Galaxy Game (1971)
Galaxy Game was one of the early coin operated video games.
It was installed at Standford University two months prior to Computer Space
being released. This game was based off of the game “Spacewar!”, as well as
other games being based off of “Spacewar!”, during the early 1970s. The game
cost 10 cents to play one game or 25 cents for three games.
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Hunt the Wumpus (1972)
Hunt the Wumpus is a game of hide and seek. It is a
simplified version of hide and seek though. The game was written in BASIC. This
game allowed players to be able to move around into different rooms that were
connected. It was designed and programmed by Gregory Yob. Later on Gregory
wrote about his game and was featured in many publications.
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Gran Trak 10 (1974)
Gran Trak 10 was a racing game. It was designed by Atari in
1974. Gran Trak 10 was single player. This was the first racing game that was
released by Atari. The game allowed for players to race around a two
dimensional track. This game lead to the development of Gran Trak 20 which is
the same game except you can race with other players.
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Spasim (1974)
Spasim is an abbreviation for space simulation. The game was
designed and developed by Jim Bowery. It was a 32 player game for computers
which was also a 3D game. This game was based off of the game Empire. Empire is
also played on the PLATO computer systems. The weapons and ships in Spasim were
based off of the game Star Trek. Spasim was the first 3D online computer game
in which players can play online with each other. It was also an inspiration for
other games such as, Airace, Brand Fortner’s Airfight, and Sublogic’s Flight
Simulator.
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Death Race (1976)
Death Race was a game in which players would run over
gremlins and when the player hits the gremlins they would scream or squeal.
After the gremlins got run over they would leave behind a tombstone. There was
some controversy over this game because it was thought that it promoted violence.
This game was designed by Exidy which had designed Destruction Derby which has
a similar concept to Death Race. The inspiration for this game was the movie
Death Race 2000 which was from 1975.
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Sea Wolf (1976)
Sea Wolf was developed by Midway Manufacturing Co. and it
was an arcade game. It was a revamped version of Sea Devil. However, it was
also based off of one of Sega’s games which also used a submarine simulator
periscope. Those games were Periscope and Sea Raider. Later on in 1978 a
coloured version of Sea Wolf was released. The objective of Sea Wolf was to
look through the periscope and shoot boats and ships that appeared on the
screen with torpedoes. There was also mines on the screen that would prevent
the torpedoes from hitting the boats and ships. It was played on a black and
white monitor which had a colour overlay. If a player managed to reach a
certain score they would have access to more playing otherwise time would run
out and the game will end.
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