Gaming : Golden Age of Arcade Video Games

Golden Age of Arcade Video Games

The Golden Age of Arcade Video Games is the definition of the peak era in arcade video game popularity and technological innovation. The exact time period is debated but most sources place it around the late 1970's and early 1980's which lasted til the mid 1980's

Overview

During that period in time the arcade technology was quite sophisticated, enough to provide good quality of graphics and sounds but it was still basic. For the arcade game to be successful it had to rely on game play. The emphasis on the game play is one of the reasons why someone today can still enjoy playing them.

Business

During this time arcades started to appear all over North America and Japan. They where found in all sorts of places, supermarkets, liquor stores, gas stations and other retail establishments who where looking for some extra income. The most Popular games caused a teenagers to flock to these locations depending whether their favorite game is there or not.

Technology

When arcade games started to get momentum in in the late 1970's with games such as Gee Bee and Galaxian. The CPU in these machines where able to allow more complexity to be developed into them. This age saw developers experementing with new hardware and started to use vector displays over the conventional raster display  but vector technology saw a decline due to the  high cost of repairs.

Most popular games during this period

1978

Space Invaders

1979

Asteroids
Galaxian
Lunar Lander

1980

Battlezone
Berzerk
Centipede
Defender
Missile Command
Pac-Man
Star Castle
Tempest
Warlords
Wizard of Wor

1981

Donkey Kong
Frogger
Galaga
Ms. Pac-Man
Qix
Vanguard

1982

Burgertime
Dig Dug
Joust
Moon Patrol
Pole Position
Q*bert
Robotron: 2084
Time Pilot
Tron
Xevious
Zaxxon

1983

Dragon's Lair
Elevator Action
Mario Bros.
Spy Hunter
Star Wars
Tapper

1989

Final Fight

1991

Stree

The end of the era 

New generations of home computers and game consoles struck a blow to the arcade gaming scene Which saw a steady decilne in its comunity.  The arcade scene still exists today but at a fraction of what it once was, there are arcade games best of modern day consoles such as the Sony PlayStation 2, NintendoGameCube (Triforce), and Microsoft Xbox

Gaming : The Video Game Crash

 The Video Game Crash

In 1977 companies that produced game consoles had left the market, even those who managed to survive this crash lost countless millions in money. Some did manage to survive , Atari, Coleco, Magnavox and APF. All of these companies made their way to the top with the "Pong" consoles that only played dedicated video games.  During 1972 and 1977 dedicated consoles where advancing in specs, from having discretionary circuits that only displayed lines and dots to using microprocessors and ROM's so games could display sprites.

What caused the crash of 1977?

Consumers where looking for the next big thing in technology yet the companies failed to provide.  The gaming industry was invested in out of date technologies that pushed this sector forward like the Atari 2600 ( 6 years old ). When people looked for the next gen of consoles none where to be found so people gradually lost interest and looked to other areas for entertainment.

Companies had countless models of the practically the same thing and since the beginning of the generation no massive improvements where ever made, The hardware was expensive to make and the price was too high for the consumer to afford. This led to the decline in purchases, to compensate companies started to reduce the prices which gradually fell below the production costs.

This led to the Bankruptcy of many companies. It knocked the first game console out of the marking, the Magnavox. Even some of the newer consoles to the generation didn't stand a chance, and the launching of several game consoles where cancelled, also the introduction of the Micro processor helped push the consoles of the market.

In the end the overpopulation of consoled in the market had happened and none of the companies had anything new to offer.

Gaming : Donkey Kong (Second Gen)

 Donkey Kong

Boxart For NES Version

Game Details :

Developer Nintendo
Publisher Nintendo
Director Shigeru Miyamoto
Producer Gunpei Yokoi
Composer Yukio Kaneoka

Series Donkey Kong, Mario

Platform Arcade, various

Release date
July 9, 1981

Genre Platforming
Mode Single-player, multiplayer

Flier for the Game

Game Information : 

Donkey Kong is an arcade game released by Nintendo in 1981. It is one of the earlies forms of platform games genre . The main character was called Mario who was originally called Jumpman, has to save a damsel from Donkey Kong. These two characters later became two of the most popular characters in video game history. This game is one of the most important titles from the Golden Age of video Arcade Games and is also generally known as the one of the most popular games of all time. This was one of the first games to provide A GUI as previous first gen graphics where still in the process of creating forms and shapes that you would be able to manipulate.

Plot :

Donky Kong the infamous villain in this series kidnaps Mario's girlfriend Pauline. The player must then help Mario rescue her.

Gameplay : 

The player has to jump over obsticles, gaps and even approaching enemies. This is layed out over four seperate stages. Winning the game has its challanges, the player has to have a key level of patience and the ability to time jumps perfectly to reach the top and win the level. 

The game also provides a scoring system, points are awarded for finishing a stage, jumping over obsticles, destroying objects with the hammer power up. Points are also awarded for picking up items like hats,purses and also for compleating other tasks. The player starts with 3 lives and awarded a bonus at 7.000 points. 

Devided into four stages, each shows Donkey Kong at a different level of which he has climbed. Each stage adds another length of play are where Donkey Kong has climbed thus giving more area of which Mario has to climb.

Nes Version of Donkey Kong 

A black Background showing pink ( in this case ) platforms and ladders, seperating them from all other objects. beige cookies are the obstacles in game. A brown Ape like being can be found at the top which in fact is Donkey Kong. Pauline and Mario have a little more details showing more life like colours and physical appearance.

Atari 2600 Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong Series to Date

Donkey Kong Country 

Donkey Kong Country

Platform

SNES,
Game Boy Color,
Game Boy Advance,
Virtual Console

13 years later since the original Donkey Kong has come along way improving bot visually and game play wise. The technological advances allowed this to happen opening diverse ways of how the series can be carried out.

SNES Donkey Kong Country - Jungle Hijinks

Donkey Kong Country : Tropical Freeze

Tropical Freeze

Platform 

Wii U

Wii U - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze E3 Trailer

Gaming : The Black Onyx (Third Gen)

The Black Onyx

Box cover

Game Details : 

Developer : Henk Rogers
Publisher : Bullet-Proof Software
Designer : Henk Rogers
Artist :  Rieko Kodama
Platform : Game Boy Color, MSX,Famicom, PC-6001,PC-8801, PC-9801,SG-1000

Release date :

PC-8801

JP 1984
MSX
JP 1985
Famicom
JP July 14, 1988

Genre :  Role-playing game
Mode :  Single-player

Game Information

This game was one of the most influential games to be released in Japan, created by Henk Rogers an American living in Japan. This game introduced a new kind of genre to the country, RPG  (Role Playing Game) and is considered to be an inspiration to many great grames such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. The game could only utilize 15 fixed colours and only two can be mixed in the same 8x8 pixel tile due to the limitations of the SG-1000.

Plot 

A town called Utsuro is Engulbed in darkness and it is up to the player to form a party of heroes to tavel into dungeons to find the legendary Black Onyx. This will rid the darkness by breaking the curse and thus bringing light back into their light.

Gameplay

The players have the opportunity to create  a party that is limited to 5 members. The caves are found hidden in locations throughout the town. Once the player enters the cave he will have to face a 6 leveled dungeon which are colour coded. To progress thorough the game these dungeons must be won in a specific order. When the order is correct the player will find the black Onyx.

Only Melee combat can be found in the game because there is no dept/distance measured in the game. players can travel to the town to deposit money and upgrade items and heal themselves.

Expansions

Due to the limited amount of memory Expansions where created to further split the games and allow more features.

The Fire Crystal - Added a magic system to the game
The Moonstone - Added a wilderness exploration feature to the game
Arena - Added an Arena battle feature to the game.

Main Menu

This is where the player can choose several options to manage his warriors or continue to progress the game. Due to the limited colours there is too much blue which can be found in the background the floor the text and the walls. The text at least was visible.

Character creation

It gave you the ability to create custom warriors an let you select from a large ammount of hairstyles and a few cloathing options . These choices don't matter that much as they will be covered when armor is worn. With the black background it was easier to bring out all the items needed to be shown.

Dungeon/Town interface

To the top left you have the names of your warriors and the ammount of life each one has. Underneath you have two boxes on displaying your warriors and the other displaying who you are interacting with, being the npc's or the enemies 

Underneath that you will find a description of the action being chosen  in this case its the purchasing of a horned helm. In this box you will also find the battle logs when fighting an enemy. 

The bottom box holds the types of inputs you can enter to manage yourself at the specific location. The top right holds a visual representation of the town/dungeon you are moving through. 

[PC-88] The Black Onyx (1984) (BPS) [Translation]

Gaming : Sega SG-1000 (Third Gen)

Sega SG-1000

Technical Specifications

CPU: NEC 780C (clone of Zilog Z80)
3.579545MHz for NTSC, 3.546893MHz for PAL

Main RAM: 8 Kbits (1 KB)

VRAM: 128 Kbits (16 KB)

Sound: Texas Instruments SN76489
4 channel mono sound
3 sound generators, 4 octaves each, 1 white noise generator

Screen resolution: 256x192 (16 colors)

Ports:
1 Cartridge
1 RF output
1 joystick port (for player two, the first player's joystick is connected internally)
1 expansion port (compatible with the SK-1100 keyboard)

Graphical Changes : 

This console could display 32 sprites at any time on screen and also had a colour count of 16 and also having a resolution of 256×192 resolution. It had a little more resolution and also provided 8 more colours that the artist could work with from the previous generation.

History

The SG-1000 is a video game console utilizing cartridges for games. It was manufactured by Sega and was released 1983. It marked Sega's first steps into the video game console industry. The console initially did not provide that much success but its value lay in the experience gathered for future systems. 2 Million consoles where sold world wide. 

Nintendo Famicom

The console was held back from the beginning because it was going to be released on the same date as the Nintendo Famicon, so it had to be released on a later date. It had some support from Konami but the console was abandoned in 1985 with a few later releases the last being The black Onyx in 1987. 






The SG-1000 did have some competitors through its lifespan, Epoch,Tomy,Takara,Bandai,Casio and Nichibutsu. These where all systems which fell into oblivion with the major success of the Famicon. The SG-1000 though not the best successful console managed to fare better than the rest of these consoles but never manged to stay on top of the console market, this might be credited to the exclusive arcade games brought to the system. Another thing that set this console backward was its computer counter part, The SG-3000 which contained all the features and more making the console a little redundant. 

Dina 2 in one 

The original console was also released in New Zealand where it was distributed under the name Grandstand. the console never reached North America or any other part of the world though the dina 2 in one SG-1000 compatible was released in the US by Telegames. With this being said the SG-1000 was the worst performing video game console in terms of units sold though the company still profited from it .




In July 1984 Sega had released another version of the console, marking it as the SG-1000 II which had hardware changes, the rear expansion port was moved to the front and changed the controllers to to have a similar appearance to that of the Famicon. This version was only known to be released outside of Japan in Taiwan where it was distributed by Aaronix

Othello Multivision

There where several clones of the SG-1000, one being the Othello multivision form the licensed game manifacture Tsukuda Original. The plan was to focus more on creating a computer game standard which allowed companies to focus more on games rather than hardware. Another was The Dina 2 in one which was produced bu Bit Corp which was likly to be produced without a licence. This console had the ability to run Coleco Vision games and was distributed in North America by Telegames under the name Telegames Personal Arcade. The SG-1000 was also released in "module" form as the Pioneer TV Video Game Pack SD-G5.

All forms of these consoles failed to win the marked Sega was aiming for, this lead to the creation of the Sega Mark III, They improved on the video hardware and increased the RAM. This system would later be the starting point of the Sega Master System. These two consoles are backward compatible with the SG-1000.

Commercials 

References 

Wikipedia. 2015. SG-1000. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SG-1000. [Accessed 23 April 15].

SegaRetro. 2015. SG-1000. [ONLINE] Available at: http://segaretro.org/SG-1000. [Accessed 23 April 15].

Video Console Game Library. 2015. SG-1000. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg80-sg1000.htm#page=reviews. [Accessed 23 April 15].

Gaming : atari 2600 (Seconed Gen)

Atari 2600

Technical Specifications

Processor: 6507 (I slightly stripped down version of the 6502)
Speed: 1.19Mhz

RAM: 128 bytes

ROM: 4K Cartridge ROM space without bankswitching

Sound: TIA custom Atari graphics/sound chip.Graphics: TIA custom Atari graphics/sound chip

Graphics RAM: None

Colors: 128

Sprites: 2, 8 bit wide; 2, 3, 1 bit wide; All sprites full screen height

Background Graphics: 40 pixels wide by 192 lines high.

I/O: Joystick and console switch IO handled byte 6532 RIOT and TIA

Ports:

2 Joystick ports

1 Cartridge port, Power in

RF output

Graphical Changes : 

This generation of gaming provided the first sustainable user interface that the youser could interact and understand. As technology was still early in development it was still basic and had limited functions.

History

The Atari 2600 was initially called the Atari VCS which was considered to be be the the godfather of today's video game systems which lead to the creation of a multi-million dollar industry. This console sold over 30 million copies and as any company could create games for it hundreds of millions of games where also sold during the course of 3 decades and dominate the industry.

During the crash of 1977 where many consoles and companies where falling off the market the Atari 2600 managed to emerge unscathed  and had strong sales in 1978. In the years to come competition was getting harder, with the introductuion of the Mattel Intellivision and the Magnavox Odessey 2

Boxing Game

In 1980 Atari needed to snuff out competition with one blow, they found it by creating a home version of Space invaders, a Japanese game. Space invaders was so popular on the market people flocked to by the console in order to play the game from the comfort of their own homes. Also in 1980 4 employees who where fed up of the working conditions of Atari split from the company to create their own, Activision. Activision initially released 4 games : Boxing, Checkers, Fishing Derby, Dragster. They met well with the public even though Atari was trying to drop their sales as much as possible, also these games showed that much better games where being produced for the console which where not created at Atari. With this Atari decided to allow third party companies to manufacture games for the Atari 2600 in exchange for royalty.

With this declaration many companies where sprouting out of nowhere to try and take part in the success of this console. Such companies where Venturevison, Spectravision, Tigervision and many others. Financially successful for Atari though it wasn't for long after, quality titles where still being produced though a lot of other games where being rushed to try and squeeze out every cent from the industry. In 1983 another crash was imminent, many of these companies dropped of the earth. Atari also had a shock during this period . The console had now dropped to the price of $40-50 from the original $199.99. 

In 1986 Atari had decided to introduce the 7800 to the market .These where mentioned briefly during the crash though none where released during that time. The 7800 was backwards compatible with the entire library of Atari, Also the Atari 2600 was re introduced as the 2600 Jr . It was redesigned and having the same abilities only to have a new marketing campaign. It was still sold for less than $50. It saw a Boom in sales once again in 1987 but brief. The time of the Atari 2600 was over. The Atari 2600 is the only console to hold the longest history and hold to most sales of its system in the industry

Atari 2600 Jr

AtariAge. 1998. Atari 2600 History. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.atariage.com/2600/.

[Accessed 08 April 15].

Gaming : Tennis for two (First Gen)

What was the first video Game?

Key Figures:

William Higinbotham

Date of Birth : October 25, 1910

Date of Death : November 10, 1994 (84)

Nationality : American







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Higinbotham

Tennis for Two

Tennis for Two "Console"

Digging through the pages of video game history one can stumble upon what most people call the first game ever created. It was a very simple game yet ground breaking for its time. Tennis for two it was called, created by William Higginbotham. A physicist who was one of the people who worked on the Manhattan project. It was completed  on October 18th 1958 long before any other official video game was ever released, long before the famous Pong game that was released November 29, 1972. One might notice how pong relates to tennis for two in terms of game play though they are both quite different, showing progression from one technological innovation to another.

Tennis for two is the one of the first games to feature the graphical display. One of the reasons this game was invented was to make visitors day at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York more interesting, this event was generally very boring but with the implementation of this game some records say that people were lining outside the doors waiting for a chance to look at and play this game. Looking at this game from modern day perspective one might giggle at the this statement but that period in time, this truly innovative project caught the attention of scores of people making one realize what a major impact this was to the industry at the time.

How did it work ?

The mind behind tennis for two was generated by a small analog computer, an instruction book of the computer described how it generates curves on the cathode ray tube of an oscilloscope by using resistors, capacitors and relays. Examples in the book showed trajectories of bullets, missiles and a bouncing ball which where all subjected to gravity and wind resistance. Seeing the example of the ball Higginbottom was reminded of a tennis game which lead to the idea of tennis for two.

Higginbottom used four of the computer's operational amplifiers to generate the ball's motion and the other six where used to sense when the ball hit the ground or net, which in turn switched control to the other person on the other side of the "court". To display all objects on screen at once it was a must to time-share these functions.

“The real innovation in this game is the use of those ‘new-fangled’ germanium transistors that were just becoming commercially available in the late 1950s,” said Peter Takacs of Brookhaven Lab’s Instrumentation Division, who is currently working to rebuild a playable Tennis for Two. “Higinbotham used the transistors to build a fast-switching circuit that would take the three outputs from the computer and display them alternately on the oscilloscope screen at a ‘blazing’ fast speed of 36 Hertz. At that display rate, the eye sees the ball, the net, and the court as one image, rather than as three separate images.”

When tennis for two was first introduced in 1958 it was displayed on a 5 inch in diameter oscilloscope. Later in 1959 the game was improved upon, increasing the screen size between 10 and 17 and also providing several new options on how to play the game, such as tennis on the moon(low gravity) or tennis on jupiter (High Gravity).

Was it actually the first Game?

Some people speculate on wether it was the first game due to pre existing machines. such were :

1940s: Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device

The game was a missile simulator inspired by radar displays from World War II.

1952: OXO - "Noughts and Crosses"

OXO was a computer-programmed version of "Tic-Tac-Toe", created for an EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) computer.

The Original Video Game

First Video Game?

Where to download a similar free version of the game : 

http://www.gamersquarter.com/tennisfortwo/

References

pongmuseum. 2015. The First "Electronic" Game Ever Made?. [ONLINE] Available at:http://pongmuseum.com/history/FirstElectronicGameEverMade.php. [Accessed 02 March 15].

Brookhaven. 2015. The First Video Game?. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.bnl.gov/about/history/firstvideo.php. [Accessed 02 March 15].

MLAB. 2015. Digging into Tennis for Two. [ONLINE] Available at: http://maker.uvic.ca/tennis/. [Accessed 02 March 15].

gamersquarter. 2015. Tennis For Two. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.gamersquarter.com/tennisfortwo/. [Accessed 02 March 15].

Wikipedia. 2015. Tennis for Two. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two. [Accessed 02 March 15].