New Games - Page 12655
Marienbad
1962
Marienbad
1962
Marienbad is an adaptation of the strategy game Nim, originally written in Poland for the Odra 1003 mainframe. The game did not originally have a specific title; in later literature the name Marienbad was applied retroactively. It is one of the earliest Polish computer games. It was inspired by a variant of Nim seen in the 1961 movie Last Year at Marienbad and described under the name "Marienbad" in the magazine Przekrój. There are several rows (four by default) of matchsticks, with a different number of matchsticks in each row. Both players (the human and the computer) take turns, in each move taking away at least one matchstick from a single row. The player left with the final matchstick loses.Spacewar!
1962
Spacewar!
1962
star 6.8Spacewar! is one of the earliest digital computer video games. It is a two-player game, with each player taking control of a starship and attempting to destroy the other. A star in the center of the screen pulls on both ships and requires maneuvering to avoid falling into it. In 1971 it was unofficially ported into a coin-operated PDP-11 machine and renamed Galaxy Game. As an arcade machine it was installed at the Tresidder Union at Stanford University in September, 1971, two months before the official release of Computer Space, the first mass-produced video game. Only one unit was built initially, although the game later included several consoles allowing users to play against each other.Mouse in the Maze
1959
Mouse in the Maze
1959
A game where players place maze walls, bits of cheese, and (in some versions) martini glasses by way of a light pen interacting with the screen.Tennis for Two
1958
Hutspiel
1956
Hutspiel
1956
Hutspiel is a military training simulation for the Goodyear Electronic Differential Analyzer (GEDA) that simulates at a theatre level. Its intention was to study the use of tactical nuclear weapons and conventional air support in Western Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion. The game pits two players against each other with one controlling NATO forces in France, Belgium and West Germany, and the other in control of a Soviet invasion force trying to penetrate a 150 mile frontage. Players could allocate forces across sectors of the map and set targets (such as airfields, enemy troops, supply depots and transportation facilities) for planes and nukes. Early versions of the game would have the computer continue the simulation until it was paused for further input. In later versions the game used turns of fixed time increments. The game modeled troop reinforcement, resupply and movement by rail. It did not account for terrain or weather.Pool
1954
Pool
1954
A game of pool (billiards) developed by William George Brown and Ted Lewis in 1954 on the MIDSAC computer, intended primarily to showcase the computing power of the MIDSAC. "The game displayed a 2-inch rendition of the pool cue for the players to line up their shots and ran a simulation of the colliding and ricocheting balls in real-time, implementing a full game of a cue ball and 15 frame balls for two players. Graphics were drawn in real-time on a monochrome 13" point plotting X-Y display, the screen being updated by the program 40 times a second (that is, in a normal in-game situations with 2 to 4 balls moving at once). However, for time constraints, the table and its pockets weren’t drawn by the computer graphics, but were rather drawn manually onto the display using a grease pencil." - Norbert Landsteiner for masswerk.atOXO
1952
OXO
1952
star 3.1OXO was a computer game developed by Alexander S. Douglas in 1952 for the EDSAC computer, which simulates a game of Noughts and crosses, also sometimes called Tic-tac-toe. OXO is the earliest known game to display visuals on a video monitor. To play OXO, the player would enter input using a rotary telephone controller, and output was displayed on the computer's 35×16 dot matrix cathode ray tube. Each game was played against an artificially intelligent opponent.Draughts
1952
Draughts
1952
A game of draughts (a.k.a. checkers) written for the Ferranti Mark 1 computer by Christopher Strachey at the University of Manchester between 1951 and 1952. In the summer of 1952, the program was able to "play a complete game of Draughts at a reasonable speed".Mate-in-Two
1951
Mate-in-Two
1951
Robot Chess is an early chess game in which the user can play against an AI. The AI is only powerful enough to compute "mate-in-two" problems and thus the game didn't represent a full game of chess. Players would enter moves of the Ferranti Mark 1 and the computer would print out the response move. The simulation ignores some chess rules such as en passant, promotion and castling.Bertie the Brain
1950
Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device
1947
The cathode ray tube amusement device is the earliest known interactive electronic game to use a cathode ray tube (CRT). It is a device that records and controls the quality of an electronic signal. The strength of the electronic signals produced by the amusement device is controlled by knobs which influences the trajectory of the CRT's light beam. The device is purely electromechanical and does not use any memory device, computer, or programming. The player turns a control knob to position the CRT beam on the screen; to the player, the beam appears as a dot, which represents a reticle or scope. The player has a restricted amount of time in which to maneuver the dot so that it overlaps an airplane, and then to fire at the airplane by pressing a button. If the beam's gun falls within the predefined mechanical coordinates of a target when the user presses the button, then the CRT beam defocuses, simulating an explosion.
