Jeff Minter is an English video game designer and programmer who often goes by the name Yak. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and has created dozens of games during his career, which began in 1981 with games for the ZX80. Minter's games are shoot 'em ups which contain titular or in-game references demonstrating his fondness of ruminants. Many of his programs also feature something of a psychedelic element, as in some of the earliest "light synthesizer" programs including Trip-a-Tron.
Joust is an action game developed by Williams Electronics and released in arcades in 1982. While not the first two-player cooperative video game, Joust's success and polished implementation popularized the concept. Players assume the role of knights armed with lances and mounted on large birds, who must fly around the screen and defeat enemy knights riding buzzards.
George Edward "Ed" Logg is a retired American arcade video game designer, first employed at Atari, Inc. and later at Atari Games. He currently resides in San Jose, California. He was educated at University of California, Berkeley and also attended Stanford University.
An action-adventure game is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres.
Robotron: 2084 is a multidirectional shooter developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released in arcades by Williams Electronics in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a fictional world where robots have turned against humans in a cybernetic revolt. The aim is to defeat endless waves of robots, rescue surviving humans, and earn as many points as possible.
Howard Phillips is an American video game consultant and producer who was an early employee of and spokesman for Nintendo of America in the 1980s.
A video game clone is either a video game or a video game console very similar to, or heavily inspired by, a previous popular game or console. Clones are typically made to take financial advantage of the popularity of the cloned game or system, but clones may also result from earnest attempts to create homages or expand on game mechanics from the original game. An additional motivation unique to the medium of games as software with limited compatibility, is the desire to port a simulacrum of a game to platforms that the original is unavailable for or unsatisfactorily implemented on.
Foundation 9 Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game company based in Irvine, California. The company was formed in March 2005 through the merger of video game developers Backbone Entertainment and The Collective.
Backbone Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Emeryville, California. The company was formed in 2003 as the result of a merger between developers Digital Eclipse and ImaginEngine. In 2005, Backbone merged with The Collective to form Foundation 9 Entertainment.
In the history of video games, the second-generation era refers to computer and video games, video game consoles, and handheld video game consoles available from 1976 to 1992. Notable platforms of the second generation include the Fairchild Channel F, Atari 2600, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, and ColecoVision. The generation began in November 1976 with the release of the Fairchild Channel F. This was followed by the Atari 2600 in 1977, Magnavox Odyssey² in 1978, Intellivision in 1980 and then the Emerson Arcadia 2001, ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex, all in 1982. By the end of the era, there were over 15 different consoles. It coincided with, and was partly fuelled by, the golden age of arcade video games. This peak era of popularity and innovation for the medium resulted in many games for second generation home consoles being ports of arcade games. Space Invaders, the first "killer app" arcade game to be ported, was released in 1980 for the Atari 2600, though earlier Atari-published arcade games were ported to the 2600 previously. Coleco packaged Nintendo's Donkey Kong with the ColecoVision when it was released in August 1982.
Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., commonly known as Bandai Namco and formerly Namco Bandai until 2015, also known as Bandai Namco Group, is a Japanese entertainment holding company founded in 2005 by the merger of Namco and Bandai. The company specializes in toys, video games, arcades, anime, restaurants, and amusement parks. They are also unofficially nicknamed as "Bamco" by some. The conglomerate is made up of:
Atari: 80 Classic Games in One! is a 2003 video game collection for Microsoft Windows, also released as Atari Anthology for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Atari Interactive. The title is a compilation of 80 video games previously published by Atari, Inc. and Atari Corporation from the 1970s and 1980s, reproducing Atari's games from its arcade and Atari 2600 game console platforms. Many games permit one to play each title at varying speeds, with time limits, or with a shifting color palette.
Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc., formerly Bandai Namco Games until 2015, is a Japanese multinational video game publisher, and the video game branch of the wider Bandai Namco Holdings group. Founded in 2006 as Namco Bandai Games Inc., it is the successor to Namco's home and arcade video game business, as well as Bandai's former equivalent division. Development operations were spun off into a new company in 2012, Namco Bandai Studios, now called Bandai Namco Studios.
Atari SA, also known under the Atari Group moniker, is a French holding company headquartered in Paris that owns mainly video gaming-related interactive entertainment properties. Atari SA's core subsidiaries include the publisher and marketer Atari, Inc., developers Nightdive Studios and Digital Eclipse, and publisher Infogrames, It also has a blockchain division, Atari X, and additionally owns the websites MobyGames and AtariAge. Through these divisions, the company owns the rights to many video game properties that originated from Accolade, Atari, Inc., Atari Corporation, GT Interactive, M Network, Intellivision and others. It is the sole owner of the Atari brand since 2001, through its subsidiary Atari Interactive Inc. which licenses the brand to other entities in the group.
Frank Cifaldi is a video game preservationist, historian, and developer.
Code Mystics is a Canadian video game developer specializing in both the emulation and remastering of older video games for modern systems, and porting of indie titles.
The Disney Afternoon Collection is a compilation video game developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Capcom. It features six video games originally developed by Capcom and released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, all based on animated series from the television block The Disney Afternoon, which ran in syndication from 1990 to 1997. The compilation includes the titles DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, DuckTales 2, and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2. It was released on April 18, 2017, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.
The Video Game History Foundation is a non-profit foundation founded by Frank Cifaldi. The primary aim of the foundation is the archival, preservation, and dissemination of historical media related to video games.
Other Ocean Interactive is a Canadian-American video game developer based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Emeryville, California. Originally founded in 2006 in Charlottetown, as a studio for Foundation 9 Entertainment, the studio was spun off as Other Ocean Interactive in May 2007. Since then, it has made eight games itself and has been involved in the development of 40 other games.
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is a 2022 video game compilation and interactive documentary developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Atari to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary. It is composed of newly shot interviews with former Atari employees, archival footage, emulated games from the company's catalog, and six new games inspired by various Atari games. It was released for Atari VCS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on November 11, 2022.
