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ColecoVision
Action: Donkey Kong
Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto created a global sensation with his revolutionary game, Donkey Kong. Whimsical and colorful, the game presents an intrepid carpenter, Jumpman, who must scale a building site to rescue a damsel in distress held captive by his malevolent pet ape, Donkey Kong.
Limited colors and resolution forced design choices in the creation of Jumpman that established the iconic look of the character, who later became famous as Mario. The designer gave him a simple cap, because hair was difficult to render, and carpenter's overalls to create a contrast between his arms and body.
One of the character's most distinctive features evolved from the need to define the space between his nose and mouth. Leaving out a few pixels from under his nose revealed the black background and gave Jumpman, or Mario, his thick black mustache.
Target: Zaxxon
Video game consoles were incapable of producing 3D graphics in the early 1980s.
To achieve this illusion, designers skewed the perspective of objects to give an appearance of depth -- and made convincing claims to have added a "new dimension" to video games.
In Zaxxon, you fly through a space station and deep space, avoiding obstacles and destroying enemy fighters in your path.
The ship appears to be moving back and forth across the surface of the space station than rather just up and down the screen.
Adventure: Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
In Pitfall II, designer David Crane expanded the world of the original game and introduced new mechanics into the action adventure genre.
The same character, Pitfall Harry, now faces flying, crawling, hopping, and swimming enemies on his quest for gold.
Crane added several new elements to create a more dynamic experience for the player. Vertical scrolling allows the player to traverse a multi-level maze in four directions and explore new environments.
Checkpoints allow players to save their progress through the underground labyrinth.
The musical soundtrack responds to the action on the screen, encouraging the player by echoing their achievements… and bemoaning their setbacks.
All these developments advanced the storytelling capacity of video games.
Tactics: Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
To the triumphant Star Trek theme, you take the controls of the Starship Enterprise in this Strategic Operations Simulator.
Designed by Sam Palahnuk, the objective of this game is to fend off attacks and protect your starbases.
By the early 1980s, the television series Star Trek already had a huge following, and this game allowed players to enter the world they had seen on TV and in films.
The multiple-view display mimics the deck of the Starship Enterprise.
The bottom of the screen displays a first-person perspective of the action, while the main area shows a top-down strategic display.
This unique approach allowed for rapid, continuous gameplay despite the console's limited processing power.
Players determine their position while navigating this 3D environment by using an altitude meter and the shadow of the spaceship -- an added element of realism to this early flight simulator. |