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. These abilities are enhanced when landing on a square of one's own color.
A gremlin is a folkloric mischievous creature that causes malfunctions in aircraft or other machinery. Depictions of these creatures vary. Often they are described or depicted as animals with spiky backs, large strange eyes, and small clawed frames that feature sharp teeth.
Custer's Revenge is an adult sex video game produced by Mystique for the Atari 2600, first released on September 23, 1982. The game gained notoriety owing to its goal of raping a Native American woman.
The damsel in distress, persecuted maiden, or princess in jeopardy is a classic theme in world literature, art, film and video games, most notably in the more action-packed. This trope usually involves beautiful, innocent, or helpless young female leads, placed in a dire predicament by a villain, monster or similar antagonist, and who requires a male hero to achieve her rescue. After rescuing her, the hero often obtains her hand in marriage. Though she is usually human, she can also be of any other species, including fictional or folkloric species; and even divine figures such as an angel, spirit, or deity.
Gremlins is a 1984 American comedy horror film directed by Joe Dante. The story follows a young man who receives a strange creature called a mogwai as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters that all wreak havoc on a whole town on Christmas Eve. It draws on legends of folkloric mischievous creatures that caused malfunctions — "gremlins" — in the British Royal Air Force going back to World War II. The film stars Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates, with Howie Mandel providing the voice of Gizmo, the main mogwai character. Steven Spielberg was the film's executive producer, with the film being produced by Michael Finnell and released by Warner Bros.
Frogger is a 1981 arcade game developed by Konami and originally published by Sega. In North America, it was published jointly by Sega and Gremlin Industries. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one by crossing a busy road and navigating a river full of hazards.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a 1990 American comedy horror film, and the sequel to the 1984 film Gremlins. It was directed by Joe Dante and written by Charles S. Haas, with creature designs by Rick Baker. Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph, and Keye Luke reprise their roles from the first film. New cast members include John Glover, Robert Prosky, Haviland Morris, Robert Picardo, and Christopher Lee; additionally, the film features Tony Randall providing the voice for one of the gremlins. The story continues the adventures of the creature Gizmo, who spawns numerous small monsters when wet. In the first film, Gizmo's offspring rampaged through a small fictional town. In Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Gizmo multiplies within a skyscraper in New York City. The new creatures thus pose a serious threat to the city should they be able to leave the building, and much of the story involves the human characters' efforts to prevent this disaster.
The inclusion of sex and nudity in video games has been controversial since the early days of the video game industry. While many video games have used scantily clad images or characters to sell or enhance games, some go further, using sex acts or nudity as a character motivation, in-game reward, or simply as a gameplay element. These games originate worldwide, on most platforms and can be of any video game genre. While releases in Europe and North America have been sporadic and often unlicensed, Japan has seen the emergence of a pornographic video game subgenre—eroge, first appearing on the NEC PC-88 computer platform in the 1980s. In the 1990s NEC and Sega were the only companies who officially allowed sexual content on their consoles in Japan, but eroge was more prevalent on the NEC PC-98 and FM Towns computer platforms.
Mystique was a company that produced a number of unlicensed pornographic video games for the Atari 2600, such as 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. Mystique was an offshoot of Caballero Control Corporation, which produced pornographic films, and American Multiple Industries. The company's games were sold under the "Swedish Erotica" banner, although they were programmed in the United States, and manufactured in Hong Kong.
Bachelor Party is an adult-themed video game for the Atari 2600 developed by Mystique.
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em is a pornographic video game for the Atari 2600 by Mystique in 1982. Distribution was handled by American Multiple Industries until distribution changed to Game Source. 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.
Plan 9 from Outer Space is a point and click adventure game adaptation of the film of the same name. It was developed at the Irish office of Gremlin Graphics for the Amiga and Atari ST, and was released in 1992. The game was published by Gremlin in Europe and by Konami in the United States. A DOS version was also developed, though only released in the US and Europe. Two editions of the game were made available at retail; the more common version was packaged with a VHS copy of the film, while a rarer version contained only the game.
Knights of Xentar is an adult role-playing video game published for the MS-DOS in North America by Megatech Software in 1995 and has been originally published as Dragon Knight III (ドラゴンナイトIII) in Japan. It is part of the Dragon Knight series of games created by Japanese game developer ELF, who originally released the game for the NEC PC-9801 computer in 1991, followed by ports for the Sharp X68000 and PC Engine CD platforms in 1992 and 1994.
Realms of the Haunting is a first-person adventure shooter game developed by Gremlin Interactive and published by Interplay Productions. It was released in 1997 for the MS-DOS. The 3D engine used in this game was borrowed from Gremlin's own Normality.
Sub-Terrania is a 1994 multidirectional shooter developed by Danish studio Zyrinx and published by Sega for the Mega Drive/Genesis. The game takes place in the future, where a deep-space mining colony has been invaded by an unknown alien race. The player assumes the role of a lone pilot who must defeat the alien forces and rescue the trapped miners. During the course of the game, the player controls a rotatable craft with thrusters that is constantly subject to gravity and the craft's inertia. Using the ship's "rotate-and-thrust" capabilities, the players must aim, shoot, dodge and carefully maneuver their way through the hazardous landscape while constantly taking gravity and refueling needs into account.
Oids is a multi-directional shooter developed and self-published by FTL Games in 1987. The game was originally released on the Atari ST, followed by a conversion for the Macintosh in 1990. The game follows in the footsteps of shoot 'em ups such as Asteroids (1979), Gravitar (1982) and Thrust (1986), with its "thrust-and-rotate" controls, inertia and gravity-based movement, 360 degree shooting and manually-operated shield. The main activity in the game is rescuing abused android slaves, and there is rather more emphasis on arcade action than the slower paced gameplay of Gravitar and Thrust. The Atari ST version, created entirely by Dan Hewitt, was a cult favorite in the UK, where it received rave reviews.
Head On is an arcade game released in 1979 by Sega and Sega/Gremlin. It's the first maze game where the goal is to run over dots.
Future Knight is a 2D, flip screen platform game released by Gremlin Graphics in 1986 for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, and ZX Spectrum. The player must guide Randolph through twenty levels of hostile robots and aliens before defeating Spegbott and rescuing Amelia.
Backflip Studios was a mobile game developer and publisher based in Boulder, Colorado, United States. It was founded by Julian Farrior, Dale Thoms and Tom Blind in April 2009. In August 2009, it was announced that the company had raised US$145,000 in funding to continue developing for the iPhone OS. Backflip Studios was best known for their free mobile game Paper Toss, which has been downloaded over 50 million times. They are also widely known for Dragonvale, with over 10 million downloads. In 2013, Backflip Studios sold a 70% stake in the company to Hasbro for $112 million in cash.
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.
