Digital games history and genres The history of digital games is of course closely related to the development of computers 1958: Tennis for two The first computer game (non-digital) made for BNL-labs visitors day 1961: Space War Wedge vs.needle The first digital computer game William Higinbotham Analogue computer Vacuum tubes and relays Oscilloscope was used as monitor Not patented Magnavox won the patent later. 1
1961: Space War vector monitor 1961: Space War the creators at M.I.T 1971: Computer Space Wedge vs.needle The first arcade game ( coin-op game) 1972: Pong (Ralph Baer) The first console game Magnavox Odyssey, 1972 Also as arcade game 1972 2
Golden Age of Arcade Games 1978-1983 Golden Age of Arcade Games 1978-1983 Space Invaders (Taito) 1978 Asteroids (Atari) 1979 Pac-man (Namco) 1980 Golden Age of Arcade Games 1978-1983 "The Golden Age of Arcade Games" ends and different kinds of home systems take over Donkey Kong (Nintendo) 1981 Handheld Donkey Kong (Nintendo) 1982 The game console Nintendo NES 1985 3
Home computers (at reasonable prices) is introduced Commodore Vic 20 (1980) Apple ][ (April 1977) Apple ][ + (1979) with floppy drives and monitor Commodore 64 (1982-1993) 1975: The first Adventure Game Will Crowther programmer at BBN 20 million sold worldwide 4
1975: The first Adventure Game 1975: The first Adventure Game Will Crowther programmer at BBN Amateur cave surveyor and D&D-player Will Crowther programmer at BBN Amateur cave surveyor and D&D-player Programmed Adventure: The Colossal Cave to his daughters, 1975 Mammoth Cave, Kentucky Don Woods programmer at Stanford AI Lab Contacted Crowther 1976 via Internet: crowther@sitename and asked for permission to develop the game further. More Adventure Games follows 1980: Zork (for Apple ][) 1984-1998: Kings Quest-series (I-VIII) LucasArt's Point-and-Click games 1986: Maniac Mansion for Commodore 64 LucasArt s also did the Monkey Island-series (1990-2000) 1993-2005: The Myst-series (I-V) 2002-2004: Syberia I och II 2005: World of Warcraft Genre: Classification based on criteria that suit the form of art In all art forms, genres are vague categories with no fixed boundaries. can be divided into sub-genres Some criteria for genres of digital games: History Platform (hardware) Number of players Location (stationary games, mobile games, pervasive games) Distribution (online or not) Comprehensive goal (pastime, educational, serious games etc.) Narrative and diegetic world, Horror, Sci-Fi etc Gameplay, the player experience (most fruitful and common) Terms indicating the number of players: SP Single Player MP Multi player (2 64) MMP Massive Multi Player (64+) Two examples of genre classification http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/game_genres 5
Two categories based on what is expected of the player: Action Thinking Roger Caillois: Man, Play and Games (1958) Agôn (competition) Alea (chance) Mimicry (simulation) Ilinx (vertigo) Space Invaders (Taito) 1978 Spilbury's Classic Arcadegames Example of RETRO-gaming 6
Super Mario Sunshine (Nintendo) 2002 Donkey Kong (Nintendo) 1981 Nightdriver (Atari) 1976 Project Gotham Racing (Microsoft) 2002 7
Tennis (Activision) 1981 NHL-06 (EA Sports) 2005 Doom (Id Software) 1993 First-person Shooter (FPS) Half-Life 2 (Valve Software) 2004 First-person Shooter (FPS) 8
Counter Strike (Valve Software) 1999 First-person Shooter (FPS) Tomb Raider Legends (Eidos) 2006 Third-person Shooter (TPS) Exploding Fist (C64 1985) Dead or Alive 4 (XBox360, 2005) 9
Civilization III (Sid Meyer) 2001 Turned-based strategy Warcraft III (Blizzard) 2003 Real-time strategy (RTS) Flight simulator for Apple ][ 1983 10
The Sims (EA Games, Will Wright) 2000 Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 Kings Quest 1 (Sierra) 1984 The Sims 2 (EA Games, Will Wright) 2004 11
Maniac Mansion (LucasArts) 1986 Point-and-click game Syberia (Microids) 2002 The 1st Dungeons & Dragon game 1974 Login screen MUD 1970:s Multi-User-Dungeon/Domain 12
Ultima 1 (Richard Garriott) 1981 Ultima Online (Richard Garriott) 1997 The murder of Lord British World of Warcraft (Blizzard) 2005 MMORPG Puzzles/board games Non-digital games 13
Puzzles/board games Digital games Puzzles/board games Edutainment Flash-games online http://www.gamezarena.com/puzzle/ http://escapetheroom.blogspot.com/ http://www.aooa.co.uk/# http://www.teagames.com/ http://www.hamsterpaj.net/underhallning/ 14