The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. It distinguished itself from competitors with more realistic sports and strategic games. By 1981, Mattel Electronics had close to 20% of the domestic video game market, selling more than 3.75 million consoles and 20 million cartridges through 1983. At its peak Mattel Electronics had about 1800 employees in several countries, including 110 videogame developers. In 1984, Mattel sold its video game assets to a former Mattel Electronics executive and investors, eventually becoming INTV Corporation. Game development ran from 1978 to 1990, when the Intellivision was discontinued.
BurgerTime, originally released as Hamburger in Japan, is an arcade video game from Data East. It was published in 1982 for the DECO Cassette System. The player controls chef Peter Pepper who walks across oversized ingredients in a maze of platforms and ladders, causing them to fall and stack on buns below, eventually creating complete burgers. The chef is pursued by anthropomorphic hot dogs, fried eggs, and pickles. A limited supply of pepper can be thrown at aggressors immediately in front of Peter, briefly stunning them.
Utopia is a 1982 strategy video game by Don Daglow released for the Intellivision and Mattel Aquarius. It is often regarded as among the first city building games, and credited as "arguably the earliest ancestor of the real-time strategy genre." In July 2010, the game was re-released on Microsoft's Game Room service for its Xbox 360 console and for Games for Windows Live.
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.
Astrosmash is a fixed shooter video game for the Intellivision console, designed by John Sohl, and released by Mattel Electronics in 1981. The player uses a laser cannon to destroy falling meteors, bombs, and other targets.
Intellivision Lives! is a compilation of over 60 Intellivision video games, originally produced by Mattel Electronics and INTV Corporation between 1978 and 1990. Using original game code and software emulation, Intellivision Productions released the compilation on a Windows and Macintosh hybrid CD-ROM in December 1998. Additional versions were then released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube by Crave Entertainment. In 2010, Virtual Play Games released a Nintendo DS version.
Shark! Shark! is an Intellivision game originally designed by Don Daglow, and with additional design and programming by Ji-Wen Tsao, one of the first female game programmers in the history of video games. The player is a fish who must eat smaller fishes in order to gain points and extra lives while avoiding enemies such as larger fishes, sharks, jellyfish, lobsters and crabs. After eating a certain number of fish, the player's fish grows in size and is thus able to eat a larger selection of fish. However, while the larger fish becomes a bit faster, he is less agile than the small fish and has a harder time avoiding enemies.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is an Intellivision game and was one of the first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games to be licensed by TSR, Inc. It was later retitled to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain to distinguish it from the sequel, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin. It is the first Intellivision cartridge to use more than 4K of ROM.
Lock 'n' Chase (ロック・ン・チェイス) is a maze chase video game developed by Data East and released in arcades in Japan in 1981. It was licensed to Taito for distribution in North America. It has similarities to Pac-Man, including a goal of collecting dots, with the addition of doors that periodically block pathways. Home versions for the Intellivision and Atari 2600 were published by Mattel in 1982, and an Apple II version was released in January 1983.
Slalom, originally released as VS. Slalom, is a skiing sports video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 1986 for the Nintendo VS. System in arcades. It was then released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America in August 1987 and in Europe later that year. The player races in a series of downhill slalom skiing runs while navigating past flags and obstacles before time expires. It was developed by Tim and Chris Stamper and its music was composed by David Wise.
Microsurgeon is a maze-like video game published by Imagic in 1982 for the Mattel Intellivision game console. The game was ported to the TI-99/4A computer and the IBM PCjr. Microsurgeon was re-released as part of the Intellivision Rocks collection.
Armor Battle is a video game written by Chris Kingsley for the Intellivision and published by Mattel in 1979. One of the earliest games available for the console, Armor Battle pits two players against each other in a contest to see which player can eliminate their opponent's stock of tanks first.
Baseball is a sport video game produced by Mattel and released for the Intellivision home video game console in 1980. As the best-selling game in the console's history, with more than 1 million copies sold, Baseball put players in control of a nine-man baseball team competing in a standard nine-inning game. When first released, Mattel obtained a license from Major League Baseball, though the only trademarked item used is the MLB logo on the box art. No official team names or player names are in the game.
Star Strike is a single-player video game, released by Mattel for its Intellivision video game system in 1981. The Intellivision's best-selling game in 1982, with over 800,000 copies sold, Star Strike was inspired by the attack on the Death Star in the 1977 film Star Wars. The player must drop bombs on alien weapons silos before Earth moves into range.
Hover Force is a video game published by INTV Corporation for the Intellivision video game system in 1986. The game was initially developed by Mattel Electronics with the intent of it being played in 3-D, but the company was shut down before it could be released. INTV, after acquiring the Intellivision assets from Mattel, re-tooled the game, which pits players against a terrorist group laying siege to a city, and then released it.
Auto Racing is a racing video game written by Larry Zwick and released by Mattel for its Intellivision video game console in 1980. Auto Racing pits two players against each other using a top-down perspective on one of five different race courses. Auto Racing was released under the same name by Sears for its private-label version of the Intellivision console, the Super Video Arcade.
Space Hawk is a multidirectional shooter released by Mattel for its Intellivision console in 1982. The game is a re-worked version of a previously planned clone of Asteroids in which the player, in a rocket-powered space suit, is drifting in space and shooting down or avoiding targets, including the titular hawks.
A vertically scrolling video game or vertical scroller is a video game in which the player views the field of play principally from a top-down perspective, while the background scrolls from the top of the screen to the bottom to create the illusion that the player character is moving in the game world.
NFL Football is a sports video game developed by Mattel and released for its Intellivision video game system in 1979. The players each control a football team competing in a standard four-quarter game. Like Mattel's other sports video games, NFL Football did not use any official National Football League team names or player names, even though Mattel obtained a license from the NFL and used the league's logo in its box art. NFL Football has been cited as the first football video game to have a playbook.
