The 1980s catalogue

Games, 1980s, West: 18 entries. Order: Notable.

• 1982·United StatesE.T. the Extra-TerrestrialE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 adventure video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600, based on the film of the same name. The game's objective is to guide the eponymous character through various screens to collect three pieces of an interplanetary telephone that will allow him to contact his home planet. The game was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw, who intended it to be an innovative adaptation, but Atari held unrealistic expectations for sales based on the international box-office success of the film. Negotiations for the game rights ended in late July 1982, giving Warshaw just over five weeks to develop the game in time to meet the production schedule for the 1982 Christmas season. …Details
• 1982·United StatesMs. Pac-ManMs. Pac-Man is a 1982 maze video game developed by General Computer Corporation (GCC) and published by Midway Manufacturing for arcades. It is a sequel to Pac-Man (1980), and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's wife, the player is tasked with eating all of the pellets in an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating the larger "power pellets" lets the player eat the ghosts, which turn blue and flee. General Computer made the game as a modification kit for the original Pac-Man, titled Crazy Otto. However, due to previous legal action with Atari, Inc., GCC was forced to present the project to Midway Manufacturing, the North American distributor of Pac-Man. Midway purchased the project and enlisted GCC to use the game as a basis for the sequel to Pac-Man. …Details
• Games1987point-and-click adventure, adventure video game
  1987·United StatesManiac MansionManiac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure video game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It follows teenage protagonist Dave Miller as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend Sandy Pantz from a mad scientist, whose mind has been enslaved by a sentient meteor. The player uses a point-and-click interface to guide Dave and two of his six playable friends through the scientist's mansion while solving puzzles and avoiding dangers. Gameplay is non-linear, and the game must be completed in different ways based on the player's choice of characters. Initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, Maniac Mansion was Lucasfilm Games' first self-published product. The game was conceived in 1985 by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, who sought to tell a comedic story based on horror film and B-movie clichés. They mapped out the project as a paper-and-pencil game before coding commenced. …Details
• 1989·United StatesSolitaireSolitaire is a computer game included with Microsoft Windows, based on a card game of the same name, also known as Klondike. Its original version was programmed by Wes Cherry, and the cards were designed by Susan Kare. It has been called the most prolific PC game of all time due to its inclusion in Windows.Details
• Games1983platformer, puzzle video game
  1983·United StatesLode RunnerLode Runner is a puzzle-platform game developed by Doug Smith and published by Broderbund in 1983. Its gameplay mechanics are similar to Space Panic from 1980. The player controls a character who must collect all the gold pieces in a level and reach the end while being chased by a number of enemies. It is one of the first games to include a level editor. After the original game, a number of remakes, spinoffs, and sequels were published in the Lode Runner series for different computers and consoles by different developers and publishers. Tozai Games holds the copyright and trademark rights.Details
• 1984·United StatesBoulder DashBoulder Dash is a maze-based puzzle video game released in 1984 by First Star Software for Atari 8-bit computers. It was created by Canadian developers Peter Liepa and Chris Gray. The player controls Rockford, who tunnels through dirt to collect diamonds. Boulders and other objects remain fixed until the dirt beneath them is removed, then they fall and become a hazard. Puzzles are designed around collecting diamonds without being crushed and exploiting the interactions between objects (such as a butterfly turning into diamonds when hit with a falling rock). The game's name is a pun on balderdash. Boulder Dash was ported to many 8-bit and 16-bit systems and turned into a coin-operated arcade video game. It was followed by multiple sequels and re-releases. …Details
• 1980·United StatesAdventureAdventure is a 1980 action-adventure game developed by Warren Robinett and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600. The player controls a square avatar whose quest is to explore an open-ended environment to find a magical chalice and return it to the Golden Castle. The game world is populated by roaming enemies: three dragons that can eat the avatar and a bat that randomly steals and moves items around the game world. Adventure introduced new elements to console games, including enemies that continue to move when offscreen. The game was conceived as a graphical version of the 1977 text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure. Robinett spent approximately a year designing and coding the game while overcoming a variety of technical limitations of the console's hardware, as well as difficulties with Atari management. …Details
• Games1981stealth game, action-adventure game
  1981·United StatesCastle WolfensteinCastle Wolfenstein is a 1981 action-adventure game developed by Silas Warner for the Apple II and published by Muse Software in 1981. It is one of the earliest games based on stealth mechanics. A port to Atari 8-bit computers was released in 1982, followed by Commodore 64 (1983) and MS-DOS (1984). The player takes the role of an Allied prisoner of war during World War II who is held captive in the fictional Castle Wolfenstein. After escaping from a cell, the player's objective is to find the Nazis' secret war plans and escape from the castle. Nazi soldiers can be dealt with via impersonation, sneaking, or killing. Warner was inspired by the 1961 film The Guns of Navarone and the 1980 arcade video game Berzerk. The 60 room castle is procedurally generated. Castle Wolfenstein was positively received by critics and became one of the best-selling games of the early 1980s. …Details
• 1981·United StatesCentipedeCentipede is a 1981 fixed shooter video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades. 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 widely played by women and girls. The primary objective is to shoot all the segments of a centipede that winds down the playing field. Centipede was ported to Atari's own 2600, 5200, 7800, and 8-bit computers. Under the Atarisoft label, the game was sold for the Apple II, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, VIC-20, IBM PC (as a self-booting disk), Intellivision, and TI-99/4A. Superior Software published the port for the BBC Micro. Versions for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color were also produced, as well as a version for the short-lived Game.com. Other developers released more than 25 Centipede clones for home computers. …Details
• 1982·United StatesQ*bertQ*bert ( ) is a 1982 action video game developed and published by Gottlieb for arcades. It is a 2D action game with puzzle elements that uses isometric graphics to create a pseudo-3D effect. The objective of each level in the game is to change every cube in a pyramid to a target color by letting Q*bert, the on-screen character, hop on top of the cube while avoiding obstacles and enemies. Players use a joystick to control the character. The game was conceived by Warren Davis and Jeff Lee, the latter of whom designed the titular protagonist and original concept, which was further developed and implemented by Davis. Q*bert was developed under the project name Cubes. Q*bert was well-received in arcades and among critics. The game was Gottlieb's most successful video game and is among the most recognized brands from the golden age of arcade games. It has been ported to numerous platforms. …Details
• 1980·United StatesRogueRogue is a dungeon crawling video game by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman with later contributions by Ken Arnold. Rogue was originally developed around 1980 for Unix-based minicomputer systems as a freely distributed executable. Commercial ports of the game for a range of personal computers were made by Toy, Wichman, and Jon Lane under the company A.I. Design and financially supported by the Epyx software publishers. Additional ports to modern systems have been made since by other parties using the game's now-open source code. In Rogue, players control a character as they explore several levels of a dungeon seeking the Amulet of Yendor located in the dungeon's lowest level. The player character must fend off an array of monsters that roam the dungeons. …Details
• Games1984platformer, racing video game
  1984·United StatesMarble MadnessMarble Madness is a 1984 platform game designed by Mark Cerny and published by Atari Games Inc. for arcades. Set in an isometric perspective, the game tasks the player with guiding a marble through six courses, populated with obstacles and enemies, within a time limit. The player controls the marble by using a trackball. Marble Madness is known for using innovative game technologies: it was Atari's first to use the Atari System 1 hardware, the first to be programmed in the C programming language, and one of the first to use true stereo sound (previous games used either monaural sound or simulated stereo). In designing the game, Cerny drew inspiration from miniature golf, racing games, and the art of M. C. Escher. He aimed to create a game that offered a distinct experience with a unique control system. …Details
• 1980·United StatesMissile CommandMissile Command is a 1980 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades. It was released by Taito and Sega in Japan. The game was designed by Dave Theurer, who would also design Tempest for Atari the following year. The player uses a trackball to defend six cities from intercontinental ballistic missiles by launching anti-ballistic missiles from three bases. Missile Command was released in June 1980 during the Cold War, where it achieved widespread critical and commercial success. Atari then ported it to home systems beginning with an Atari 2600 conversion in 1981 by Rob Fulop. Numerous clones and modern remakes soon followed, and the version ported to Atari's 8-bit computers was reused for the 5200 in 1982 and built into the XEGS in 1987. It is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time.Details
• 1981·United StatesDefenderDefender is a 1981 horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Williams Electronics for arcades. It was released in Japan by Taito. It is set on an unnamed planet where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts. Development was led by Eugene Jarvis, a pinball programmer at Williams; Defender was Jarvis's first video game project and drew inspiration from Space Invaders and Asteroids. Defender was demonstrated in late 1980 and was released in March 1981. Defender was one of the most important titles of the golden age of arcade video games, selling over 55,000 units to become the company's best-selling game and one of the highest-grossing arcade games ever. Praise among critics focused on the game's audio-visuals and gameplay. …Details
• Games1989real-time strategy, god game
  1989·United KingdomPopulousPopulous is a video game developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts for the Amiga in March 1989, then quickly the Atari ST and MS-DOS. Many conversions followed, including for the Genesis, Super NES, and PC Engine consoles. Populous is considered the first god game. With over four million copies sold, Populous is one of the best-selling PC games of all time. The player assumes the role of a deity, who must lead followers through direction, manipulation, and divine intervention, with the goal of eliminating the followers led by the opposite deity. Played from an isometric perspective, the game consists of more than 500 levels, with each level being a piece of land which contains the player's followers and the enemy's followers. …Details
• 1985·United StatesPaperboyPaperboy is a 1985 action video game developed and published by Atari Games for arcades. The player takes the role of a paperboy who delivers a fictional newspaper called The Daily Sun to houses on a street while riding his bicycle. The arcade version featured bike handlebars as the controller. The game was widely ported to home systems beginning in 1986, and was followed by the computer and console-exclusive sequel Paperboy 2 in 1991.Details
• Games1982platformer
  1982·United StatesJoustJoust is a 1982 action game developed and published by Williams Electronics for arcades. Players assume the role of knights armed with lances and mounted on large birds (an ostrich for Player 1 and a stork for Player 2). They progress through levels, which consist of a single screen filled with floating platforms, by defeating enemy knights riding buzzards and other opponents. Using the computer hardware from the company's earlier arcade game, Defender, John Newcomer led the development team: Bill Pfutzenreuter, Janice Woldenberg-Miller (née Hendricks), Python Anghelo, Tim Murphy, and John Kotlarik. Newcomer aimed to create a flying game, with cooperative two-player gameplay, while avoiding the overdone space theme. After deciding to use birds as characters, he forwent the standard eight-direction joystick control scheme and devised collisions as the means of combat. …Details
• 1980·United StatesMystery HouseMystery House is an adventure game released by On-Line Systems on May 5, 1980. It was designed, written and illustrated by Roberta Williams, and programmed by Ken Williams for the Apple II. Mystery House is the first graphical adventure game and the first game produced by On-Line Systems, the company which would evolve into Sierra On-Line. It is one of the earliest horror video games.Details