1960s-1970s Games That Were Innovative and/or Ahead of Their Time (Misc. Platforms)
1964:
The Sumerian Game (IBM 1050 terminal connected to a time-shared IBM 7090 mainframe computer and a slide projector) - Edutainment; http://www.acriticalhit.com/sumerian-game-most-important-video-game-youve-never-heard/
Late 1960s: Minesweeper or an earlier variant on it (which in turn is based on Cube and Rlogic) - Puzzle, TD view; Commercially released in 1989 when it was bundled with Windows
Electro-mechanical arcade games:
Periscope (1966) - First arcade game with quarter play
Duck Hunt (1968) - First arcade game with video projection display (precursor to arcade video games)
Missile (1969) - First game with joystick controls
1968:
Hamurabi (PDP8, 1968/PC, 1973) - Text-based TBS/Proto-Building & Management Sim
-Resource management (people, acres of land, bushels of grain - can feed your people or plant more)
-Buy or sell land in exchange for grain
-Advisor NPC (reports status of the city, including the prior year's harvest and change in population, followed by a series of questions as to how many bushels of grain to spend on land, seeds, and feeding the people)
-Random land price and bushel amount generation for each round
-Chance of a plague each year/round
-Turn limit (10 rounds/years)
-Basic ranking system in the 1973 version with titles handed out at the end of a game
1970:
Game of Life (PC?, 1970) - Basic Life Sim/Interactive Art
Electro-mechanical arcade games:
Jet Rocket (1970) - Earliest first-person shooting flight sim with non-linear open map, free-roaming shooter, proto-open world
1972:
Hunt the Wumpus (TI-99/4A, 1972) - Precursor to Rogue/Maze/Horror
1973:
Pong Doubles (1973) & Leader (1973) - Table Tennis, 4-player vs
-Ricocheting ball physics
Maze War (1973) - FPS w/ convincing wireframe 3D using 2D graphics, Semi-tile based movement?; Map feature, death animations
Gotcha (ARC, 1973) - Pong/Maze hybrid, 2-player vs (goal is to chase the other player), Single screen; Constantly changing level layout
Lemonade Stand (1973) - Shop management Sim, Turn-based
1974:
Wild Gunman (ARC, 1974) - Light Gun Shooter, First FMV Game
Balloon Gun (1974) - earliest arcade video game with first-person shooting and analog stick (positional gun)
Speed Race (ARC, 1974) - Racing (against the clock), Top Down View; First vertical scrolling game, opponent cars, basic crashes (if you touch an opponent)
Basketball/TV Basketball (ARC, 1974) - Basketball Sim/Pong variation
-Human avatars
-Rudimentary "jumping"
Tank (1974) - Arena Combat, TD view, 2-player vs.; Mines, non-destructible walls
Spasim (1974) - MMO Space Flight/Combat Sim, Wireframe 3D, FP view, Trading
1975:
Indy 800 (ARC) - Racing, TD View, Single Screen, 8-Player vs. (!)
Western Gun/Gun Fight (ARC, 1975) - Free-Roaming Shooter, 2-player vs., Top Down View
"combined action gameplay with an open-world adventure environment", "It was the first on-foot shooter, the first on-foot multi-directional shooter, introduced human combat, was the first open-world video game, and the first action/adventure video game. It was also the first tactical shooter, with elements of real-time strategy/tactics."
-Codex Gamicus, https://gamicus.gamepedia.com/Western_Gun
-Dual stick/twin stick controls
-8-way movement
-Ricocheting bullets
-Some destructible obstacles
-Two different versions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Fight
Interceptor (ARC, 1975) - Flight Combat Sim, FP View; First multi-directional scrolling game, first sprite scaling game?
Dungeon (1975 or 1976), pedit5 (1975), dnd (1975) - First RPG games, Rogue-like/Dungeon Crawler precursors, TD view
-Quarter and half turns+time limited turns (one turn is about 3 mins long)
-Character creation (name, 5 character stats (strength, intelligence, constitution, dexterity, hit points)) - can also choose between 15 pre-made chars
-16 spells (magical: sleep, charm, light, magic missile, esp, speed, invisibility, blastbolt; clerical: cure, detect evil, protection from evil, pray, serious cure, hold person, continual light, dispel myth)
-Random encounters (every fourth turn) and some spells that affect their rate
-Can break through doors
-Some hidden doors which you have a 1/6 chance to discover when passing by them
-Can only escape from monsters in corridors (based on level)
-Can only level up by leaving the dungeon (treasure brought out of it also yields exp)
moria (1975) - One of the first RPG games (Dungeon Crawler), FP view
1976:
Colossal Cave Adventure (PDP-10, 1976/PC, ) - First text adventure and work of interactive fiction, Collectarthon/Treasure hunt (5 treasures)
-Text command inputs (basic text parser - 1-2 word commands only, contextual to the area or room)
-Inventory puzzles
-Score and turn counters
-Save feature (built into the PDP system like a save state)
-Named rooms (dozens of different rooms)
Blockade (ARC, 1976) - First Snake-like game
Road Race (1976) - Earliest use of pseudo-3D third-person perspective with sprite scaling
Fonz (1976) - First game with force-feedback rumble and licensed character (from Happy Days)
Heavyweight Champ (1976) - First game with hand-to-hand fighting and motion-based controllers
1977:
Empire/Classic Empire (PC, 1977) - TBS, Proto-4x?;
Super Bug (ARC, 1977/) - Racing, Top down; One of the first games with scrolling
Street Racer (A2600, 1977) - 4-player vs. simultaneous (1-4)
Bomber (1977) - First side-scrolling video game
Sega Vic Dual (1977) - First arcade system with 8/16-bit microprocessor (Zilog Z80)
Combat (A2600, 1977) - Vehicle-based (Tanks) Arena Combat/Multi-directional shooter, Top down view
Zork (PDP-10, 1977/PC, ) - Early text adventure
-Inventory puzzles
-Non-linear structure?
-Save feature (built into the PDP system like a save state)
1978:
Beneath Apple Manor (AII, 1978/AII+, 1979/1982/1983) - Rogue-like/precursor, Top down view
-First commercial RPG for a home computer
-Manual stat allocation (buy stats with exp)
-Unusual save feature (removed when quitting the current run, pay to save system, respawn where you saved with minor stat reductions and your gold lost)
-Procedurally generated dungeons aka random map generation (can pick between 4 and 20 rooms per level)
-Locked chests (can attempt to break the locks)
-Gain exp from gold
-Four magic items (magic wand 1 - infinite zap spells, wand 2 - opens doors, magic sword and armor - ?)
-Trapped chests
-4 spells (zap, heal, x-ray, teleport)
-Listen (for monsters) and inspect (for secret doors; happened automatically in Dungeon) commands
-Can break or kick a door open - Dungeon
-Can drop gold (why?)
-Wait/rest command (1-9 turns or until rested)
-Difficulty options (1-10)
MUD1 (PDP-10, 1978/PC, ) - First Virtual World/Multi-User Dungeon, Text-based
Adventureland (TRS-80/1978/Multi) - Text Adventure; Save feature
Space Invaders (ARC, 1978) - Shoot 'Em Up, Top Down View, Cover Shooter
-Space shooter
-Music/jingle gets faster the closer the aliens get
-Destructible objects
1979:
Star Raiders (Atari 8-bit, 1979) - Space Combat Sim, 2.5D (3D movement, sprite ships)
-Warp (hyperspace mechanic) - can select the goal on a galactic map
-Enemy radar (mid range and long range - latter changes the view to top down?)
-Rearview camera toggle
-Particle explosions
-Subsystem damage (parts of your ship can be damaged individually)
-Basic rank system
-"Many games heavily inspired by Star Raiders appeared, such as Starmaster (Atari 2600), Space Spartans (Intellivision), Moonbeam Express (TI-99/4A),[29] Codename MAT (ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC), Star Voyager (Atari 2600) and Star Luster (Famicom–Japan only).[5] Neubauer's own Solaris, for the Atari 2600, is both similar and in some ways more sophisticated than his earlier game, despite the difference in technology between the two systems.[5]Star Raiders inspired later space combat games like Elite, the Wing Commander series and BattleSphere.[5]" - Wikipedia
Temple of Apshai (TRS-80/Commodore PET, 1979/C64, 1985 (Remake)) - Dungeon Crawler RPG, TD View, Turn-based/Real-time hybrid (If the player doesn't make any input for a while, the enemies continue to move and attack in set intervals regardless), Shops, Character creation
-Ranged weapons
-Fatigue mechanic (the more damage you take, the more stamina/fatigue each action spends)
-Can be found by an NPC if you're knocked out unless you were eaten by a monster (these tend to take some of your items in exchange for saving you)
-No map
-No save
-No fast travel
-Monsters don't follow you between rooms
-Can listen for monsters in adjacent rooms (Q key, random chance of success)
-Talk command
-Hidden doors (search with E (success based on intuition stat), no visual clues as to where these are?) and traps
-Monsters appear one at a time
-Some bugs
Akalabeth (PCs, 1979) - RPG (mainly a Dungeon Crawler), First Person (FP) view dungeons/Top Down (TD) overworld exploration
-Tile-based movement, Enemies move when you do (no separate battle screen)
-Shops
-Character creation (rolled stats which can't be altered while keeping the same total; strength, dexterity, stamina, wisdom; fighter or mage class; name your char when meeting lord british in the beginning)
-Basic overworld and a single dungeon
-Multiple towns and multiple entrances to the dungeon
-Randomly generated world based on a seed number ("lucky number" picked when starting out)
-Hunger mechanic
-Compass feature
-Difficulty options (1-10)
-Thieving enemies and a chest mimic enemy
-Enemies can run away at low HP and can get stuck between you and another enemy since they can't move through each other
-4 spells which can also be cast via the amulet items (blast to get past some walls, two ladder spell which let you go up or down one floor, random transformation spell - can turn you into a toad (bad) or a lizardman (good), ) - these degrade when used
-Respawning enemies
-Wisdom works in an odd way (determines how many monsters you need to kill in your main quest chain and how strong the ones you start out facing are, you'll want to have it low to have a better chance early on)
Superman (Atari 2600, 1979) - Maze/Proto-Platform Adventure (no gained abilities or player char upgrades, can fly but not jump), Open world/non-linear structure, Collectathon/Police Sim (capture criminals and bring them to the jail, rebuild the broken bridge by bringing back the three pieces of it to where it was), Mixed perspective (tilted view and top down view), Flip Screen/Multi-Screen (tilted view and top down view - outdoors and indoors respectively)
-Scripted event (enemies blowing up the bridge)
-Object interaction (pick up and carry+drop NPCs and some objects)
-Transform (from clark kent into superman via the phone booth, only use for this is that you need to turn back into clark kent after capturing the criminals and enter the daily planet building as him to complete the game)
-Horizontally looping world - later used in Defender and SMB2
-Difficulty options (affects enemy speed and how easily lois lane shows up when poisoned)
-"X-ray" vision ability (start with it) - lets you view adjacent screens by holding in that direction (kinda like the binoculars in Metal Gear)
-Chopper enemy that acts like the bat in Adventure (can carry any object it flies into) - can't be destroyed
-The moving cryptonite satellites poison you (can't fly nor carry objects) and you have to touch lois lane to restore your powers
-Confusing but creative layout (tilted view ground movement on outdoors screens however if in Superman form you move north or south you end up in on another screen - used as a shortcut feature apparently, when entering a building there's no exit on the same screen - instead you go d/l/r for a few screens to exit and these play out in top down view - a subway system apparently and you change stops by exiting a screen upwards)
-First licensed game where elements of the license are actually present in the game itself
-Can't die - later used in Wario Land 2
-Pause feature
-"Criminals left" counter in the GUI
-Keeps track of your time but there is no time limit (it's there to gauge how quickly you beat the game)
-Early action game featuring an NPC (lois lane)
Speed Freak (ARC, 1979) - 3D vector Racing (Race against the clock), FP view (see the front of the car but not the cockpit)
-First game with a Z-axis/into the screen movement?
-Airplanes flying above the track
Basketball (Atari 400/Atari 800, 1979) - Early Basketball game
-First playable black protagonist
Flight Simulator (Apple II, 1979) - Flight Sim, Free-roaming
-Wire-frame 3D graphics
FS1 Flight Simulator (Apple II/TRS-80, 1979) - Flight Sim, 3D wireframe graphics
Stratovox (ARC, 1979/1980?) - Fixed Shooter/Single Screen Shoot 'em up
-The first game with voice samples?
Space Battle (Intellivision, 1979) - RTT/Gallery Shooter Hybrid (move your fleets into enemy fleets to protect your mothership during the first phase then shoot down enemy ships in the second - similar to what Archon did a bit later)
Manbiki Shounen (Shoplifting Boy)(PET/CBM, 1979) - First Stealth game, Top Down View
-First game with stealing
-Dhasing/avoid the enemies gameplay
SOS (ARC, 1979) - First Vertical-scrolling Shoot 'em up
-Military theme
Galaxian (ARC, 1979) - Shoot 'Em Up (Space Invaders-like), Top Down View
-Multi-color sprites
-Sprite line buffer (?)
-Tiled background (tilemap)
Heiankyo Alien (PC-8001, 1979/ARC, 1980/GB) - Trap 'em up/Single Screen Maze Action, Top Down View
-Chasing/avoid the enemies gameplay
Lunar Lander (ARC, 1979) - Landing Sim, Thrust-based flight, Side view
-Speed and altitude display
-Fuel mechanic
Sheriff (ARC, 1979), Asteroids (ARC, 1979), Hangman (TI-99/4A, 1979) - Continuous in-game music (single channel/monophonic; Space Invaders)
Showdown in 2100 A.D (Odyssey2) - Arena Combat, Single Screen Shooter, Cover Shooter, TD View, 2-player vs.
-Ricocheting shots
-Reload at the small trees (random which one has ammo in it?)
-Spectator mode
