Before entering the computer security industry, Cluley achieved notoriety for two
interactive fiction PC games:
Jacaranda Jim (1987) and
Humbug (1990). Both games were independently distributed as
shareware, with Cluley advertising in computer magazines and sending them out on 3½ and 5¼-inch disks. As an incentive, tips and maps were sent out to players who had sent in their registration fees. Both were praised as "shareware masterpieces" in
PC Review. Cluley later entered his games into the public domain, and they are now available for download or in-browser play from his website.
Jacaranda Jim Cluley wrote
Jacaranda Jim while studying computing at
Guildford College of Technology. He began developing the game in 1987, borrowing liberally from an earlier unreleased game named
Herbie. The game "took about 6 months to write, and was finished by April 1988". The game, which was written in Pascal, was then ported to the PC platform with the help of Alex Bull, another student at Guildford. A sequel called ''The Case of Spindle's Crotchet'' was planned and partially completed, but never released. Some of the content from this game, including "a lot of ideas and jokes," were included in Cluley's next game,
Humbug. A quite extensive review of
Humbug was written in 2018 by Joe Pranevich on
The Adventure Gamer. Pranevich noted that the game has "more charm than it has any right to have," but that "it's also quite difficult".
Later games Cluley went on to produce two graphical games: a Tetris clone called
Blox (1990) and a Pacman-based game called
Wibbling Wilf (1991). == References ==