Doom is a 1993 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by id Software for MS-DOS. Players assume the role of a space marine, popularly known as Doomguy, fighting his way through hordes of invading demons from Hell. The first episode, comprising nine levels, was distributed freely as shareware and played by an estimated 15–20 million people within two years; the full game, with two further episodes, was sold via mail order. An updated version with an additional episode and more difficult levels, Ultimate Doom, was released in 1995 and sold at retail.
Puzzle video games make up a broad genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles can test many problem-solving skills including logic, pattern recognition, sequence solving, spatial recognition, and word completion.
Stevana "Stevie" Case is an American businesswoman and executive, former video game designer and former competitive Quake player. Under the in-game name KillCreek, she was known as one of the first well-known female esports players, gaining recognition for beating Quake designer John Romero in a Quake deathmatch. She was the first professional gamer signed to the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL).
Dr. Mario is a 1990 action puzzle video game produced by Gunpei Yokoi and designed by Takahiro Harada. Nintendo developed and published the game for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy consoles. The game's soundtrack was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka.
Tetris Attack, also known as Panel de Pon, is a 1995 puzzle video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. A Game Boy version was released a year later. In the game, the player must arrange matching colored blocks in vertical or horizontal rows to clear them. The blocks steadily rise towards the top of the playfield, with new blocks being added at the bottom. Several gameplay modes are present, including a time attack and multiplayer mode.
John Romero's Daikatana is a first-person shooter video game developed by Ion Storm for Microsoft Windows and Nintendo 64, and released in 2000. The Game Boy Color game of the same name released the same year is entirely different, being a top-down action-adventure game by Japanese studio Kemco. The game is split into four episodes, each representing a different time period, and is centred around the conflict between two rival clans, the Ebihara and Mishima. During development, the game initially had the original Quake engine; however, this was switched to the Quake II engine, causing the game to be delayed. Close to release, the promotion for the game focused on the lead developers and the studio, and one notorious aspect of the promotion was a poster with the phrase "John Romero's About To Make You His Bitch". A PlayStation version had been planned but was cancelled during development.
Alfonso John Romero is an American director, designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D, Dangerous Dave, Hexen, Doom, Doom II and Quake. His game designs and development tools, along with new programming techniques created and implemented by id Software's lead programmer John D. Carmack, led to a mass popularization of the first-person shooter, or FPS, in the 1990s. He is credited with coining the FPS multiplayer term "deathmatch".
Tom Hall is a game designer best known for his work with id Software on titles such as Doom and Commander Keen. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned a B.S. in Computer Science.
Monkeystone Games was a video game developer and publisher founded by John Romero, Tom Hall, Stevie Case, and Brian Moon. After its inception in July 2001, Monkeystone published several titles on multiple platforms.
Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen is an American game designer.
Pokémon Puzzle Challenge is a video game for the Game Boy Color. It is based on Panel de Pon, only with characters from the Pokémon franchise. The characters in Pokémon Puzzle Challenge are based on those in the Gold and Silver games, while those in Pokémon Puzzle League—its Nintendo 64 equivalent—were based more on the anime characters. However, the game is also focused around beating the Johto leaders in a puzzle challenge in Johto region. The game play mode is divided into 1 Player, 2 Player, and Training. The game was later released on the 3DS eShop on November 6, 2014.
Dick Tracy appeared in a number of video games released as tie-ins for the motion picture:
Nintendo Puzzle Collection is a 2003 video game compilation published for the GameCube in Japan by Nintendo. It includes three Nintendo-published puzzle video games released for older systems — Yoshi's Cookie (1992), Panel de Pon (1995), and Dr. Mario 64 (2001) — featuring updated graphics and music, alongside four-person multiplayer. The player can download one of the games to their Game Boy Advance via the GameCube - Game Boy Advance link cable.
Mario's Picross is a 1995 puzzle video game for the Game Boy. Developed by Jupiter and Ape and published by Nintendo, it is a compilation of nonogram logic puzzles. The game stars Mario who chisels away at puzzle grids to form pictures. The game initially received positive reviews, with reviewers citing its length and addictive nature as a positive, but its grid sizes and absence of typical Mario elements as a negative.
Kwirk, known in Japan as Puzzle Boy, is a puzzle video game developed and published by Atlus in Japan on November 24, 1989 for the Game Boy. The game was later published in North America in March 1990 by Acclaim Entertainment. On February 22, 1991, Atlus ported and released Puzzle Boy to the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 in Japan.
First-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective; that is, the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist. The genre shares common traits with other shooter games, which in turn makes it fall under the heading action game. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D and pseudo-3D graphics have challenged hardware development, and multiplayer gaming has been integral.
Limbo is a puzzle-platform video game developed by independent studio Playdead. The game was released in July 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade, and has since been ported to several other systems, including the PlayStation 3, Linux and Microsoft Windows. Limbo is a 2D side-scroller, incorporating a physics system that governs environmental objects and the player character. The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps as he searches for his sister. The developer built the game's puzzles expecting the player to fail before finding the correct solution. Playdead called the style of play "trial and death", and used gruesome imagery for the boy's deaths to steer the player from unworkable solutions.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a sub-series of the Mario and Donkey Kong series, based on puzzle video games, marking the return of Pauline and Donkey Kong's rivalry with Mario.
Daikatana is an action-adventure game developed by Will and published by Kemco for the Game Boy Color handheld game console. It was released in Europe in 2000 and in Japan in 2001 for the Nintendo Power cartridge. A North American release was planned but was cancelled due to the poor reputation of its Windows and Nintendo 64 counterparts of the same name. Where these versions are first-person shooters, the Game Boy Color version was designed at the request of creator John Romero to be an adventure game similar to The Legend of Zelda in order to differentiate it. It stars Hiro Miyamoto, who must rescue his friend and the titular sword Daikatana. It has received generally positive reception, as a contrast to the poor reception other versions received.
BoxBoy! is a puzzle platformer video game franchise developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. The series centres around Qbby, a square-shaped character who can produce a string of connected boxes. The boxes are used to overcome obstacles in stages that Qbby must be guided through. The first game, BoxBoy!, released on January 14, 2015, in Japan on the Nintendo 3DS. Its sequel, BoxBoxBoy!, was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2016, with a third game, Bye-Bye BoxBoy!, in 2017. A fourth instalment, BoxBoy! + BoxGirl!, was released for the Nintendo Switch in April 2019.
