Game Design Origins - Game Design Essentials - page 19

FiGuRe 1.10 Spacewar! was one of the earliest games designed
for computers.

Steve Russell was inspired to create Spacewar! after reading the Lensman
series by E. E. Smith, where the hero was chased across the galaxy by villains
and had to invent new ways to outwit his pursuers during the journey. Game
designers take note: often, excellent gameplay can come from inspirations such
as novels, comics, movies, stories from the news (current and historical), and
personal experiences.
Methods for creating digital games are as varied as the types of coding used to
write them, the game engines designed and built to play them, the vast number
of gameplay styles with which the gamer can engage with them, and the many
playing systems available to run them. Some of the most popular digital games
today are The Sims, developed by Maxis; Blizzard's World of Warcraft ; Angry
Birds, developed as a mobile-phone game by Rovio Mobile; and Nintendo's Super
Mario Bros. These modern games draw on some of the earlier design concepts
of the shooter from Spacewar! Mario Bros. also involves puzzles and strategy
first encountered in Senet.
The Mario Bros. games became such a successful franchise in part because
of the motivational gameplay. As players move through the playing fields, they
can randomly hit question-mark graphics and capture extra coins. Whether
they catch the question marks or not doesn't help or hinder their ability to win
a level, but the addictive quality of wanting to capture them motivates players to
keep going after them.



spacewar! is consid-
ered the first shooter
game. shooter is a
type of gameplay
style where the goal
is to shoot down or
kill an opponent.