William Wobbler

William Wobbler was written for the Commodore 64 in 1985 by Antony Crowther, one of the most famous British programmers of the eight-bit era, and released through Wizard Developments, the label he had co-founded at the time. That alone earns it a look — and then there is the competition, which people still talk about today.

On paper it is a platform adventure: you guide William through a sprawling network of caverns, hunting for ten hidden pieces of a puzzle. Barriers and riddles block the way, demanding the right objects used in the right order, and the game explains almost nothing. Wandering, experimenting and dying are part of the basic equipment, and a notebook full of maps and theories is not a luxury here but a survival tool.

Now, the competition. The game shipped with a second, "competition" disk. Whoever finished the game was to save a file onto it and post it to the publisher; the first correct entry would win a prize. The punchline is perfect: the prize was never claimed, and no definitive solution is publicly known to this day — the author himself confirmed years later that a winner never appeared.

Even with the benefit of distance, it is fair to say William Wobbler is more stubborn than fun. The puzzles are cryptic, feedback is minimal, and many steps defy ordinary logic. As an artefact, though, it is fascinating: a commercial game that nobody can prove was ever honestly completed sits in a category of its own.

You can try to be the first — it runs on oldgame.cz straight in your browser, with no installation.