Evolution of Games

Early games

On January 25^th 1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann created the “cathode ray tube amusement device”. The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued this on December 14^th 1948, the machine works by you controlling knobs and buttons to manipulate a cathode ray tube beam, which was to simulate firing at a “air-borne” targets.

Then, in 1951 a man called Christopher Strachey tried to run a draughts program which he had written for the Pilot ACE; the program had exceeded the memory capacity of the machine and Strachey then went on to record his program for a machine in Manchester which had a larger memory capacity by October.

In 1958 William Higinbotham created a game using an oscilloscope – a oscilloscope is a electronic test instrument that allows observation of varying signal voltages - and an analogue computer. The game is titled “Tennis for Two”; it shows a simplified tennis court from the side and there's a gravity controlled ball that needs to be hit over the net. Players were equipped with a box shaped controller which has a knob for trajectory and a button which is for hitting the ball. It was dismantled in 1959.

Modern Recreation of the Tennis for Two controller

1960’s/1970’s

In 1959 to 1961, a collection of games were created for the TX-0 machine at MIT, there was mouse in the maze; in which you had to place maze walls and bits of cheese. After you had placed the cheese and walls you'd release the mouse. Another game was HAX, which by adjusting two switches on the console there would be various displays and sounds which could be made.

There was also Tic-Tac-Toe; where you could play a simple game of Tic-Tac-Toe against the computer using a light pen. Also in 1961 a group of students at MIT alongside Steve Russell programmed a game called Spacewar! On the latest computer at the time. Said game put two human players against each other, each were controlling a spacecraft which could fire missiles, while a star in the centre would create large hazards for both players.

Spacewar! Is credited as the first influential computer game.

Following Spacewar! There was the first simulation game created, it was a baseball simulator which worked by users picking a line-up and then could watch the results via printings by the computer. In 1966, Ralph Baer and Bill Harrison created a simple video game called Chase; this was also the first game to display on a television set.

The machine the baseball simulator ran on

They then went on to create the light gun.

Baer and Harrison were joined by Bill Rusch in 1967, and in 1968 a prototype was completed which could run several different games; It was called Brown Box. A couple of games which it could run was table tennis and target shooting. By 1969 the world's first home video game console, Magnavox Odyssey, was being shown off to manufacturers

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Also, in 1969, Programmer Ken Thompson created a game called Space Travel, in said game it simulated the movements of the solar system and you could attempt to land a space shuttle onto the planets.

In 1971, Don Daglow wrote the first interactive baseball game. Players could manage play-by-play strategy for individual games or simulate an entire season. Also in 1971 Star Trek was created by presumably Mike Mayfield, it is one of the best known and widely played titles of the 1970's. It was played on a series of small “maps” of “galactic sectors” printed on paper or on the screen. Daglow also created a Star Trek game which presented actions as a script.

The Magnavox Odyssey wasn't actually released in USA until 1972, the Odyssey used cartridges which actually contained jumpers that could enable/disable various switches inside the machine. You also had plastic overlays which you taped to the TV screen for colour, play-field and various graphics. The console even had adverts which featured Frank Sinatra in them.

In 1972 also, Gregory Yob created a hide and seek game called Hunt the Wumpus, which is a text adventure game.

Philips eventually bought Magnavox and released a different game in Europe in 1974.

Both Maze War and Spasim appeared in 1972, both being examples of early multi-player 3D First-person shooter, that was followed by an educational flight simulator called Airfight. To make Airfight more interesting to players, the players shared an airspace flying their choice of military jets which were loaded with selected fuel and weapons. This was to fufill their desire to shoot down other players' aircrafts

Maze War

In 1973, the first controversial game was created, said game was called Gotcha.

In 1975, there was an unlicensed implementation of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Although it was displayed in text, it was also the first game to use line of sight graphics. Although, it was the first ever role-playing game as the game dnd – which was also based on Dungeons & Dragons .

In 1977 Kelton Flinn and John Taylor created the first version of Air, which is a text air combat game. Air foreshadowed their later work, which is the first ever grpahical online multi-player game, it was named Air Warrior. It was an acquired taste.

Also in 1977, Atari released nine games which were designed for the holiday season. While Atari's console had a slow start, Space Invaders would become the first “killer app” and made the console the most popular of all early consoles

The games Space Invaders inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations. As well being the subject for many articles and stories.

Colour arcade games became more popular around 1979 – 1980's with the arrival of games like Pac-Man

1980’s (The “8-bit era”)

The ColecoVision appeared in 1982 with its port of Arcade game Donkey Kong included as a pack-in.

Pac-Man, which was in 1980, was the first game to be popular in a mainstream culture.

Home computers were rapidly evolving in the 1980s, and started allowing owners of the computers to program their own simple games such as clones of mainframe classics such as Star Trek and then later Space Invaders, Frogger, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. There were books of coding so that people who couldn't code could play too, and people also sold floppy discs, cassette and ROM cartridges.

Jump Bug, which was in 1981, was the first platform game to use scrolling graphics. Pac-Land, which was in 1984 took the whole scroller further and was the first to create multi-layered parallax scrolling

The most successful lightgun game was Duck hunt, which was in 1984 and came packaged with the NES.

In 1984, Karate Champ is credited for establishing and popularizing the one-on-one fight game genre. Which actually went on to influence Yie Ar Kung-Fu.

Yie Ar Kung-Fu, which was in 1985, expanded on Karate Champ by putting the player against a variety of differen opponents with different fighting styles.

Also in 1985, Super Mario Bros was born.

The Legend of Zelda came out in 1986 and helped establish the action-adventure genre, the game combined elements from different genres; such as exploration, transport puzzles, adventure-style inventory puzzles and also had an action component. The game also was an early example of open world, nonlinear gameplay and also introduced things like backup saving.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link which was in 1987, further defined and popularized the emerging action-RPG genre. Also in 1987 Final Fantasy, which had spawned it's own successful franchise, also introduced the whole side-view, turn-based battle system with the player's characters on the right and the enemies on the left.

Phantasy Star, which was also in 1987, broke the tradition which was medieval settings and sword and sorcery themes in favour for modern/futuristic settings and science fiction themes. Also in 1987, Street Fighter introduced special moves which only were found by experimenting with the game controls

Another game in 1987 was Metal Gear, Metal Gear was the first stealth game in an action-adventure framework, and it was also the first successful stealth game which spawned the Metal Gear series.

Nintendo published their first issue of Nintendo Power magazine.

In 1989, Sweet Home introduced modern staples of the survival horror genre and gameplay involved fighting horrifying creatures and solving puzzles.

In 1989/1990 the release and spread of Multi-User-Dungeon increased in popularity.

1990/2000's

In 1991, the game and also the character Sonic the Hedgehog was introduced, it gave Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis more popular and rivalled with the Mario franchise. Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most recognizable video game characters in History.

Alone in the Dark, which was in 1992, wasn't the first survival horror game but instead planted the seeds of what would become to be the survival horror genre we know today. Alone in the Dark re-tooled and de-emphasized the action-adventure style and focused more on investigation. It was also an early attempt to simulate 3D scenarios.

It was also in the 1990s that Maxis began publishing it's successful line of “Sim” games, which all began with SimCity and continued with a variety of titles.

Resident Evil, which was in 1996, was influenced by Sweet Home and used the Mansion setting and the opening door as a loading screen, it was a huge success and sold over 2 million copies and is actually considered one of the best games on the PlayStation. Also in 1996, the game Quake applied play over the internet in a First Person Shooter, and then other game genres started to offer online play too.

Bearry help.

New genres have been created since the arrival of FPS and RTS genre. Games like Grand Theft Auto, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Enter the Matrix all offer a third-person view; which also provides a lot of information too

In 1997, Final Fantasy VII was a massive success and had established the popularity of Role-playing video games. Also in 1997, Snake was installed onto mobile phones.

In 1998, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is number two on all-time GameRankings' list, and second only to another Nintendo franchise favourite.

Also in 1998, the first half-life had come out, It's gameplay influenced the design of First-Person Shooters for years after. It is also considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time, Half-Life also had been the first product of Valve software. Also, the Software Development Kit had been as a base for many multi-player mods, one being Team Fortress Classic.