1973: Lunar Lander
Category: Mainframe
The first version of Lunar Lander is developed for DEC GT40 graphics terminals. In this game, players have to ration a limited amount of fuel to smoothly land on the surface of the moon. Like many other firsts, this game would be followed by a long series of ports and remakes, among them an Arcade conversion by Atari in 1979.
Play it
Play the official online version of the Atari’s arcade version of Lunar Lander.
1973: Lemonade Stand
Category: Mainframe, Home Computer
The first version of Lemonade Stand is developed by Bobb Jamison at MECC. This simple economic simulation lets players run their own lemonade stand, and have to estimate how much lemonade and advertising is needed for the upcoming day. The concept is easy to learn but a lot of fun, so the game was ported to other systems countless times, achieving particular popularity as Lemonade shipped with Apple II systems. You should have no problem finding a port you can play today. Below are a few links to get you started.
Play it
- Play a Flash remake directly in your browser at Geoffry Noles’ website.
- Find downloadable copies of a very nice remake for Windows and MacOS X systems at Codenautics.
- Get the text-based BASIC remake for DOS at Home of the Underdogs.
- Download the free trial of Lemonade Tycoon, a greatly expanded remake, at Shockwave.com.
1973: Maze War
Category: Mainframe
On an Imlac PDS-1 at NASA Ames Research Center in California, the first-person shooter is invented with a game called Maze War. Initially developed just as a maze game (appropriately called Maze), the developers soon came up with the idea of connecting multiple computers together so more people can explore the maze at the same time, and subsequently the idea of allowing players to shoot each other, resulting in the first FPS deathmatch mode – including a frag counter.
Links
- Read more about the history of Maze War and its further development in the excellent Wikipedia article.
- See DigiBarn’s website on the 30th anniversary of the game.
- Get a 99ยข remake for your iPhone or iPod Touch.
1972: Atari Pong
Category: Arcade
Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari in 1972 and started designing and manufacturing their own videogames. Deeming the planned racing game to be too hard a task for the moment, their first engineer, Allan Alcorn, is assigned to create a simple ping-pong game – the resulting Pong is the first commercially successful videogame and started the first videogame boom, which is why it is often mistaken to be the first videogame ever.
Play it
If you actually don’t know what Pong plays like, Pong.at gives a good idea.
The best simulator is probably DICE, the Discrete Integrated Circuit Emulator. Don’t worry about the technical name, playing is just a matter of “click and go”. Press 5 to insert a coin (1 to push start if required). Right player uses cursor keys, left player uses WSAD. You can download precompiled Windows (32-bit) binaries, or the source-code. The project is based on SDL.
The History of Pong
1972: Magnavox Odyssey
Category: Home Console
This year, Magnavox finally produces a commercial version of Ralph Baer’s TV game vision, which he started designing in 1966, and the idea of which actually reaches back to 1951. The game is only a moderate success as people weren’t yet sure what a TV game console was about, and Magnavox did not know how to market and sell one. But there is no doubt that this console started the home videogame business all on its own.
The console did not contain a microprocessor but was built from discrete logic parts. The game could actually play a number of different games through plug-in cartridges, however these did not contain ROM chips but simple jumper-like wire connections, that would configure the components in the console itself in a different way, resulting in a different behaviour of the on-screen elements. Most games were played in conjunction with some of the plentiful accessories that came with the game, classic material such as cards or game boards. Overlays to be put on the TV provided colour and graphics. That’s why the Odyssey was really only part of the actual games, and they could not really be enjoyed without all the rules and accessories.
Play it
The console’s discrete logic nature means that it cannot be emulated on a computer. There is one simulator, which also contains all cartridge configurations. Although you cannot really play the games without the game rules, overlays, and accessories, the program is almost perfect in its simulation of the actual console.
Download ODYEMU
1973 Odyssey TV Commercial
Links
1972 Computer Games
Category: Mainframe
Star Trek
One year after Mike Mayfield, Don Daglow too writes his own, unlicensed Star Trek-themed text game. Studying playwriting, his version of course tells the action through dialogues with the Enterprise’s crew members. The game was written on a DEC PDP-10 and copied via the DECUS user group, which Don Daglow would only find out about after suddenly receiving fan mail at his dorm.
Play “Star Trek”
The source code to this is out there somewhere, as is a pre-compiled binary for Windows. However, I have not found a public download site for it. If you know one, please post it in the comments section. Thanks!
Hunt the Wumpus
Inspired by other early hide-and-seek computer games (Wikipedia mentions the titles Hurkle, Mugwump, and Snark), Gregory Yob writes his own called Hunt the Wumpus, also on a DEC PDP-10. Players have to track down and kill the Wumpus within a labyrinth shaped like a dodecahedron. Given the how the game is played, laid out, and the responses it gives, it is often called the first text adventure game.
Play “Hunt the Wumpus”
Hints on playing: Ever played Minesweeper? This game is not much different. Move around in the maze and use the information you get to deduce what neighbouring rooms hold, and ultimately where the Wumpus is so you can shoot him with your arrow. Once you enter a room with a pit or the Wumpus, it’s already too late and the game is over – just like tripping a mine in Minesweeper.
- Play Hunt the Wumpus in your browser!
- Another quite faithful online version at iFiction.org.
- This page offers scans of the Creative Computing magazine with background info on the game, a sample output, and the complete source code.
- Same thing for Wumpus 2.
- TatsuSoft has a faithful remake of the graphical TI-99/4A version.
- A very cool graphical version is also available for Java (play in browser applet or download) at Dream Codex.
- If you have Linux, you might want to try Be the Wumpus, an experimental game where you, as the Wumpus, try to eat adventurers that come into your cave, relying only on sound for navigation (it’s dark in the cave!)
- ‘wump‘ is the Linux remake of Hunt the Wumpus.
- There’s also a Mac remake, although I didn’t test it.
