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| Dominos | |
|---|---|
 Promotional flyer | |
| Developer(s) | Atari, Inc. |
| Platform(s) | Arcade |
| Release | January 1977 |
| Genre(s) | Snake |
Dominos is a one, two or four-player video action game packaged in its own distinctively styled upright cabinet that rest directly on the floor.
Gameplay is a variation of the snake genre, in which players compete by surrounding each other with lines of dominos. Players change direction via a set of four directional buttons representing up, down, right, and left respectively. A player loses when they hit a wall, their own dominos, or their opponent's, at which point all the dominos in their line "fall" down. At the end of each round, a point is awarded to the winner of that round until the end point goal is reached. The point goal can be 3, 4, 5, or 6 points. [1] [2]
Dominos was programmed by Dennis Koble. [3] He had joined Atari in 1976 and was only the fourth programmer at the company. His first project was Sprint 2 (1976) made with Lyle Rains and Dan Van Elderen. [4] Koble stated that despite being credited as the programmer on Dominos, Rains was "the brains behind the game", stating that Rains suggested the concept, drew the graphics and created the AI for the computer controlled player. [3]
Following the release of Blockade by Gremlin Industries, Atari wanted to make their own version of the game. Koble said the game was not stolen from Blockade, stating that prior to Gremlin's release, he had seen similar snake video games on ARPANET and CompuServe, which made him feel he was not stealing Gremlin's game. [4] Among the additions made to the game, Koble added a computer-controlled opponent, giving the game a single-player mode. [3]
Koble claimed it was made in a short amount of time, estimating about 13 weeks from to complete. He recalled that the game was made when Atari was still a "young company and just trying to survive as they made the transition into using microprocessors. They didn't quite have the standards they developed later". [4]
Dominos was shipped in January 1977. [5] Following Dominos, Koble went on to program Avalanche , his final game for Atari. [6] Atari would shortly release another snake game, Surround for the Atari 2600 on September 1977. [7]
From retrospective reviews, Bret Alan Weiss wrote in Allgame that Dominos was a simplistic game in terms of both visuals and gameplay and that it was superior as a two-player game, but it was "more fun than it looks, which isn't saying much". [8]
Asteroids is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade video game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers, while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases.
Snake is a genre of action video games where the player maneuvers the end of a growing line, often themed as a snake.
Kaboom! is an action video game published in 1981 by Activision for the Atari 2600. The game involves a Mad Bomber dropping bombs at increasing speeds as a player controls a set of water buckets to catch them. The gameplay was based on the Atari arcade video game Avalanche (1978). Kaboom! was programmed by Larry Kaplan with David Crane coding the graphics for the buckets and Mad Bomber. It was the last game designed by Kaplan for Activision, who left the company shortly after the release of the game. The game was later ported by Paul Wilson for the Atari 5200 system.
Solaris is a space combat video game for the Atari 2600 published in 1986 by Atari. The game involves a player seeking out the planet Solaris via their starship. To accomplish this, the player must navigate the galactic scanner to explore quadrants of a map. Doing so allows them to explore Federation planets to refuel their ship, and engage in combat with hostile aliens known as the Zylons.
Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and published by Sega. In North America, it was distributed by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct five frogs to their homes by dodging traffic on a busy road, then crossing a river by jumping on floating logs and alligators.
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Demon Attack is a fixed shooter video game created by Rob Fulop for the Atari 2600 and published by Imagic in 1982. The game involves the player controlling a laser cannon from the surface of a planet, shooting winged demons that fly down and attack the player in different sets of patterns.
Keystone Kapers is a platform game developed by Garry Kitchen for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1983. The game involves a Keystone Cops-theme, with the player controlling police officer Kelly, who traverses the many levels of a department store, dodging objects to catch the escaped thief Harry Hooligan.
Atlantis is a fixed shooter video game released by Imagic in July 1982 for the Atari 2600. It was written by Dennis Koble who also wrote Trick Shot for Imagic. Atlantis was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, VIC-20, Intellivision, and Magnavox Odyssey 2.
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns is a video game developed by David Crane for the Atari 2600. It was released in 1984 by Activision. The player controls Pitfall Harry, who must explore in wilds of Peru to find the Raj Diamond, and rescue his niece Rhonda and their animal friend Quickclaw. The game world is populated by enemies and hazards that variously cause the player to lose points and return to a checkpoint.
Space Wars is a shooter video game released in arcades by Cinematronics in 1977. It is based on the PDP-1 game Spacewar! (1962) but instead uses vector graphics for the visuals. The hardware developed for Space Wars became the platform for most of the vector-based arcade games from Cinematronics. It was distributed in Japan by Taito in 1978, and a Vectrex port was published in 1982.
Sprint 2 is a two player overhead-view arcade racing video game released in 1976 by Kee Games, a wholly owned subsidiary of Atari, and distributed by Namco in Japan. While earlier driving games had computer-controlled cars that moved along a "canned predetermined" course, Sprint 2 "introduced the concept of a computer car that had the intelligence to drive itself around the track" in "a semi-intelligent" manner.
Blockade is an arcade video game developed by Lane Hauck for Gremlin and released in November 1976. It is a two-player game where each player controls the direction of an arrow on the screen which creates a trail behind it. The object is the avoid any walls surrounding the playfield or created by each player for a select amount of turns. Blockade spawned many clones which came to be known as snake games.
Frogs is a single-player action arcade game released by Gremlin in 1978. It notably featured a jumping character. The game's graphics are "projected" by laying the monitor flat on its back and reflecting the computer-generated graphics of the frogs and flies toward the player via a mirror at a 45-degree angle. The game was distributed by Sega in Japan.
Ninja Golf is a beat 'em up/golf video game developed by BlueSky Software and published by Atari Corporation for the Atari 7800. Gameplay consists of the ninja player character hitting a golf ball at the beginning of each hole (stage) then fighting various enemies in side-scrolling sections to reach it. Each green is guarded by a fire-breathing dragon boss that the player must defeat by throwing shurikens.
Video Pinball is a video game programmed by Bob Smith and released by Atari, Inc. in 1980 for the Atari VCS. The Sears rebranded version for its Tele-Games system is Arcade Pinball.
T.A.N.K. is a 1985 vertically scrolling multidirectional shooter developed and released in arcades by SNK. It was published in North America as TNK III by Kitcorp. Versions of T.A.N.K. for home computers were released by Ocean Software for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC in 1987. A sequel was also released for the Nintendo Entertainment System titled Iron Tank.
Surround is a video game programmed by Alan Miller and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari Video Computer System. The game plays similarly to the arcade game Blockade (1976), which allows players to navigate a continuously moving block around an enclosed space as a wall trails behind it. Every time the opposite player has their brick hit a wall, the opposing player earns a single point, with the winner being the first to collect ten points.
Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns is a 1985 arcade game developed by Sega. It is based upon Activision's two home console games Pitfall! (1982) and Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (1984) for the Atari 2600. It has been described by historian Brett Weiss as a "rare occurrence" of an Arcade game being influenced by a console game.
Outlaw is a 1978 video game developed at Atari by David Crane. The game has a Western-setting, where one or two players either aim at targets or fellow gunsfighters to reach 10 points in a set time. Several modes are available allowing for different obstacles an rules varying how the players move, how their bullets act and how the obstacles block the bullets.
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