Centipede is a 1980 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. Designed by Dona Bailey and Ed Logg, it was one of the most commercially successful games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the first with a significant female player base. The primary objective is to shoot all the segments of a centipede that winds down the playing field. An arcade sequel, Millipede, followed in 1982.
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom, known as Zoom 909 in Japan, is a pseudo-3D rail shooter released as an arcade video game by Sega in 1982. The player controls a spaceship in a third-person perspective, adapting the three-dimensional perspective of Sega's earlier racing game Turbo (1981) for the space shoot 'em up genre. It used the Buck Rogers license, referencing the space battles, though Buck himself is never seen.
Jungle King, re-released as Jungle Hunt, is a side-scrolling action game developed by Taito and released for arcades in 1982. It was originally distributed as Jungle King, then quickly modified and re-released as Jungle Hunt due to a copyright dispute over the player character's likeness to Tarzan. Jungle King, along with Moon Patrol released a month earlier, is one of the first video games with parallax scrolling.
Moon Patrol is a 1982 arcade video game developed and released by Irem. It was licensed to Williams for distribution in North America. The player controls a Moon buggy which can jump over and shoot obstacles on a horizontally scrolling landscape as well as shoot aerial attackers. Designed by Takashi Nishiyama, Moon Patrol is often credited with the introduction of full parallax scrolling in side-scrolling games. Cabinet art for the Williams version was done by Larry Day. Most of the home ports were from Atari, Inc., sometimes under the Atarisoft label.
Congo Bongo, also known as Tip Top, is an platform game released as an arcade video game by Sega in 1983. A message in the ROM indicates it was coded at least in part by the company Ikegami Tsushinki. The game is viewed in an isometric perspective, like Sega's earlier Zaxxon (1982), but does not scroll. Numerous home ports followed.
1984 saw many sequels and prequels along with new titles such as 1942, Boulder Dash, Cobra Command, Jet Set Willy, Karate Champ, Kung-Fu Master, Yie Ar Kung-Fu and Punch-Out!! The year's highest-grossing arcade games were Pole Position in the United States, for the second year in a row, and Track & Field in the United Kingdom. The year's best-selling home system was Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom), which was only sold in Japan at the time.
Imagic was an American video game developer and publisher that created games initially for the Atari 2600. Founded in 1981 by corporate alumni of Atari, Inc. and Mattel, its best-selling titles were Atlantis, Cosmic Ark, and Demon Attack. Imagic also released games for Intellivision, ColecoVision, Atari 8-bit family, TI-99/4A, IBM PCjr, VIC-20, Commodore 64, TRS-80 Color Computer, and Magnavox Odyssey². Their Odyssey² ports of Demon Attack and Atlantis were the only third-party releases for that system in America. The company never recovered from the video game crash of 1983 and was liquidated in 1986.
Chuckie Egg is a video game released by A&F Software in 1983 initially for the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, and Dragon 32/64. It was ported to the Commodore 64, Acorn Electron, MSX, Tatung Einstein, Amstrad CPC, and Atari 8-bit family. It was later updated for the Amiga, Atari ST, and IBM PC compatibles.
Tynesoft Computer Software was a software developer and publisher in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Micro Power was a British company established in the early 1980s by former accountant Bob Simpson. The company was best known as a video game publisher, originally under the name Program Power. It also sold many types of computer hardware and software through its Leeds 'showroom' or via mail order.
Blue Ribbon was the budget computer software publishing label of CDS Micro Systems.
Alligata Software Ltd. was a computer games developer and publisher based in Sheffield in the UK in the 1980s.
Tutankham is a 1982 arcade video game developed and released by Konami and released by Stern in North America. Named after the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, the game combines a maze shoot 'em up with light puzzle-solving elements. It debuted at the European ATE and IMA amusement shows in January 1982, before releasing worldwide in Summer 1982. The game was a critical and commercial success and was ported to home systems by Parker Brothers.
Atlantis Software was a London-based UK computer games publisher that released a number of games during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Addictive Games was a UK video game publisher in the 1980s and early 1990s. It is best known for the Football Manager series of games created by company founder Kevin Toms. The company was originally based in Milton Keynes, England, and later relocated to Bournemouth, in southern England.
Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented computers of the time such as those running CP/M or the IBM PC, and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporary business computers. Their most common uses were playing video games, but they were also regularly used for word processing and programming.
The English Software Company, later shortened to English Software, was a Manchester, UK-based video game developer and publisher that operated from 1982 until 1987. Starting with its first release, the horizontally scrolling shooter Airstrike, English Software focused on the Atari 8-bit family of home computers, then later expanded onto other platforms. The company used the slogan "The power of excitement".
The Atari joystick port is a computer port used to connect various gaming controllers to game console and home computer systems in the 1970s to the 1990s. It was originally introduced on the Atari 2600 in 1977 and then used on the Atari 400 and 800 in 1979. It went cross-platform with the VIC-20 in 1981, and was then used on many following machines from both companies, as well as a growing list of 3rd party machines like the MSX platform and various Sega consoles.
