The very early days of video games are very interesting from a programming perspective as well as from a design viewpoint. The Magnavox Odyssey that we looked at in class provided a lot of revolutionary features right out of the gate, like having interchangeable game cards rather than being hard-coded to play one game like the Pong machines that followed it. It was also really interesting to hear how the designers at Atari saw the Odyssey and then adapted the idea into an arcade game, which inspired many imitators in the home market that were in many ways less advanced than the Odyssey was.
I’ve always thought that it was incredibly cool how games were made with discrete logic and not processors in the early days, but was very interested to learn about some of the games we saw in class, such as the tic tac toe game, that were made entirely by hooking up wires. One famous game that was made with discrete logic was Sega’s Monaco GP, released in 1979. The game is incredibly fast for a game of its era, and featured a smoothly scrolling screen that followed the car vertically from a bird’s eye view. The game was also extremely colorful for its time. It was made with discrete logic chips, and its high score board was a set of seven segment LED numbers on the side of the cabinet, rather than something on the in-game display. One disadvantage of this approach, although clearly not known at the time, is that Monaco GP can’t be emulated due to its lack of a processor. However, the impressive gameplay action shows some of the upsides of the discrete approach with the fantastic colors and speed. For example, Space Invaders is a famous game that came out one year prior in 1978, and its black and white graphics and stationary screen are less visually impressive. That game used a processor; Monaco GP, meanwhile, was one of the last discrete logic arcade games. Technologically, this is a very interesting aspect of early video games.
From a gameplay perspective, I think that these early games collectively presented some very great opportunities and fun qualities. I think that the simplicity of these games was a very big plus, and still is today. There is often a social aspect, as many early games like Pong were for two players. There was always a competitive aspect, as two-player games offered direct head-to-head play, while one-player games often had the incentive of high scores. Players could try to best their own scores or attempt to get a higher score than their friends; playing 2-player alternating games like Ms. Pac-Man with a friend to see who can get the higher score in one playthrough is still very fun. Modern games are often a much more solitary experience — adventure games, for example, offer practically no interaction between players, as the competition is just between the player ajd the game world. I think that the simplicity of these games gives them a certain charm, and the way that they engage friends in direct friendly competition makes them a ton of fun to play even today.
CSE 40850 - Eddie Brady 