So I have to confess: I felt a little underwhelmed by the original game The Prisoner (1980). You may wish to read my rundown on that game first.
David Mullich’s work might be one of the most famous Apple II games of 1980 — insofar as Apple II games from that year could get famous — but I found it too janky and difficult to control to really get the experience the author was hoping. Some of this was certainly intentional: the premise has you on an Island trying to escape, with a confusing array of events trying to pry out the reason why you resigned from your top-secret job (rendered in-game as a three-digit code).
I absolutely admire the high concept of having a secret that the game then tries its best to pull out of you. I still can’t think of anything quite like it, and it meshes perfectly with the medium; that is, despite the game being based on a TV show, it does something the TV show could never accomplish.
Just like how I could admire the method of defeating the dragon in Crowther/Woods conceptually while decrying the actual effect in real gameplay, the same happened here: I just had so little congruence with what was going on the end result was more me admiring the meta-structure of the thing rather than getting any Art out of it. I can understand, given the scale being tipped heavily to Craft over Art in this era, lingering for while; additionally the person of Mullich himself is intriguing biographically, and he went on to work on important games like I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream and Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines.
All this might be moot, because Mullich had a second shot at the same material with Prisoner 2; not the earliest “remake” because you have to count, say, graphics getting added to Goblins, but certainly early. The original was a combination of text and ASCII art coded off-the-cuff in BASIC; this game instead is rendered in attractive Apple II graphics, looking like something that might come out of On-Line Systems were it not for the heavy social awareness and nightmare scenario.
Just like the original you have to navigate out of an initial maze…
…and then try to escape, visiting 30 building sites in the process. But while I’ve run across at least one activity that is identical, the buildings have a much different feel and I expect some activities are different.
Also, the original solution of just walking in to the Caretaker and telling him you’re playing a computer game doesn’t work.
I originally planned to play this simultaneously with the first Prisoner game, being informed it was essentially the same game with graphics, but I discovered quite quickly it was different enough it needed its own posts. That doesn’t mean my playthrough here will necessarily be long — and I can already tell there is some identical content — but I do like having another swing at the universe with some of the rough edges removed. Maybe it will go better this time. (Are the rough edges what made it Art, though?)
I’ll report back at my efforts to get into all the buildings next time. At least some of them don’t let you in at all (which I don’t remember happening much in the original!)
Renga in Blue 
I’m super excited to read about this one.
My dad “owned” both Prisoners (pirated from the local Apple users group, of course). I remember both games were incredibly mysterious and compelling to me. It was never apparent (as an 8 year old playing this in 1982 without any documentation) that this was a remake marketed as a sequel. I’ll be very curious to learn now, all these years later, if the sequel ends up being yet another meta art experience which explains the coexistence of these two games. Bonus points if the graphics of the sequel ends up being an LSD hallucination and the game ends by reverting back to the original ASCII art game. Be seeing you.
Looking forward to what you come up with! I just read your P1 walkthrough a few weeks ago, was a little sad you hadn’t done P2 (which was the one I played, back in the day.)
the advantage of reading in real time is a blog is interactive so you can say stuff (I mean, you can say stuff about the Prisoner 1 posts, but I was unlikely to boot the game up again at that moment)
I might get horribly stuck and ask for help, even!
(I’m stuck but not ready to ask for help yet)
Not sure I can help much— I’m surprised by how little I remember from your descriptions. I spotted one building you have mentioned requires a higher score or more money to “work”, but you’ve guessed as much already.
(My brother also played it, and may remember something.)