Early games
On January
25th
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 14th
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.
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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.
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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
.
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
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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.
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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.