legends of Kesmai'' was launched on

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...

in 1996. The games were retired commercially in 2000.

Price to play

The game was available on

for no additional charge. However, CompuServe charged $6 per hour for 300

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or $12 per hour for 1200

access rates. The game processed one command every 10 seconds, which equates to 1 cents per command. Players could also order an optional 181-page game manual from Compuserve for $16.50.

Game characteristics

After logging into Compuserve and selecting to play ''Island of Kesmai'', the user was allowed to create a character. After creating a character, the next step was to enter the

chat room The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from r ...

. From the chat room, the user could enter the

virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

. The game interface was two dimensional and scrolled unless you downloaded and installed a GUI. The interface has often been called roguelike in that it borrowed features of game-play from a game called '' Rogue''. The game used a

Dungeons and Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). ...

-like turn-based play. Players moved in tiles on a grid utilizing short commands or key presses. Items could be found on the floor of the dungeon as symbols — as could mobs to fight. One of the notable game play systems was the ability to perform quests for various rewards. These choreographed progressions represented some of the first online questing systems which would become a significant aspect of the wildly popular future

MMORPGs A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

such as '' EverQuest'' and ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

''.

Setting

The Island of Kesmai was divided into five regions that totalled 62,000 discrete locations, was populated by 2500 creatures and non-player characters, and could support up to 100 simultaneous players. In 1988, with many players approaching the maximum character level, the new lands of Torii and Annwn were introduced. Promotional material promised "more powerful weapons, tougher monsters, and a variety of treasures." Players could only travel to those lands when they had reached the Island's maximum character level, and once they had travelled to the new regions, they could never return to the Island.

''Legends of Kesmai''

''Legends of Kesmai'' (LOK) was among the first successful graphical multi-player online role-playing games. It was based on a slightly stripped down version of ''Island of Kesmai'' with 2D sprites replacing ''IoK'''s roguelike pseudo-graphics, and was available for play at

America Online AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

and GameStorm. Prior to that, Kesmai corporation ran a long open beta for the game, as well as hosting the game for a short period of time in the mid 1990s. In 1999 Electronic Arts bought Kesmai and in 2000 closed the business.

Reception

Patricia Fitzgibbons reviewed the game for ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'', and stated that "Even telegamers who have become jaded with D&D-type programs perk up when they're adventuring with a party of real people. The best MP games allow players to interact and cooperate as well as compete with one another. IOK is a prime example of this facility." In the December 1987 edition of '' Dragon'' (Issue 128), Cheryl Peterson gave an in-depth examination of the game, noting it could be used by "anyone with a personal computer and a modem" and that it was unique at that point in time due to "the interaction between players." She also noted that this was a game where "there is no real winner in any session. The point is for players to enjoy themselves and have fun."

References

{{Authority control 1985 video games CompuServe Roguelike video games Role-playing video games MUD games Multiplayer online games Video games developed in the United States Video games set on fictional islands