الخميس، 4 يونيو 2015

THE TOP FACEBOOK GAMES OF 2010

Facebook games have shown a lot of popularity during the past year. As Facebook adds more games to its already huge entertainment menu you may be wondering which games are the best and most fun to play. This article will give separate game reviews for each of the twenty five top Facebook games for 2010.
To start the Facebook Game reviews, we will begin by taking a look at the number one game on Facebook called FarmVille. FarmVille which is made by Zynga currently has approximately 73,800,000 monthly users and is growing at a steady upward pace. FarmVille is a game in which you can become a farmer. FarmVille allows you to interact with your friends and even become neighbors with them. Basically you will do everything a farmer does while playing FarmVille. Planting, plowing, harvesting and growing a successful farm. Just make sure when playing this game that you harvest your plants on time. Different plants have different times for harvesting and if you don’t harvest in time the plants will die. By taking care of your farm you will get more points and go up in level.
Birthday Cards holds the place of second most popular game of 2010. Birthday Cards is made by RockYou and has approximately 32,000,000 users per month. When using the Birthday Cards game you can customize and send free cards, use a birthday calendar, have a personal birthday list and personal reminders. The game also allows you too start your own birthday zoo. This is popular for those who want to remember their friend’s birthdays and send cards on Facebook.
The third most popular game on Facebook is Café World which is made by Zynga. Café World has approximately 31,000,000 active users per month. Café world is a fun game to play if you ever dreamed of owning your own restaurant. When playing this game you can cook, bake sauté and make anything you want when playing Café World. When playing Café World you are the cook and the restaurant owner therefore you will have to hire servers. When hiring a server on Café World you can select one of your Facebook friends. Make sure to always have plenty of food ready for your guests.
The fourth most popular game on Facebook is Happy Aquarium which is made by CrowdStar. Happy Aquarium has approximately 27,000,000 active users per month. When playing Happy Aquarium on Facebook you will be able to set up your own fish tank. This can be done by purchasing fish and other creatures. Make sure to always feed your fish when playing Happy Aquarium because the fish can die just like in real life. This is a fun game for those who love wish and wish they had an aquarium in their home. The bad thing about this game is that you can’t feed your friends fish if you notice that they are dying.
The fifth most popular game on Facebook is FishVille which is made by Zynga. FishVille has approximately 24,000,000 active users per month. FishVille is very similar to Happy Aquarium in which you set up your own fish tank and care for the fish. When you’re done raising your fish you can sell them for coins and points. Like Happy Aquarium you will maintain your fish tank or your poor creatures will die.
The sixth most popular game on Facebook is Mafia Wars which is made by Zynga. Mafia Wars has approximately 24,000,000 active users per month. The goal of playing Mafia Wars is to grow your Mafia family. This can be done by inviting your Facebook friends to join you at Mafia Wars. Another goal is to increase your group’s wealth and supply your friends with weapons. What it comes down to is whoever has the biggest and the strongest Mafia is the group that comes out on top.
The seventh most popular game on Facebook is Texas HoldEm Poker which is also made by Zynga. Texas HoldEm Poker for Facebook has approximately 22,000,000 active users per month. When playing Texas HoldEm Poker on Facebook it’s pretty much the same as playing the game in life. Before starting get familiar with the rules on how to play Texas HoldEm. Texas HoldEm Poker on Facebook can be played between friends.
The eighth most popular game on Facebook is Pet Society which is made by Playfish; Pet society has approximately 21,000,000 active users per month. Pet Society on Facebook is a very cute game for the animal lover. When playing Pet Society you can decorate your house and go to your friend’s house with presents. This is a very cute and fun game.
The ninth most popular game on Facebook is Petville which is made by Zynga. Petville has approximately 17,000,000 active users per month. This is another adorable pet lover’s game. When playing this game you will take care of your own pet. When you first become a player of Petville you will be asked to create your own pet. The options are endless and the end result is an adorable virtual pet. The goal is to keep your pet clean, well fed, walked and loved. This in turn will create a happy Petville pet for you. This game is very similar to Playfishes Pet Society and other pet based games.
The tenth most popular game on Facebook is YoVille which is made by Zynga. YoVille has approximately 17,000,000 active users per month. When playing YoVille you will be living a virtual life. This game is pretty similar to the extremely popular Sims game for personal computers. While playing YoVille you will be building a virtual life. When playing you can work, socialize; decorate your house or anything else you may desire. This is a fun game for those who like the escape of a virtual world.
The eleventh most popular game on Facebook is Farm Town which is made by Slashkey. Farm Town has approximately 16,000,000 active users per month. Farm Town is very similar to the Facebook game FarmVille. When playing this game you will take care of your own farm. In order to advance to higher levels you will need to plant and harvest crops, invite friends to join you and hire workers to help you with the farm. This is a fun game for those who want to be farmers but live in the city.
The twelfth most popular game on Facebook is Restaurant City which is made by PlayFish. Restaurant City has approximately 15,000,000 active users per month. Restaurant City is very similar to Café Town. When playing Restaurant City you will own a restaurant, create the menu and hire workers. This is a fun game if you are interested in how a restaurant operates. This is a social game and you will be able to interact with your Facebook friends.
The thirteenth most popular game on Facebook is MindJolt Games which is made by MindJolt. MindJolt games have approximately 14,000,000 active users per month. When playing MindJolt you can play over 500 games. The games are arcade style, puzzles, strategy, and so much more. MindJolt is fun for those who want a little gaming variety.
The fourteenth most popular game on Facebook is Happy Pets which is made by CrowdStar. Happy Pets has approximately 12,000,000 active users per month on Facebook. When playing Happy Pets you will grow your kitten into an adult. The object of the game is to take care of as many cats as you can. How many happy cats can you take care of on Happy Pets? If you end up feeling overwhelmed by having too many pets to care for don’t be tempted to sell your cats. Happy Pets doesn’t like those who sell their kitties.
The fifteenth most popular game on Facebook is RCK which is made by Zynga. RCK has approximately 11,000,000 active users per month on Facebook. This is a fun Facebook game in which you can create your own rock band. Ask your Facebook friends to join and help you create a rocking band. This is a fun game to play for any music lover.
The sixteenth most popular game on Facebook is Zoo World which is made by RockYou. Zoo World has approximately 10,000,000 active users per month. When playing Zoo World on Facebook you will take care of zoo animals and Zoo World cash. When earning your Zoo World cash you can purchase new zoo animals and place them in your zoo. This is a fun way to pass time if you enjoy zoo animals.
The seventeenth most popular game on Facebook is Bejeweled Blitz which is made by Popcap games. Bejeweled Blitz has approximately 10,000,000 active users per month. Bejeweled Blitz is an easy to master puzzle game. The fun thing about this game is that you can compete with your Facebook friends. Many people will spend hours out of there day playing Bejeweled Blitz.
The eighteenth most popular game on Facebook is Fish World which is made by Tall Tree Games. Fish World has approximately 9,000,000 active users per month. Fish World is very similar to Happy Aquarium. When playing Fish World you will care for your very own virtual fish. Make sure to feed them and take care of them so they stay alive. Selling your Fish World fish are a common part of the game.
The nineteenth most popular game on Facebook is Pillow Fight which is made by Shikha. Pillow Fight has approximately 8,000,000 active users per month. Pillow fight is a fun game if you enjoy hitting your friends with pillows. The pillows come in different materials and your friends can accept being hit by pillows are choose not to. The pillow that you choose to use will be posted on your friends Facebook page.
The twentieth most popular game on Facebook is (Lil) Farm Life which is made by Playdom. (Lil) Farm Life has approximately 6,000,000 active users per month. This is another game that is a lot like FarmVille and Farm Town. When playing this game you will create your own farm with crops, animals and buildings. This is another fun game for those who tire of Farmville and Farm Town.
The Twenty first most popular game on Facebook is Sorority Life which is made by Playdom. Sorority Life has approximately 6,000,000 active users per month. When playing this game you can create your own sorority. When signing up for sorority life you can invite friends to join your sorority. Another feature is that you can dress and accessorize however you want. This is a fun game for those who miss their college sorority lifestyle.
The Twenty second most popular game on Facebook is Island Paradise which is made by Meteor Games. Island Paradise has approximately 6,000,000 active users per month. This is a fun game in which you create your own island paradise. When creating your island you can grow crops, add animals or whatever you want on your island. When playing island paradise you can stop by and visit your friends. This is similar to Farmville but for those who love the island life.
The twenty third most popular game on Facebook is Country Life which is made by Country Life. Country life has approximately 5,000,000 active users per month. This game is another one that is a lot like Farmville. When playing this game you take care of crops, the only difference from Farmville is that you can create your own bread for more profit.
The twenty fourth most popular game on Facebook is Country Story which is made by Playfish. Country Story has approximately 5,000,000 active users per month. This is another farm themed Facebook game. This game is great for those who like FarmVille or Farm Town and want to play something different.
The twenty fifth most popular game on Facebook is Happy Island which is made by CrowdStar. Happy Island has approximately 5,000,000 active users per month. When playing this game you can create your own island. The more attractions you add to your island the more your island will earn. This is similar to Island Paradise but with more buying and selling involved.
Jack Dean; Blogger for [http://www.gamebrahma.com]
Game Brahma is a product network for computer and video games. Our mission is to make it easier for people to discover, research, and buy games online.
We’re a boot-strapped web community, so please take the time to register and review some games!
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TOP TEN CLASSIC VIDEO GAMES

The Concept: The game is intended to represent a game of Tennis or Table Tennis (Ping Pong). Each player has a bat; the bat can be moved vertically. The screen has two horizontal lines on the top and bottom of the screen. A ball is ‘served’ and moves towards one player – that player must move the bat so that the ball hits it. The ball rebounds and moves back the other way. Depending on where the ball hits the bat, the ball will move in different directions – should it hit one of the top or bottom lines, then it will bounce off. The idea is simply to make the other player miss the ball – thus scoring a point.
Game play: while it sounds utterly boring, the game play is actually very addictive. It is easy to play but very difficult to master, especially with faster ball speeds, and more acute angles of ‘bounce’.
Nostalgia: for me this is the father of video games. Without Pong you probably wouldn’t have video games – it started the craze that would continue grow and become a multi-billion dollar industry. I will always remember this game!
9. Frogger
Origins: this game was developed by Konami in 1981, and was the first game to introduce me to Sega. At the time it was very novel and introduced a new style of game.
The Concept: Easy – you want to walk from one side of the road to the other. Wait a minute – there’s a lot of traffic; I better dodge the traffic. Phew Made it – hang on, who put that river there. Better jump on those turtles and logs and get to the other side – hang on that’s a crocodile! AHHH! It sounds easy – the cars and logs are in horizontal rows, and the direction they move, the number of logs and cars, and the speed can vary. You have to move you frog up, down left and right, avoiding the cars, jumping on logs and avoiding nasty creatures and get home – do this several times and you move to the next level.
Game Play: Yet another simple concept that is amazingly addictive. This game relies on timing; you find yourself dinking in and out of traffic, and sometimes going nowhere. The graphics are poor, the sound is terrible, but the adrenalin really pumps as you try to avoid that very fast car, or the snake that is hunting you down!
Nostalgia: I love this game for many reasons. I played it for a long time, but never really became an expert – however, it was the first ever game I managed to reproduce using Basic on my ZX81 – I even sold about 50 copies in Germany!
8. Space Invaders
Origins: Tomohiro Nishikada, the designer of Space Invaders was inspired by Star Wars and War of the Worlds. He produced on of the first shooting video games and drew heavily from the playability of Breakout.
The Concept: aliens are invading the Earth in ‘blocks’ by moving down the screen gradually. As the intrepid savior of the Earth it’s your task to use your solitary laser cannon, by moving horizontally, and zapping those dastardly aliens out of the sky. Luckily, you have four bases to hide behind – these eventually disintegrate, but they provide some protection from the alien’s missiles.
Game Play: this is a very repetitive game, but highly addictive. Each wave starts a little closer to you, and moves a little fast – so every new wave is a harder challenge. The game involved a fair amount of strategy as well as good hand eye co-ordination.
Nostalgia: I wasted a lot of time playing this game. While originally simply green aliens attacked, some clever geek added color strips to the screen and the aliens magically changed color the lower they got – that was about as high tech as it got back in the days of monochrome video games!
7. Galaxians
Origins: Galaxians expanded on the Space Invaders theme by having aliens swoop down on the defender. It was one of the first games to have colored sprites.
Concept: Take Space Invaders, add some color, remove the bases and make some of the aliens swoop down at you and you have Galaxians. Essentially the concept is the same as Space Invaders, you’re defending the world against alien invaders, but rather than the whole screen full of aliens moving down at you in a nice orderly fashion, you get groups of aliens swooping down in haphazard ways.
Game play: if you liked Space Invaders then you’ll love this. The strategies are different, as you often have to avoid two or three different groups of alien ‘swoopers’ but if you can shoot them as they swoop, then you get some great bonus points. The game is difficult until you get used to some of the patterns
Nostalgia: this was one of the first games that I played on a desktop computer that was almost exactly like the arcade fame. I had an old Acorn Electron, and this game was almost perfect on this little machine. I miss my old Acorn Electron!
6. Defender
Origins: This game was created by Williams Electronics in 1980. The Game was designed by Eugen Jarvis, Sam Dicker, Paul Dussault and SLarry DeMar. It was one of the first games to feature complex controls, with five buttons and a joystick. While slow to catch on due to its difficulty, it still was a popular game.
Concept: Most of the shoot-em-up games of the era were horizontal shote-em-ups. This game changed the playing field by being a vertical shooter. Yet again aliens are intent of doing nasty things to earth – this time they are trying kidnap 10 humans. You are in charge of the sole defender and must kill the aliens before they kidnap the humans. You fly over a ‘landscape’ and can see your humans mulling around on the surface. The aliens appear and drop towards the humans – you can kill them at this point, but should they grab an alien, you must shoot the alien, and catch the human before the alien reaches the top of the screen.
Game play: This was a great game that was easy to play but tough to master. Shooting the aliens and catching the humans gave the best bonuses, and this formed a major part of the strategy. There were some different type of aliens that chased you making the game a lot more hectic than others; often it was just a relief to finish a level. While not as addictive as some, it did give a feeling of achievement when you reached a high score.
Nostalgia: I went on vacation with a friend for a week and we spent the entire week in the arcade playing this game and the number one game on my list (I won’t reveal the name now!). It was one of the best memories of my teen years!
5. Missile Command
Origins: In July 1980, Atari published a revolutionary game. It didn’t have a joystick, but had a ball that controlled an on screen cursor. It was programmed by Dave Theurer and licensed to Sega.
Concept: Those pesky aliens are getting smarter. Rather than sending space ships down to fight, they’re hiding in deep space and sending a bunch of missiles to blow up the Earth’s cities. This game was unique as it use a ’round’ joystick. You used this to move to a point on the screen and then fire a missile into this spot – the culminating explosion would destroy any missiles that hit the ‘cloud’. The missiles were essentially lines that moved down from the top of the screen at varying angles and speeds – some of them would split into multiple ‘missiles’ half way down.
Game play: this is a very strategic game. Placing your bombs in the right place and timing them right could essentially clear the alien missiles quickly and easily. As the game move on you found yourself spinning the wheel frantically trying to get the bombs in the right place. This game was adrenalin pumping fun – sometimes you seemed to be up against impossible odds and yet you’d breath a sigh of relief when one city survived.
Nostalgia: this was one of the first games I played on a table top machine. While these didn’t really catch on, it was still fun to be able to put a can of soda down while you played!
4. Breakout
Origin: This game was heavily inspired by Pong. It was created in 1976 by Atari, with Nolan Busnell and Stew Bristow being the key designers. It’s probably one of the most cloned games ever, even today there are new games based on the same theme coming out. Apparently the Apple II computer was inspired by this game – wow where would Steve Jobs be now without Breakout.
Concept: The idea is simple – you have a bat at the bottom of the screen that can move back and forth. Above you is a wall of bricks. A ball will move from your bat – every time it collides with a brick, the brick disappears and the ball bounce back at you. Your task is simple – stop the ball going off the bottom of the screen by placing your bat in the way and bouncing the ball back at the wall – you also have to remove all the bricks in the wall to progress to the next level!
Game play: this is a fairly difficult game to master. As the bricks get lower each level and the ball speed increases, it becomes more and more difficult to ‘break out’. Also, sometimes the angle that the ball comes off the bat is so acute that it is very difficult to judge where the ball will bounce! It’s one of those games where you just keep on saying ‘just one more game’ and before you know it five hours have passed.
Nostalgia: when I lived in Wales we had a little utility room that housed books and my little ZX Spectrum – I used to spend hours playing this game as my Father sat and studied. It was like a male bonding session!
3. Hang On
Origin: This game was released in 1985 and was developed by Sega. It was one of the first ‘3D’ racing games and one of the first to introduce a ‘realistic’ aid to playing the game – that it a larger replica motorcycle style cabinet, with speedo, brakes and a throttle. This game became the benchmark for future racing games and lead to the highly praised Out Run series. The game cleverly used ‘billboards’ and trees to give you the feel that you were moving at high speed.
Concept: You are a motorcycle racer – you sit on top of a bike and have to race around a 3d race track, overtaking other riders and reaching certain checkpoints within a time limit. The game featuring different places and conditions (such as night).
Game play: Yet another easy game to play but very difficult to master. Timing the turns was essential, especially if other bikers got in the way. Each slight touch of another bike, or crash into a barrier slowed you down and made it harder to reach the checkpoint in time. The awesome graphics (for the time) made this game pleasurable to play as you really felt you were in a race. It is another game that kept you coming back for more.
Nostalgia: As a kid I always wanted a real motorbike, so this gave me a feeling that I actually had one. I was very good at this game (an d Pole Position) and constantly had my name on the high score table – it’s perhaps the only game I could truly say I was a master.
2. Pacman
Origin: Developed by Toru Iwatani, and programmed by Hideyuki Moakajima San, this game came out in mid 1980. The name is derived from a phrase that relates to the sound when your mouth opens and closes (allegedly). Namco produced the game, but it really took off in America when Midway released it.
Concept: You are Pacman and you are very hungry. You find a maze full of ‘dots’ and zip around eating them. Unfortunately there’s some ghosts who aren’t too happy about this and they will chase you and eat you – but hey, there’s some really big dots that give you the power to banish the ghosts back to their central cage. The maze is complex, filling up the whole screen, but there are no dead ends – there’s also a passage way between each side of the screen. In the center, is the cage that holds the ghosts – occasionally bonus fruit appear next to the cage. You essentially have to eat all the dots in order to progress.
Game play: This is a simple concept, but with pretty decent graphics and an addictive tune it became a huge success. There is a lot of strategy to the game – each ghost follows a set pattern (although eventually they’ll forget this and follow you) – in fact there are books dedicated on the best route to avoiding the ghosts. The game gets harder as you go, with the ghosts speeding up and getting smarter.
Nostalgia: there’s something about the music in this game that is just so catching -even as I write it I can hear it in my mind. It’s one of the first games that I can remember using music as a major selling point. I wasted many hours playing this game, and although I was never great I always had fun trying to devise new routes. It is also probably my most successful programming achievement – I designed a version of this for the Acorn Atom and I actually sold a couple of hundred copies (again in Germany) – I am proud that as a twelve year old, I was able to use logic and programming skills and make some money doing it.
1. Asteroids
Origin: It’s truly amazing to think that this game was first released in 1979 – I’ve been playing it for 30 years now! Developed by Atari and designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg, the game cleverly used vector graphics and real inertia physics to convert a simple concept into a classic game.
Concept: Your little space ship has strayed into an asteroid belt. With the use of thrusters, a trusty laser cannon and a hyperspace unit, you must move your spaceship in all directions over the screen and avoid the asteroids. You can go anywhere on the screen and even going off the edge is OK – it just happens to be a wrap around universe. The asteroids come at you from all angles. Initially they are large, and are fairly slow. Once hit they split into smaller asteroids, and these smaller asteroids split again – the smaller the asteroid the faster it goes. Occasionally a nasty alien ship will appear and start firing at you – he’ll occasionally hit the asteroids and split them. The idea of the game is simple – destroy all the asteroids without colliding into them or getting shot by an alien.
Game play: Wow what can I say. To really succeed at this game you have to use strategy – firing at all asteroids will fill the screen with a lot of small fast moving asteroids, making it difficult to avoid collisions. Therefore the game required that you pick off one asteroid at a time, and then deal with the smaller asteroids. While doing this, you also had to maneuver gingerly; with real inertia, you often found yourself drifting without realizing it and suddenly you’d be in the middle of four or five asteroids.
Nostalgia: this is one of the only games that I still play today. Whether it’s the ‘Buck Rogers’ in me, or I just like the challenge I don’t know! You’d think that after 30 years of playing I’d either master the game or get bored; somehow neither has happened – I can sometimes get a mega score, but usually I’m just average. I guess I like the fact that it makes me think and keeps my hand-eye co-ordination in tip top condition! Now if only I could get all that money that I pushed into the asteroids machine back – I’d be very rich!
To play some of these games for free go to my website:www.squidoo.com/TopTenVideoGames
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WHAT MAKES A GOOD GAME, AND WHERE WILL IT LEAD US FROM HERE?

Considering the variety of different games available to us, let alone the type of games; flash, Internet, computer, video game, it’s really hard to be able to say what makes a good game a good game. However, no matter how hard of a question this is, many people are still asking it. I’m sure I could list a few games I love in the console world such as Need For Speed and the ever popular Tom Clancy trilogies, but just because I may like these games, doesn’t mean everyone else does! Examples of good games are out there but, they don’t really answer the question at hand. All in all I think for everyone, the question; what is a good game? Comes down to a few major attributes. These attributes are included in the following paragraphs, these are of course generalizations and don’t count towards or include game titles, there are merely categorical opinions.
The Game Design – In some instances you may hear people talking about the design of the game, and how it does or doesn’t “work” with the game. Usually when people are talking about the design they are speaking in specifics of how the game was set up, and the rules of the game or the rules of engagement so to speak. The phrase is also expended to distinguish both the game design embodied in an actual game as well as software documentation that identifies such a design. Other attributes of the gaming design include; narrative, mechanics, visual arts, programming and audio.
Game Play – This includes all player experience during the interaction with gaming systems, particularly formal games. Appropriate utilization is coupled with acknowledgment to “what the player does”. Arising alongside game evolution in the 1980s, game play was applied exclusively within the context of video or computer games, though now its popularity has begun to see use in the description of other more traditional game forms. Broadly Speaking, the phrase game play in video game language is used to identify the overall experience of playing the game omitting factors like artwork and sound!
Graphics – Back in the days of the original Nintendo and even flash based games like Asteroids, the graphics were very “blocky” of course most of didn’t even realize it at the time until newer consoles like SNES and particularly XBOX and XBOX 360 came out. I think the important of graphics is more steadily sought after nowadays because people want to the best. It’s been argued that the differences between XBOX and XBOX 360 are different or aren’t different. Just the same, more people have bought XBOX 360 than XBOX, maybe for this reasoning alone.
Game Engine – This is a software system designed for the creation and development of computer and video games. There are many game engines that are contrived to work on video game consoles and desktop operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physical science engine or collision detection (and collision reaction), sound, scripting, animation, AI, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, and a scene graph. The procedure of game maturation is oftentimes economised by in large part reusing the same game engine to create different games.
Character Creation – Also known as Character generation is the procedure of defining a pretend character for a game. Usually, a character’s individual strengths and weaknesses are presented by a set of stats. Games that have a mostly fictional circumstance may include traits such as race and class. Games with a more contemporary or narrower setting may limit customization to physical and personality traits.
Some people play games because of the attributes listed above, and they simply won’t play or won’t enjoy a game if the graphics are less than perfect or if the characters are annoying or if the game play is buggy, but others, play games simply because it’s a way to take a break from the real world, it’s a way to get away from the ordinary humdrum of our regular lives, and some of us though sometimes anal about the specifics of a console game, don’t use those same criticism when playing something like an online flash based game because we know they aren’t made the same way (not really anyway).
Since Asteroids in the 80s, there have been several million different flash based games released, some of these are by big whig companies and others are developed by individuals that simply enjoy making games. These games have come a long way from Asteroids and the like, and now you have all sorts of categories to choose from.
In reality, flash based games can only get better from here on in, but I think that’s the same with any type of games or gaming simply because of the technological innovations that keep being created! In the end, it really depends on the user playing the game, as to what makes a good game. You be the judge!
This author is a HUGE fan of free online games
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HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES – THE FIRST VIDEO GAME EVER MADE?

As an avid retro-gamer, for quite a long time I’ve been particularly interested in the history of video games. To be more specific, a subject that I am very passionate about is “Which was the first video game ever made?”… So, I started an exhaustive investigation on this subject (and making this article the first one in a series of articles that will cover in detail all video gaming history).
The answer: Well, as a lot of things in life, there is no easy answer to that question. It depends on your own definition of the term “video game”. For example: When you talk about “the first video game”, do you mean the first video game that was commercially-made, or the first console game, or maybe the first digitally programmed game? Because of this, I made a list of 4-5 video games that in one way or another were the beginners of the video gaming industry. You will notice that the first video games were not created with the idea of getting any profit from them (back in those decades there was no Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, Atari, or any other video game company around). In fact, the sole idea of a “video game” or an electronic device which was only made for “playing games and having fun” was above the imagination of over 99% of the population back in those days. But thanks to this small group of geniuses who walked the first steps into the video gaming revolution, we are able to enjoy many hours of fun and entertainment today (keeping aside the creation of millions of jobs during the past 4 or 5 decades). Without further ado, here I present the “first video game nominees”:
This is considered (with official documentation) as the first electronic game device ever made. It was created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. The game was assembled in the 1940s and submitted for an US Patent in January 1947. The patent was granted December 1948, which also makes it the first electronic game device to ever receive a patent (US Patent 2,455,992). As described in the patent, it was an analog circuit device with an array of knobs used to move a dot that appeared in the cathode ray tube display. This game was inspired by how missiles appeared in WWII radars, and the object of the game was simply controlling a “missile” in order to hit a target. In the 1940s it was extremely difficult (for not saying impossible) to show graphics in a Cathode Ray Tube display. Because of this, only the actual “missile” appeared on the display. The target and any other graphics were showed on screen overlays manually placed on the display screen. It’s been said by many that Atari’s famous video game “Missile Command” was created after this gaming device.
NIMROD was the name of a digital computer device from the 50s decade. The creators of this computer were the engineers of an UK-based company under the name Ferranti, with the idea of displaying the device at the 1951 Festival of Britain (and later it was also showed in Berlin).
NIM is a two-player numerical game of strategy, which is believed to come originally from the ancient China. The rules of NIM are easy: There are a certain number of groups (or “heaps”), and each group contains a certain number of objects (a common starting array of NIM is 3 heaps containing 3, 4, and 5 objects respectively). Each player take turns removing objects from the heaps, but all removed objects must be from a single heap and at least one object is removed. The player to take the last object from the last heap loses, however there is a variation of the game where the player to take the last object of the last heap wins.
NIMROD used a lights panel as a display and was planned and made with the unique purpose of playing the game of NIM, which makes it the first digital computer device to be specifically created for playing a game (however the main idea was showing and illustrating how a digital computer works, rather than to entertain and have fun with it). Because it doesn’t have “raster video equipment” as a display (a TV set, monitor, etc.) it is not considered by many people as a real “video game” (an electronic game, yes… a video game, no…). But once again, it really depends on your point of view when you talk about a “video game”.
1952: OXO (“Noughts and Crosses”)
This was a digital version of “Tic-Tac-Toe”, created for an EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) computer. It was designed by Alexander S. Douglas from the University of Cambridge, and one more time it was not made for entertainment, it was part of his PhD Thesis on “Interactions between human and computer”.
The rules of the game are those of a regular Tic-Tac-Toe game, player against the computer (no 2-player option was available). The input method was a rotary dial (like the ones in old telephones). The output was showed in a 35×16-pixel cathode-ray tube display. This game was never very popular because the EDSAC computer was only available at the University of Cambridge, so there was no way to install it and play it anywhere else (until many years later when an EDSAC emulator was created available, and by that time many other excellent video games where available as well…).
1958: Tennis for Two
“Tennis for Two” was created by William Higinbotham, a physicist working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. This game was made as a way of entertainment, so laboratory visitors had something funny to do during their wait on “visitors day” (finally!… a video game that was created “just for fun”…) . The game was pretty well designed for its era: the ball behavior was modified by several factors like gravity, wind velocity, position and angle of contact, etc.; you had to avoid the net as in real tennis, and many other things. The video game hardware included two “joysticks” (two controllers with a rotational knob and a push button each) connected to an analog console, and an oscilloscope as a display.
“Tennis for Two” is considered by many the first video game ever created. But once again, many others differ from that idea stating that “it was a computer game, not a video game” or “the output display was an oscilloscope, not a “raster” video display… so it does not qualify as a video game”. But well… you can’t please everyone…
It is also rumored that “Tennis for Two” was the inspiration for Atari’s mega hit “Pong”, but this rumor has always been strongly denied… for obvious reasons.
1961: Spacewar!
“Spacewar!” video game was created by Stephen Russell, with the help of J. Martin Graetz, Peter Samson, Alan Kotok, Wayne Witanen and Dan Edwards from MIT. By the 1960s, MIT was “the right choice” if you wanted to do computer research and development. So this half a dozen of innovative guys took advantage of a brand-new computer was ordered and expected to arrive campus very soon (a DEC PDP-1) and started thinking about what kind of hardware testing programs would be made. When they found out that a “Precision CRT Display” would be installed to the system, they instantly decided that “some sort of visual/interactive game” would be the demonstration software of choice for the PDP-1. And after some discussion, it was soon decided to be a space battle game or something similar. After this decision, all other ideas came out pretty quick: like rules of the game, designing concepts, programming ideas, and so forth.
So after about 200 man/hours of work, the first version of the game was at last ready to be tested. The game consisted of two spaceships (affectively named by players “pencil” and “wedge”) shooting missiles at each other with a star in the middle of the display (which “pulls” both spaceships because of its gravitational force). A set of control switches was used to control each spaceship (for rotation, speed, missiles, and “hyperspace”). Each spaceship have a limited amount of fuel and weapons, and the hyperspace option was like a “panic button”, in case there is no other way out (it could either “save you or break you”).
The computer game was an instant success between MIT students and programmers, and soon they started making their own changes to the game program (like real star charts for background, star/no star option, background disable option, angular momentum option, among others). The game code was ported to many other computer platforms (since the game required a video display, a hard to find option in 1960s systems, it was mostly ported to newer/cheaper DEC systems like the PDP-10 and PDP-11).
Spacewar! is not only considered by many as the first “real” video game (since this game does have a video display), but it also have been proved to be the true predecessor of the original arcade game, as well as being the inspiration of many other video games, consoles, and even video gaming companies (can you say “Atari”?…). But that’s another story, arcade games as well as console video games were written in a different page of the history of video games (so stay tuned for future articles on these subjects).
So here they are, the “First Video Game” nominees. Which one do you think is the first video game ever made?… If you ask me, I think all these games were revolutionary for its era, and should be credited as a whole as the beginners of the video gaming revolution. Instead of looking for which one was the first video game, what is really important is that they were created, period. As the creator of “Spacewar!”, Stephen Rusell, once said: “If I hadn’t done it, someone would have done something equally exciting or even better in the next six months. I just happened to get there first”.
Ian Blake is a freelance writer/blogger from Planet Earth, Solar System. You may read similar articles at his History of Video Games Blog at –> http://www.retro-videogames.com
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