Laserdisc & PC Games

S u r v e y o f D I g I t a l G a m e s Victor LaCour

Laser Disc Games

Beginning of interactive cinema

Early games were memorization of timed choices

Called laser disc for it use of laserdisc technology-pioneer/hitachi-computer program interfaced with Laserdisc machine

Beginning of high capacity disk and multimedia based games

Rejuvenated arcades

Rick Dyer formed Advanced Microcomputer Systems to develop games

Dyer used to build ticker tape adventure games (similar game design, different technology)

Saw Bally’s Astron Belt game at an Expo, convinced him he could create Dragon’s Lair

Asked ex-Disney Animator Don Bluth to collaborate

Bluth needed project for Secret of Nimh animator team

Deadline of 8 months to develop game so to beat Astron belt, 1.8 million budget

DR RELEASED

Interactive cartoon

Used computer to control laserdisc player

Breakthrough for multimedia gaming (merged videos with games)

Cinematronics released the game 1983

First game to have 50 cents to play!

$4300 price tag (industry-wide average)

However, after a few hours on location, a prototype had crowds 30 deep with quarters lining the screen; the 50 cent issue became a moot

initial scarcity of the game, coupled with the onslaught of players -many arcade owners install an additional monitor on top of the cabinet so on-lookers would watch. At the height of the frenzy, it was reported that one machine in a good location could easily bring in $1400/week. - ten times a conventional machine

Grossed over 32 million dollars by early 1984

Still considered to be best of its genre

- Debatable only to Cliffhanger

Designed 24 cells per second

well above standard

6months

1 million

No voice talent

DR TIMELINE

1982 (Early) Rick Dyer begins developing Dragon's Lair. writers and storyboard artists to assemble a concept for

1982 (October) Rick and Cinematronics' president, Jim Pearce, approach Don Bluth Productions (Don Bluth/Gary Goldman) to become a partner in the creation of this historic laser disc game.

1983 (March) Dragon's Lair is the hit of the Chicago Game Convention.

1983 (June) Tthe first Dragon's Lair arcade coin-op games ship to arcades across North America (including Canada). becomes a household name and licenses are granted for lunch boxes, children's sleepwear, stickers, collector's cards and board games. In 1984, a TV series is created and airs that same year, then followed by a vast number of video game versions for home entertainment...

1984 Dragon's Lair for Coleco Adam (cartridge)

1987 Dragon's Lair for Commodore 64 (cassette)

1987 Dragon's Lair (Escape From Singe's Castle) for Commodore 64 (floppy disk)

1989 Dragon's Lair for the Commodore Amiga (floppy disk)

Dragon's Lair (Escape From Singe's Castle) for Commodore Amiga (floppy disk)

1990 Dragon's Lair for Macintosh Plus / SE (floppy disk)

Dragon's Lair for Nintendo NES

Dragon's Lair for Nintendo Game Boy®

Dragon's Lair for Atari ST

1991 Dragon's Lair for PC (floppy disk)

Dragon's Lair (Escape from Singe's Castle)for PC (floppy disk)

1992 Dragon's Lair (Escape from Singe's Castle) for Macintosh II and LC (floppy disk)

Dragon's Lair (The Curse of Mordroc) for PC (floppy disk)

Dragon's Lair (The Curse of Mordred) for Macintosh II and LC (floppy disk)

Dragon's Lair for Nintendo Super NES

1993 Dragon's Lair for Sega CD (CD)

Dragon's Lair for PC (CD-ROM)

Dragon's Lair for 3DO (CD)

1994 Dragon's Lair for MAC (CD-ROM)

Dragon's Lair for CD-I (CD)

1995 Dragon's Lair for Atari Jaguar

1997 Dragon's Lair Deluxe Pack for PC (CD-ROM)

Dragon's Lair DVD-ROM for PC (DVD-ROM)

1998 Dragon's Lair DVD-Video for home DVD players (DVD)

2000 Dragon's Lair for Nintendo Game Boy® Color

2001 Dragon's Lair Arcade Authentic for PC (CD-ROM)

2002 Dragon's Lair 3D for PlayStation®2, Nintendo GameCube™, Xbox™, PC (CD-ROM), MAC

Laser Disc Issues

Players complained that laser games weren’t challenging enough,

Based on memorization. Too simple too tedious..

Operators didn’t like the initial high cost and unreliability of the earlier laser models

The original laserdisc players shipped with the game (Pioneer LD-V1000 or PR-7820) often broke.

Laserdisc players weren't built to undergo strain. ------designed primarily for playing movies, as the data was read linearly. DR would seek to different locations every few seconds. Massive amount of seeking, coupled with the raw amount of operation hours result in failure, overheating and slipping out of sync

player often had to be repaired or replaced.

Industry critics believed that laser games would only be a passing fad.

games that used computer graphic overlays such as Mylstars MACH III and Williams Star Rider.

PC’s FIRST GAMES Interactive Fiction Game Strategy Simulation Dungeon Games Presentation by Jake Bakkila

Interactive Fiction Interactive Fiction Games, also known as Text-Based Adventure Games, are computer games that simulate an environment using nothing but descriptive text. The player navigates the environment using simple text commands. ex: -You are in a room. >Look -You are in a room. There is a chair in the middle of the room >Sit in chair -You sit in the chair.

Adventure/Colossal Cave -ADVENT- First interactive fiction game, made in 1975 by Will Crowther, developer of ARPANET -Written in Fortran, the game was based on the layout of Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, but added fictional aspects, like dwarves -Expanded in 1976 by Don Woods at Stanford, who added more adventure/fantasy elements -Spread across internet in 1977, where it was discovered by students at MIT

Adventure -1976

Stanford AI Lab

ADVENT was a massive cave adventure game

Text Only

Will sent Don the code

Don improved the game tremendously and released it on the ARPANET

Crowther/Woods version becomes the standard Adventure 2.0

Acheton 1978

Cambridge University ,UK

Written by students Jon Thackray, David Seal,Jonathan Parrington

Made for the IBM 370 Mainframe

Inspired by Adventure

Huge game having more than 400 rooms

Commercially released by

Acornsoft

Probably the first adventure game written outside the US

U of WATERLOO – Canadian text games

The University of Waterloo games were written in a language called F (for Fantasy) which was locally created by Mark Niemiec. The F language is based on B (the ancestor of C) and is completely non-portable

Martian Adventure - 1979

University of Waterloo,Canada

Written by Brad Templeton and Kieran Carroll

Written for the Honeywell Level 66 mainframe

Text Only

Has a puzzle where there are some keys, and you can't pick them up -- it turns out they are keys on a keyboard and you have to "type keys"

New Adventure -1979

University of Waterloo

Written by Mark Niemiec

Written for the Honeywell Level 66 mainframe

Text Only

Warp 1979

Stanford University

Text Based

Written for the HP 300

Had an advanced interpreter for text.

Haunt 1980

Carnegie Mellon University

Written by John Laird

Inspired by Adventure

Written while doing research on rule based systems

Written in a Lisp like language

Was available at USC in 1984

Zork (pre-Infocom) -Programmed in 1977 by students & staff at MIT -Larger, more vivid and more refined than Adventure -Zork's text parser understood full sentences, rather than just verb and verb-noun commands -This parser was dubbed the Zork Implementation Language, and became widely used -Took place in an underground labyrinth

ZORK 1977

Three of the Zork programmers founded Infocom in 1979

They released the Zork I-III trilogy

Written by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling

Members of MIT Dynamic Modelling Group

Written on DEC PDP-10

Test based and descended from Adventure

Set in an underground labyrinth

Screenshots

Infocom

Founded in 1979 by MIT students and staff

Based in Cambridge, Mass.

Very successful in early 1980s due to:

technically advanced games

aggressive marketing

extra elements that came with game (“Feelies”)

Zork Implementation Language (ZIL)

ZIL was the language used for all Infocom games

Allowed for complex, sentence-length commands and multiple possible commands for the same task

Gave player greater control and freedom in game, and allowed for more interesting and complex options in games

Infocom Marketing

Infocom focused on making games that had very detailed descriptions, plots and supporting characters, in order to make the text-based environment more welcoming

Infocom also distributed their games not just through computer stores but through book stores as well

All games used a standardized virtual machine, allowing for simultaneous platform releases (Mac, Atari, Commodore, etc.)

Infocom “Feelies”

Additional documentation/miscellany that came with nearly every game

Ranged from personal diary of the protagonist (Planetfall) to menu of in-game restaurant (Ballyhoo) to change-of-address forms (Bureaucracy) to scratch-n-sniff card (Leather Goddesses of Phobos)

Gave player a more realized universe for the game, explaining anything from back story to in-game elements

“ Feelies” continued

Often had clues for the game, like semi-complete maps, discussion of elements that would later be incorporated in puzzles, etc.

Also served as an effective means of copy protection, both active and passive

Further Elements of Many Infocom Games

Score (x out of 100) and Moves

Sense of humor

Difficulty of puzzles/InvisiClues

Turn limits (time, hunger, etc.)

Frequent death

Self-awareness

AFGNCAAP, or Ageless, Faceless, Gender-Neutral, Culturally-Ambiguous Adventure Person as the protagonist

Title focus:

Planetfall (1983)

Bureaucracy (1987)

Planetfall -Developed by Steve Meretzky, one of only two interactive fiction writers allowed into the Science Fiction Writers of America organization. -Wildly popular game, both witty and serious -Introduced a NPC, the robot Floyd, a first for Infocom games -Player needed to eat and to sleep, also a first for Infocom -Time-limit -Emotionally powerful scenes -Inspired a novel of the same name

Bureaucracy -Written by Douglas Adams -Funny, experimental, personal and endlessly (and purposely) frustrating -“Registration screen” allows for customization -Counter-intuitive puzzles -Blood pressure, time limit, hunger

Infocom's Collapse -Invested in Cornerstone, a database product that did not sell well -Bought by Activision in 1985 -Closed in 1989

Infocom's Influence -Adventure games -Sierra -LucasArts -Choose your Own Adventure Books -Interactive Fiction still produced today, large community online

SSI and Strategy From Avalon Hill to SSI

Avalon Hill: TACTICS 1

Started in 1958 by Charles S. Roberts

His first game was Tactics, a pioneering board game

Previous strategy games were offshoots of the

miniature hobby scene

Pioneered many elements of strategy games, such as hexagonal grids, odds percentage based combat, terrain, unit health and morale, varying goal conditions, and historical relevance

Tactics II by Avalon Hill

First released in 1958

A more polished Tactics

Panzerblitz by Avalon Hill

Released in 1970

Designed by James F. Dunnigan

Set in the eastern front during WWII

One of the first war games to focus on smaller details of units (companies and squads) as opposed to large groups (regiments and divisions)

One of the most popular games by Avalon Hill

Panzerblitz: Game Board

Panzerblitz: Stats

Panzerblitz: Rules

Line of Sight Determination

Joel Billings, founder of SSI

Father was Robert Billings a WWII army vet with a PhD in English who specialized in American war novels

In 1965, when Joel was 7, his father brought home the first big commercial war game, Avalon Hill’s Tactics II

Taught war games to his high school chess club and then started his own war game club

Had trouble finding opponents, he even played with distant players by mail

Strategic Simulations, Inc.

Joel was a math and econ major in college, where he first started using computers for mathematical modeling

He played Star Trek on the mainframe

In 1979, he tried to convince an IBM programmer to let him produce war games for the TRS-80

Met Trip Hawkins, a marketing manager for Apple, (later became president of EA), who convinced him to develop for the Apple computer

SSI

Joel put flyers in hobby shops looking for programmers interested in war games

2 responses: John Lyon and Ed Willeger

Both only had experience programming mainframes, but learned BASIC to develop for the Apple computer

John Lyon wrote the first SSI game, Computer Bismarck

Ed Willeger wrote the second, Computer Ambush

Computer Bismarck

Billings asked Avalon Hill to

publish Computer Bismarck but Tom

Shaw was not interested

Also asked Automated Simulations,

but no success, so he decided to

self publish the game

Released for Apple II in January of 1980 and TRS-80 a few months later

Sent out advertisements to the members of the Apple II warranty mail list (about 20,000 addresses) in February

Soon retail stores started asking to sell the game, and by March 90% of sales were retail

Detailed Packaging: Game shipped in a large box to resemble a desktop wargame

Computer Bismarck

Ascii Text Mode Graphics

Keyboard Input

Hex Based Map

Battle For Normandy

Released in 1982

Apple II, Atari 8-Bit, C64,

PC-DOS

Play as Allied or German Commander

You have 24 Days (turns) to accomplish your goal

One of first computer wargames to simulate fatigue and leadership

Weather plays a factor

Germany 1985

Released in 1982 for Apple II

and 1983 for C64

Cold War scenario with Soviet Union versus NATO forces

Capture the greatest number of towns after a certain number of turns to win

Unit speed based on visibility to enemy units

Germany 1985: Menu

Germany 1985: Soviet Attack

SSI in 1985

By 1985 SSI had over 60 titles

Most games still written in BASIC

Amiga, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, C64, IBM PC, TRS-80

Atari was the best selling platform

Had tools for processes, such as map generation and distance calculation, that were common across all the games to improve speed of development

This allowed the game designers to make the games without being hardcore coders

SSI brought in a lot of fresh talent to design games

PC Game Designers

Bill Budge

Pinball Construction Set

1983

Introduced “builder” genre in video games

Users constructed their own virtual pinball games

Included bumpers, flippers, and spinners

PC Game Designers

Richard Garriott

Akalabeth

1980

Wire frame graphics

Extension from text adventures

Pre-Cursor to Ultima series

PC Game Designers

Robert Woodhead

Wizadry series (1980’s)

Dungeon & Dragon type gameplay

Introduced graphical element to D&D style games

Included a command-driven battle system seen in future RPG’s such as Final Fantasy

PC Games

Castle Wolfenstein

1981

Stealth action game

One of first games to have digitized speech

Games (cont.)

Swashbuckler

1982

Early Fighting game

As game progressed enemies become more numerous and faster

PC Games (cont.)

Lode Runner

1983

Player must collect all the gold in the level while avoiding enemy robots

Multi-Story Platform/Puzzle game

PC COMPONENT: Ability to create your own levels

Games (cont.)

The Bard’s Tale

1985

First-person 3d graphics

D&D style RPG

Non-linear game play

Clever Writing

Games (cont.)

Oregon Trail

1985

Educational game

As an American pioneer, the player must travel across the Oregon Trail, while facing numerous challenges

NES/Famicom

The crash was distinctly American

Crash shifted consoles solely towards Japan

Famicom released to Japan in 1983

NES released to US in 1985

Brought quality games into the home

Set new standard for consoles

Flight Simulator

Airfight 1975

University of Illinois

Written by Kevin Gorey after being playing Dogfight(’73) and Warner’s Airace

In the fashion of 2D game Dogfight

3D real time flight simulator with 3D views of the horizon, airport and enemy

CG Dynamic Flight Display 1975

University of Illinois

Written by Bruce Artwick as a part of his thesis after playing Airfight

Written for 6800 based micro computer

First such simulator on a microcomputer

Bruce Artwick

By 1978 Bruce had formed a company called SubLOGIC

They released a 6502 based version of his flight simulator

One company bought his idea in the early 80s and is still making a lot of money off it.

In 1975, Bruce Artwick was working on his Master’s Thesis in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois entitled, “A Versatile Computer-Generated Dynamic Flight Display.”

Artwick teamed up with others from the U of Illinois and with his flight instructor, Stu Moment, to form a company called SubLOGIC to develop and market a commercial aircraft simulator based on his thesis work.

The resulting FS1 Flight Simulator was an instant success, and by the end of 1980 had become one of the bestselling software titles for the Apple computer.

Bruce’s Flight Sim

By 1981, Microsoft approached Artwick with a proposition – allow Microsoft to exclusively license his program for the new yet-to-be-introduced computer, the

IBM-PC.

Artwick accepted, and Microsoft Flight

Simulator 1.01 was released for the IBM-PC in 1982.

Many versions of MSFS were released throughout the decade, each improving all aspects of the product

FSIM Requires implementation of

Equations of Motion

Quaternion Transformation methods

Direct Cosine Euler Transformations

Non dimensional aerodynamic coefficient implementation,

Simulation Engine

The core simulation engine (SimEngine) refers to

the theory, principles, functions, and processes which

directly relate to the way in which aircraft behavior is simulated. This includes the motion of aircraft, but also

includes the way the aircraft reacts with the ground, the

methodologies used to simulate thrust and propulsion,

and the simulation of a host of systems typically found

in a real aircraft.

Interface Support

To handle the interaction with all the different components of the game, the SimEngine must have a robust way to interface with these components. The majority of this interaction is handled through a C++ class structure interface, complete with unit conversions, error handling and multiple parameter indices.

Terrain/Sim interaction

One of the biggest problems with any simulation is the

interaction between the simulated object and the world

in which it is being simulated.

Limitations of hardware resources, it is not reasonable to

expect to have the entire world “loaded” at all times.

Therefore, there exists a classic “Catch 22” with respect to the SimEngine and the Terrain System

The terrain system must know where the aircraft is to know what terrain needs to be loaded, but the aircraft must know where the ground is to determine if the aircraft has crashed, landed or otherwise should be interacting with the ground

Terrain/Sim Interaction (cont…)