Archon: The Light and the Dark is a 1983 video game developed by Free Fall Associates and one of the first five games published by Electronic Arts. It is superficially similar to chess, in that it takes place on a board with alternating black and white squares; however, instead of fixed rules when landing on another player's piece, an arcade-style fight takes place to determine the victor, and each piece has different combat abilities. The health of the player's piece is enhanced when landing on a square of one's own color.
Shoot 'em ups are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character movement, while others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives.
Custer's Revenge is an adult action game published by American Multiple Industries for the Atari 2600, first released in November 1982. The game gained notoriety owing to its goal of raping a Native American woman.
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.
Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and manufactured by Sega. In North America, it was released by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct a series of frogs to their homes by crossing a busy road and a hazardous river.
Though not a complete history, herein is a list of what many would consider most of the "game" changers that made arcade experiences so powerful and nostalgic.
American Multiple Industries was a company that produced a line of pornographic video games for the Atari 2600 called Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica, which included the games Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em, Bachelor Party and Custer's Revenge. It was one of several video game companies that tried to use sex to sell its games. The brand name Swedish Erotica was licensed from a series of pornographic films by Caballero Control Corporation, although they were programmed in the United States, and manufactured in Hong Kong.
Bachelor Party is a pornographic video game for the Atari 2600 by American Multiple Industries in 1982.
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em is a pornographic video game for the Atari 2600 by American Multiple Industries in 1982. Players control two nude women; the goal is to catch semen in their mouths, which is falling from a masturbating man on a rooftop, without missing. Its gameplay has been compared to the Atari game Kaboom!. There is also a gender-reversed version of the game titled Philly Flasher that features identical gameplay. Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em has received negative reviews since its release and is an oft-cited example of pornographic Atari 2600 games.
Switchblade II is a 1991 side-scrolling action-platform run and gun video game originally developed and published by Gremlin Graphics in Europe for the Amiga home computers. It is the sequel to the original Switchblade, which was solely created by Simon Phipps at Core Design and released earlier in 1989 across multiple platforms. Despite being primarily developed in the UK, its graphics had a distinctly Japanese style similar to anime or manga.
Space Fury is a 1981 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 in July 1981. It is the first game with color vector graphics, and it was Sega's second game to use speech synthesis. Coleco published a ColecoVision version with raster graphics in 1983.
Tac/Scan (夕ック/スキャン) is a space combat shooter released as an arcade video game in 1982. It was developed by Sega Electronics and published by Sega. An Atari 2600 version was released in 1983.
Indy 500 is a 1977 racing video game developed by Atari, Inc. for its Video Computer System. It is themed around the Indianapolis 500, and is based on Atari's earlier 8-player arcade game, Indy 800.
Dragonfire is a 1982 video game written by Bob Smith and published by Imagic. The player grabs treasure guarded by a dragon while avoiding fireballs. It was originally released for the Atari 2600 then ported to the Intellivision, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, ColecoVision, and TRS-80 Color Computer.
Oids is a multidirectional shooter developed and self-published by FTL Games in 1987. The game was originally released on the Atari ST, followed by a B&W version for the classic 68k Macintosh in 1990. The Atari ST version, written by Dan Hewitt, was a cult favourite in the UK, where it received rave reviews.
Head On is an arcade video game developed by Sega/Gremlin and released by Sega in 1979. It's the first maze game where the goal is to run over dots. Designed by Lane Hauck at Sega/Gremlin in the United States, the game was a commercial success, becoming the fourth highest-grossing 1979 in both Japan and the US.
Surround is a video game programmed by Alan Miller and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari Video Computer System. It was one of the nine Atari VCS launch titles released in September 1977. Surround is an unofficial port of the arcade video game Blockade, released the previous year by Gremlin Industries. It is the first home console version of the game that became widely known across many platforms as Snake. Atari licensed it to Sears which released it under the name Chase.
Yars' Revenge is a video game released for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It was created by Howard Scott Warshaw and is Atari's best-selling original game for the 2600.
Gremlins is a 1984 video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600. It is a tie-in to the 1984 film Gremlins. Atari released another, substantially different game based on the film for the Atari 5200.
Jack the Giantkiller is a 1982 arcade game developed and published by Cinematronics. It is based on the 19th-century English fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk". In Japan, the game was released as Treasure Hunt. There were no home console ports.
