The Weapon (game)
play-by-mail space exploration game
The Weapon is a closed-ended, science fiction, play-by-mail (PBM) game.
History and development
Dan Ealy designed the game to run on the Apple II. Memory limitations restricted game design. Ealy aimed for game complexity between Starweb and Empyrean Challenge. The game had medium complexity. Mark Brown programmed the game for ten months prior to playtest beginning in September 1982, taking more than six times longer than initially estimated. Playtesting began in August 1983 with 15 players from Indiana, and Ealy offered the game for play in May 1984.
The game was initially published by 4Sight. By 1988 it was published by Fantastic Simulations.
Gameplay
The Weapon was a science fiction PBM game of space conquest. It was closed-ended and computer moderated.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Weapon (game)” is play-by-mail space exploration game. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Weapon, game and play-by-mail, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “play-by-mail space exploration game” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q116701309. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1988.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Weapon (game)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Weapon (game) primary sources, The Weapon (game) archive and Weapon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Weapon (game)”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Weapon (game)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.