Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The Brown Box
Say hello to the Odyssey by Magnavox, which debuted in 1972. For the first
time, consumers could play video games in their own homes. Ralph Baer and
his associates at Sanders Associates came up with the concept and patented the
idea (1967-68). The Odyssey was an analog system that the player could attach
directly to their TV set in order to play games.
Some of the games that the Odyssey could play were
Pong, Checkers,
and
sports games. A lightgun attachment allowed the player to target shoot, and an
additional attachment provided amusement with a golf putting game.
One of the problems associated with the Odyssey was an ill-conceived market-
ing campaign that erroneously led consumers to believe it would only run on
a Magnavox television. The Odyssey performed quite well; however, because it
didn't have any audio, all the games were silent.
Originally called
tV Game Unit #7,
the Odyssey earned
the nickname “the
Brown Box” from the
wood-grain simu-
lated self-adhesive
vinyl used to make
the prototype look
more attractive.
and now We are Digital
Exactly who created the first digital game remains a bit of a mystery. Some early
developers were interested in making games, whereas others strove to create
art, and still others used game-like technologies to explore scientific principles.
Because all this work was going on simultaneously, the identity of the person
who created the first digital game is frequently disputed.
Spacewar!,
often credited as being the first game designed for computer
use (although preceded in development by
OXO
in 1952 and
Tennis for Two
in
1958),
was created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by designers
Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, and Wayne Wiitanen. The game was played with
two spaceships, called the needle and the wedge, that navigated through star
fields and could fire a limited number of missiles. The goal of this two-player
game was to shoot each other's ships down and avoid colliding with stars.
The hugely successful game was ported to additional platforms and soon inspired
other designers to explore this innovative digital world as a canvas to create new
games. As technology increased and games became more sophisticated, gameplay
styles evolved to include adventure games, board games, platform games, card
games, role-playing games, and shooters, to name a few.
Spacewar!
is highly cred-
ited for its inspiration to later designers.
Figure 1.10 shows an excellent image of how the game appeared to players, includ-
ing the CRT device used to display the game. The first version of the game took about
200 man-hours to write. The Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-1 system
used for the game allowed multiple users to share the computer at the same time.
Video
refers to a
raster display device,
which is the way the
first electronic games
were viewed. the
term is used errone-
ously to describe
digital games today.
