Zaxxon is a scrolling shooter developed and released by Sega as an arcade video game in 1982. The player pilots a ship through heavily defended space fortresses. Japanese electronics company Ikegami Tsushinki was also involved in the game's development.
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.
Congo Bongo, also known as Tip Top, is a 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.
Cinematronics Incorporated was an arcade game developer that primarily released vector graphics games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While other companies released games based on raster displays, early in their history, Cinematronics and Atari, Inc. released vector-display games, which offered a distinctive look and a greater graphic capability, at the cost of being only black and white (initially). Cinematronics also published Dragon's Lair in 1983, the first major LaserDisc video game.
The following article is a broad timeline of arcade video games.
Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Pac-Man was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row. Nintendo's Donkey Kong defined the platform game genre, while Konami's Scramble established scrolling shooters. The lesser known Jump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Frogger, and the Galaxian sequel Galaga.
Carnival is a fixed shooter developed by Gremlin and released by Sega in arcades in 1980. It was one of the first video games with a bonus round.
Frog Bog is a 1982 video game by Mattel Electronics for the Intellivision. An Atari 2600 conversion was released later that year as Frogs and Flies. In both games, each player controls a frog sitting on a lily pad, attempting to eat more flies than the other. Frog Bog is similar to the 1978 Sega-Gremlin arcade game Frogs.
Bonanza Bros. is a 3D-style, 2D side-scrolling stealth action game developed and released by Sega in 1990. It is one of the earliest arcade games powered by the Sega System 24 arcade system board. It was ported to various home systems, including the Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-CD, and several home computers.
Targ is a maze shoot 'em up developed by Exidy and released as an arcade video game in 1980. It depicts vehicular combat in a future world. It was released in North America by Exidy in June 1980 and in Japan by Sega in July.
Astron Belt (アストロンベルト) is a LaserDisc video game in the form of a third-person, space combat rail shooter, released in arcades in 1983 by Sega in Japan, and licensed to Bally Midway for release in North America. Developed in 1982, it was the first major arcade laserdisc video game. The game combines full-motion video (FMV) footage from the laserdisc with real-time 2D graphics. The arcade game was available in both upright and cockpit arcade cabinets, with the latter having illuminated buttons on the control panel, a larger 25" monitor, and a force feedback vibrating seat.
Space Fury is a multidirectional shooter arcade game developed by Gremlin. Sega/Gremlin released the game in North America in June 1981, and then Sega released it in Japan the following month. It is the first game with color vector graphics, and was Sega's second game to use speech synthesis. Coleco published a ColecoVision version with raster graphics in 1983.
A side-scrolling video game is a video game viewed from a side-view camera angle where the screen follows the player as they move left or right. The jump from single-screen or flip-screen graphics to scrolling graphics during the golden age of arcade games was a pivotal leap in game design, comparable to the move to 3D graphics during the fifth generation.
Gremlin Industries was an American arcade game manufacturer active from 1970 to 1983, based in San Diego, California. It was acquired by Sega in 1978, and afterwards was known as Gremlin/Sega or Sega/Gremlin. Among Sega/Gremlin's most notable games are Blockade and Head On, as well as being the North American distributors for Frogger and Zaxxon. The company's name was subsequently changed to Sega Electronics in 1982, before its operations were closed in 1983.
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 to avoid any walls surrounding the playfield or trails created by each player for a select amount of turns. Blockade spawned many clones which came to be known as snake games.
Monaco GP is an arcade racing game released by Sega in November 1979 in Japan, and January 1980 worldwide. An upgraded version, Pro Monaco GP, was released later in 1980. One of the last Sega games to use TTL chips instead of a microprocessor CPU, the game has players race against a clock and pass rival racers while attempting to earn points driving through five areas.
Eliminator is a multi-directional shooter space combat game, created and released by Sega/Gremlin in 1981. Similar to the monochrome Star Castle, Eliminator uses color vector graphics and allows both cooperative and competitive multiplayer gameplay. It is the only four-player vector game ever made.
Heiankyo Alien, known as Digger in North America, is a maze video game created by The University of Tokyo's Theoretical Science Group (TSG) in 1979. The game was originally developed and released as a personal computer game in 1979, and was then published by Denki Onkyō Corporation as an arcade game in November 1979. In 1980, the arcade game was released in North America as Digger by Sega-Gremlin, with minor changes in appearance.
Head On is an arcade video game developed by Sega/Gremlin and released by Sega in 1979. It was the first maze video game where the goal is to run over dots. Designed by Lane Hauck at Sega/Gremlin in the United States, it was the fourth highest-grossing arcade game of 1979 in both Japan and the US.
An arcade video game is an arcade game where the player's inputs from the game's controllers are processed through electronic or computerized components and displayed to a video device, typically a monitor, all contained within an enclosed arcade cabinet. Arcade video games are often installed alongside other arcade games such as pinball and redemption games at amusement arcades. Up until the late 1990s, arcade video games were the largest and most technologically advanced sector of the video game industry.
