Stephen King's The Mist creeps into your IBM PC on October 23, 1985


Let's talk about the creeping dread that arrived on computer screens back in 1985. Not a paperback, not a VHS tape, but something new, something...digital. It was October, and the wind was starting to hum those mournful tunes it likes to play before winter truly sets in. A perfect time, you might say, for a little taste of the infernal. And infernal it was. Because that month, in '85, something slouched onto the IBM PC. Something that wasn't just based on a story; it was a story you could walk through. Or, more accurately, limp through, heart pounding, trying to figure out what hellspawn awaited you in the next room. I'm talking about The Mist.

Now, you know The Mist. Or, you should. It was a novella penned by the uber-prolific Stephen King in 1976, but only later published in two of his story collections during the 1980s, Dark Forces, and Skeleton Crew. King evolved The Mist from a simple premise: What if a monster, a really scary one, was loosed on the world while you were pushing your shopping cart along the air-conditioned aisles of Stop & Shop?

You remember David Drayton, trapped in that supermarket, the world outside dissolving into a cottony shroud filled with things that shouldn't be...couldn't be. Things with too many teeth, too many tentacles, things that made you want to pull the covers over your head and pray for the morning. Well, imagine taking that feeling, that churning pit in your stomach, and putting it right there, on your glowing green (or amber, if you were fancy) monochrome monitor.

And then, in 1985, a company called Angelsoft decided to put that monster in a box. The monster in the mist, right there on a floppy disk. A monster for your IBM PC. That's a good one, isn't it? A monster trapped inside a machine that clicks and whirs and hums, a machine you keep right there on your desk.

This wasn't some fancy thing with bells and whistles and flying pixels. No, sir. This was a text adventure. Your screen, the color of pond scum, just blinking at you. No mindbending graphics, no photorealistic monsters. Just words. A lot of words. But oh, the power of those words, folks. They painted pictures in your head that would make even the most detailed graphic rendering look like a child's crayon drawing.

You typed your commands, right? `GO NORTH`. `LOOK AROUND`. `TAKE CAN OF SOUP`. And the computer, with its cold, digital heart, would reply. "The dense mist presses against the window, obscuring everything beyond." Or maybe, "A tentacled creature with too many eyes hisses from the shadows." Your imagination filled in the blanks, and believe me, your imagination was a far more potent special effects wizard than Hollywood could ever hope to be. It took those simple descriptions and turned them into screaming nightmares that clung to the edges of your vision long after you shut down the machine.

It was a claustrophobic experience, even more so than reading the novella, because you were David Drayton. You had to make the choices. Do you try to reason with Mrs. Carmody, that cackling prophet of doom, or do you ignore her rantings and focus on survival? Do you risk the impossible journey through the parking lot, or do you stay cooped up in the supermarket, waiting for the inevitable? Every decision felt like it had the weight of a tombstone.

And the ending...well, let's just say it was true to the spirit of the original. There was no easy escape, no Hollywood conclusion where the sun breaks through and all the monsters vanish. No, this was the kind of ending that left you staring at the screen, a little bit cold, a little bit numb, wondering if you'd done the right thing. Knowing, deep down, that sometimes, as oftentimes, in the Stephen King universe, there is no right thing. Only less wrong.

So, yeah. October 1985. While some folks were listening to Wham! on their Walkmans or watching Back to the Future for the tenth time, a different kind of terror was brewing for those with an IBM PC and a taste for the truly unsettling. The Mist. It and the 90s PC adaptation of The Dark Half would prove to be rare chances for Stephen King fans to interact with his work, to become his protagonists, and bend the stories to their own will. That alone enshrines the Mist game in the annals of literary and gaming history. And I'm going to dare to state the damnable truth: the game is better than any screen adaptations of The Mist.

The Mist proved that even with just words and a blinking cursor, the darkness could find its way onto your hard drive, and into your very soul. And sometimes, that's where it hits hardest. Just don't forget: out there in the fog, it's not the monsters you gotta watch. It's us. Always us.

Location: Maine, USA

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