Through the Looking Glass

Alice moves about the board in real time while attempting to capture the computer's pieces, while at the same time avoiding the computer's attempts to capturing her. To increase the skill level, Alice's moves are increasingly limited, while the computer increases the number of players it actively moves. The game was re-released for iOS on the 25th anniversary of the Mac's release.

• Title — Through the Looking Glass • Developer — Steve Capps • Publisher — Apple • Released — 1984 • Genre — Strategy • Modes — Single player • Platforms — Apple Macintosh, iOS

In the fall of 1981, Steve Capps was a core member of the Lisa team working on printer support. In his spare time, he wrote Alice on the Lisa and started demonstrating the game to members of the team. Bruce Daniels, manager of the Lisa software team, demoed the game to Andy Hertzfeld and other members of the Mac team. They were impressed, and Daniels suggested that a Mac port would be possible if the Mac team lent him a prototype to use for porting. Two days later, Capps returned with a working version. It soon became a favorite among the Mac team. Joanna Hoffman became particularly good at it and complained that it was too easy. Capps changed several parts of the game to make it increasingly challenging. Steve Jobs saw the game and was duly impressed. He soon started agitating for Capps to join the Mac team, but as a key member of the Lisa team, this was not possible. Jobs eventually arranged a deal that Capps could move after the Lisa was released, which occurred in January, 1983. Capps became a key member of the Mac team, working on the Finder team and producing several pieces of early software, including the "Guided Tour" diskette that shipped with early machines. He continued making improvements to the game throughout this period as well. Several variations of the basic game appeared, including one where squares of the board would randomly disappear. This version was shown in the attract mode display for the game. By the fall of 1983, Capps was looking for routes to release the game commercially. The recently formed Electronic Arts was explored, but Jobs convinced Capps that Apple would do a better job of it. The game was featured during the release of the Mac in the spring of 1984. However, while progressing to commercial release, they discovered that the name "Alice" was being used by a database management program, so the name was changed to Through the Looking Glass. Although not the first Mac game—the first Macintosh shipped with Puzzle, a built-in Desk Accessory —Through the Looking Glass remains the only game ever written and published directly by Apple, as opposed to the many games it resells. Apple was fighting the perception that the Mac was not a serious computer, and downplayed the game-playing aspects of the machine.

For the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Mac, in 2009 Capps re-released the game as AliceX for iOS on the iTunes Store. The new version includes several different sets of pieces and other options. A simplified version written in JavaScript is available on Capps' web site, onedoto.