Ataxx (アタックス) is a strategy video game published in arcades by Leland Corporation in 1990. Two players compete on a seven-by-seven square grid. The object of the game is for a player to have a majority of the pieces on the board at the end, by converting as many of their opponent's pieces as possible. In a single-player game, the opponents are "bio-invaders from a different dimension."
Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information during cutscenes, games that are primarily presented through FMVs are referred to as full-motion video games or interactive movies.
The 7th Guest is an interactive movie puzzle adventure game, produced by Trilobyte and originally released by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in April 1993. It is one of the first computer video games to be released only on CD-ROM. The 7th Guest is a horror story told from the unfolding perspective of the player, as an amnesiac. The game received press attention for making live action video clips a core part of its gameplay, for its then-unprecedented amount of pre-rendered 3D graphics, and for its adult content. The game was very successful, with over two million copies sold. The game alongside Myst, is widely regarded as a killer app that accelerated the sales of CD-ROM drives. The 7th Guest has subsequently been re-released on Apple's app store for various systems such as the Mac. Bill Gates called The 7th Guest "the new standard in interactive entertainment".
Graeme Devine is a computer game designer and programmer who co-founded Trilobyte, created bestselling games The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, and helped design id Software's Quake III Arena. He was Chairman of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) from 2002 to 2003. One of Graeme's trademarks is his Scooby-Doo wardrobe. He has said of his work that "I've not stuck to any one genre, platform or IP throughout my career, and I hope people eventually work out that's just fine."
The 11th Hour is a 1995 interactive movie puzzle adventure game with a horror setting. It is the sequel to the 1993 game The 7th Guest. A 3DO Interactive Multiplayer version was planned but never released.
Laura Foy is an American former television producer and former co-host alongside Tina Wood, Geoff Keighley, and Scot Rubin of the interactive video game television program G4tv.com on G4.
Geoff Keighley is a Canadian video game journalist and television presenter, best known for his role as the host of several video game industry conferences and presentations. He is the executive producer and host of The Game Awards since its inception in 2014, having previously served as the executive producer of the Spike Video Game Awards. He also hosts and produces Summer Game Fest, and has hosted live events for trades fairs Gamescom and the now-defunct E3.
Clandestiny, published in 1996 by Virgin Games and developed by Trilobyte, is a video-based puzzle computer game. After the profit loss of The 11th Hour, the second game created by Trilobyte, the producers went on to make a more kid-friendly version of The 7th Guest series. The game was re-released in January 2011 on the Mac App Store.
Uncle Henry's Playhouse is the third game in The 7th Guest series. Functionally the game is a compilation game mostly composed of the puzzles from Trilobyte's games The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour, and Clandestiny, but featuring little plot. The game has been noted for its low sales figures and its rarity/obscurity relative to its blockbuster predecessors, The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. The game is primarily intended as a means of presenting puzzles from the previous titles in the 7th Guest series and consequently it has a rather simplistic plot that has been criticized by reviewers for its thinness in comparison to the previous games. The game also includes previews for two then-upcoming Trilobyte games, Tender Loving Care and Dog Eat Dog.
Telegames, Inc. is an American video game company based in Mabank, Texas, with a sister operation based in England.
Boomzap Entertainment is a casual games developer registered in Singapore with a virtual office environment. It was formed in 2005 and has released 50 games to date that are ported on various platforms. Boomzap has developed for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS, and Android. Its games are available on games portals such as Big Fish Games, Yahoo!, WildTangent, GameHouse, Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, Steam and others.
Martin Alper was a video game designer and the former President of Virgin Interactive, once one of the largest companies in the field. Alper was a co-founder of Mastertronic, which went on to become Virgin Interactive following its acquisition by Richard Branson. He was involved with the development of Command & Conquer at Westwood Studios and Shiny Entertainment who developed The Matrix and Earthworm Jim. He was also the person who approached Westwood Studios co-founder Brett Sperry about creating Dune II. In an interview he also explained how he fired Rob Landeros and Graeme Devine so they could set-up their own company Trilobyte during the development of The 7th Guest.
Rob Landeros is a computer game designer and graphic artist. Together with Graeme Devine, he co-founded Trilobyte, where he created the highly commercially successful games The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. After leaving Trilobyte, he co-founded Aftermath Media, where he released the interactive movies Tender Loving Care and Point of View.
Tender Loving Care is an interactive movie originally released on August 12, 1998, by Aftermath Media. It is a psychological thriller starring Michael Esposito, Marie Caldare, Beth Tegarden, and John Hurt as Dr. Turner. It was written and directed by David Wheeler and produced by Rob Landeros, who also designed the interactive features. The game was originally produced with the intention of releasing the game under the Trilobyte label, but Landeros was fired from the company before it was released. Tender Loving Care was later released under Landeros's new company, Aftermath Media, on CD-ROM, with the option for users to watch the movie as a feature-length film as opposed to interacting with the game. In October 2012 the game was re-released under the Trilobyte Games label on the Apple iOS platform. The game is based on the 1984 novel of the same name by Andrew Neiderman.
Aftermath Media is a multimedia company based in Ashland, Oregon. It was founded by Rob Landeros and David Wheeler in 1997.
The 7th Guest: Infection is a 2011 abstract strategy mobile game which originally appeared as the microscope puzzle in the 1993 computer game The 7th Guest. It is based on the Ataxx family of board games, whose lineage began with a 1988 computer game called Infection.
Portal is a series of first-person puzzle-platform video games developed by Valve. Set in the Half-Life universe, the two main games in the series, Portal (2007) and Portal 2 (2011), center on a woman, Chell, forced to undergo a series of tests within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center by a malicious artificial intelligence, GLaDOS, that controls the facility. Most of the tests involve using the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" – nicknamed the portal gun – that creates a human-sized wormhole-like connection between two flat surfaces. The player-character or objects in the game world may move through portals while conserving their momentum. This allows complex "flinging" maneuvers to be used to cross wide gaps or perform other feats to reach the exit for each test chamber. A number of other mechanics, such as lasers, light bridges, high energy pellets, buttons, cubes, tractor funnels and turrets, exist to aid or hinder the player's goal to reach the exit.
Portal 2 is a physics-based puzzle-platform game created by Valve and released on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Linux in April 2011, followed by a Nintendo Switch version in June 2022. The game, set in the desolate, labyrinthine Aperture Science facility, challenges the player to navigate test chambers created by the artificial intelligence GLaDOS, using a portal gun, a device able to create portals that link two points in space like a wormhole. The game expands on the original Portal by adding new puzzle elements, such as paint that imparts properties to surfaces, plates that can launch the player and objects over distances, tractor beams and bridges made of light.
The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony honoring achievements in the video game industry. Established in 2014, the shows are produced and hosted by game journalist Geoff Keighley, who worked on its predecessor, the Spike Video Game Awards, for over ten years. With the permission of Spike, he worked with several video game companies to create the show. In addition to the awards, the Game Awards features premieres of upcoming games and new information on previously-announced titles. The show's reception is generally mixed: it has been lauded for its announcements and criticized for its lack of acknowledgement of events, use of promotional content and its treatment of award winners.
The Game Awards 2019 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2019. The event was produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of The Game Awards, and was held to an invited audience at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 12, 2019. The preshow ceremony was hosted by Sydnee Goodman. The event was live streamed across more than 50 digital platforms; it was the first to broadcast live in India and was simulcast in 53 movie theaters across the United States. The show featured musical performances from Chvrches, Grimes, and Green Day, and presentations from celebrity guests including Stephen Curry, Vin Diesel, Norman Reedus, and Michelle Rodriguez. In association with the event, a virtual games festival was held online, allowing free demos to be played through Steam over a 48-hour period.
