My earliest PC gaming reminiscences are haunted by a shipwrecked sailor, caught on a desert island. For the longest time I couldn’t keep in mind who this specter of my gaming previous was. His bedraggled look and amusing antics—constructing sand castles and feuding with a seagull that needed to take a seat on his hat—didn’t belong to the primary degree of the unique Duke Nukem (which I by no means received previous), or every other childhood favorites. Not Chopper Commando, not Lighthouse: the Darkish Being, and never Quest for Glory.
Display screen financial savings
Possibly the strangest factor in regards to the screensaver period is how expensive among the hottest packs had been. After Darkish 1.0 for DOS was a hefty $50 in 1993, although it did embody 27 less complicated screensavers. In the meantime, Johnny Castaway and its intelligent improvements was going for $35, placing display savers at roughly the identical value as your common new video video games—again then or now.
This thriller sailor remained shipwrecked in my mind, and after years of ignoring him, I lastly devoted myself to unraveling the thriller on a gradual afternoon: His title was Johnny Castaway, and he wasn’t truly from a sport in any respect, however as an alternative a screensaver launched in 1992 by Sierra On-Line.
Screensavers are practically forgotten at present. Older avid gamers could fondly keep in mind flying toasters and tangled lots of colourful pipes, however trendy shows haven’t any want to forestall burn-in like now-obsolete plasma and CRT displays. However Johnny Castaway didn’t share a lot in frequent with the standard ’90s screensaver.
When it was launched in 1992, Johnny Castaway marketed itself as “the world’s first storytelling screensaver” and the outline was apt. Caught on a tiny desert island with a single coconut tree, Johnny was a bearded man in battered shorts and a sea captain’s hat. Each time the screensaver would begin, you’ll get a glimpse into Johnny’s ongoing predicament, watching as he climbed his tree for coconuts, tried to begin a fireplace, and failed at combating off a seagull.
Different screensavers had performed one thing vaguely much like what Johnny Castaway did, just like the ‘Thriller’ module from the After Darkish screensaver assortment which confirmed varied ‘spooky’ scenes at a haunted home. However no different screensaver got here near the narrative and presentation of Johnny Castaway, which blends smaller randomized scenes with bigger story segments and a day/evening cycle based mostly on the system clock. Johnny’s tales had been amusing and low stakes—falling in love with a mermaid, making an attempt to construct a raft, or sleeping by means of potential rescues—however they made me need to come again.
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Whereas I had no management over what Johnny would do, the best way the storytelling was slowly fed to me morphed Johnny Castaway right into a sport in my younger thoughts. I “performed” it by discovering methods to sneak in to catch what Johnny was as much as on my dad’s state-of-the-art Home windows 3.1 laptop computer. I by no means knew what number of scenes there have been or what I would missed, and that uncertainty sparked my creativeness
Johnny Castaway narrowly predated an entire swath of innovation in digital companions. Digital (or desktop) pets grew to have correct gameplay and embody much more than a lonely shipwrecked man, with the Petz video games releasing in 1995, adopted by Tamagotchi changing into an enormous fad in 1996 and 1997. The net-based Neopets adopted. Quasi-spyware Bonzi Buddy, Clippy the Microsoft Workplace assistant, and The Sims franchise all have roots on the planet of digital pets. Most of them had been way more advanced than Sierra’s, so why was the less complicated Johnny Castaway caught in my head?
Beneficial every day shipwrecks
After discovering my white whale, I found that Johnny Castaway was nonetheless surprisingly common. I needed to put in this computing relic once more to revisit it, however I figured a 16-bit screensaver launched in 1992 had about as a lot probability of working on my trendy 64-bit set up of Home windows 10 as poor Johnny did of escaping his island. However followers have discovered a workaround, and Johnny Castaway has a preconfigured set up that launches it inside DOSBox and allows you to choose it as a screensaver, even on 64-bit Home windows. They rescued Johnny after which dumped him proper again on the identical island, however stranded in a extra trendy sea.
Beneath: Another digital pets from the ’90s
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Johnny Castaway’s producer Jeff Tunnell was requested in regards to the screensaver’s longevity in 2022 and posted the Q&A on his web site, whereby even he appeared stunned. “I by no means anticipated Johnny Castaway to turn into the underground cult hit that it turned,” he wrote. “In fact, you all the time need a product to achieve success, and JC was. The one shock was how lengthy it lasted.”
In some ways, Johnny Castaway is a working gag with just one notice. He tries to do one thing—whether or not fishing or escaping the island—and fails at it. However Johnny Castaway understands the key to success of a working gag shouldn’t be within the gag itself, however within the issues that assist it.
Gilligan’s Island revolved across the difficulties in being stranded on a tiny island. For 3 seasons, the forged would attempt to fail to flee, and the humor was within the more and more foolish ways in which their plans would fail and the absurd nature of their existence, proper right down to the coconut radios. The truth that Johnny by no means escaped was a core characteristic of his story, identical to Gilligan and crew.
My glimpses into Johnny’s world had been all the time stolen: A couple of minutes whereas my dad performed dominoes together with his associates or whereas he went to get the mail. As soon as I confirmed it to some associates, and we gathered across the laptop computer display, basking within the glow of the 16 customary Home windows colours whereas a bizarre little digital man angrily stomped on his sand fortress.
Johnny Castaway caught with me as a result of my thoughts was compelled into creativity: I imagined an entire sport, an entire world, round my shipwrecked pal. I have to not be the one one, as a result of the pioneering desktop companion continues to be alive, in that 64-bit port of the unique screensaver, a disassembled model you possibly can run in your browser, and even his very personal Workforce Fortress 2 spray. Know-how could have moved on, however Johnny’s all the time proper the place he ought to be: on his island, making an attempt to woo a mermaid onto shore for dinner.
