During the early 1980s, Smith Engineering/Western Technologies founder and Microvision designer Jay Smith III led an effort to develop a portable home video game console capable of emulating such popular vector graphics-based arcade games as Asteroids (1979) and Tempest (1980). This year marks the 30th anniversary of the General Consumer Electronics (GCE) (and later Milton Bradley) Vectrex; the first vector graphics-based video game system.
I first encountered the black rectangular console with its built-in 9-inch monochrome display on Christmas morning, 1984. […]
Search by Category
Timeline of Video Game History
ICHEG’s website now features a new timeline charting the development of video games from the experiments of a few early computer pioneers to the products of a multibillion dollar industry. Some years on the timeline present an important or groundbreaking game or system; other entries symbolize a trend, such as the development of social and mobile gaming.
Some years presented easy and obvious selections. The home version of Pong, for example, stood out in 1975. Nintendo’s Game Boy was a sure […]
Aliens, Astronauts, and Video Games
Since the 17th century, individuals have discussed the possibility of extraterrestrial beings. What is the possibility of extraterrestrial life? “Guaranteed,” Harvard physicist and search for extraterrestrial intelligent life leader Paul Horowitz declared in a 1996 interview with Time Magazine. It is “so overwhelmingly likely that I’d give you almost any odds you’d like,” he said. Not everyone shares Horowitz’s confidence, but most people still delight in films, books, TV, and educational programming about the subject. From Space Attack to Aliens […]
How Software Development Helped Make Sony’s PlayStation the King of 1990s Consoles
Recently ICHEG added a display of rare PlayStation software development materials to its eGameRevolution exhibit. Among these materials are an MW.3 or “PS-X” and blue and green debugging stations on loan from the PlayStation Museum. These artifacts shine a light on the often overlooked game developer, while illustrating the ways in which software development helped establish the PlayStation as one of the best-selling, and for many gamers—essential consumer products of the 1990s.
Before Sony launched its PlayStation in Japan in December […]
Costume Quest: Nostalgic Halloween Gaming
It’s almost Halloween. My neighborhood is filled with decorative plastic ghosts, goblins, and skeletons. Advertisements for scary movie marathons inundate television channels, and bookstores carry special displays of Dracula and Frankenstein. As a gamer, this is the best time to play chilling classics like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or Left 4 Dead. But not all Halloween games fall into the traditional survival horror genre. I recently discovered a game that calls attention to my favorite part of this holiday: costumes.
Costume […]
Continue Reading about Costume Quest: Nostalgic Halloween Gaming
A Fabulous Collection of Atari Concept Art
ICHEG has acquired a collection of more than 250 drawings that document how designers at Atari created some of the most important games of the arcade era. Sketches show the development of games such as Gran Trak 10, the first cabinet to use a steering wheel, shifter, and gas and brake pedals; Touch Me, which inspired Ralph Baer’s Simon; the pioneering 3D dogfight simulator Red Baron; and the legendary dungeon crawler Gauntlet.
The artists who designed these cabinets made magic by […]
Continue Reading about A Fabulous Collection of Atari Concept Art
Using Woodblocks to Reshape Video Game Art: An Interview with Incredipede’s Thomas Shahan
Not that long ago, critics debated whether video games qualified as art. Now, thanks in large part to artist and microphotographer Thomas Shahan, Colin Northway’s forthcoming game Icredipede, available for preview, many put the question to rest.
Shahan specializes in capturing the personalities of countless insects and spiders in his arthropod portraiture. His muses—Tabanus Horse flies, Damselflies, and Phidippus jumping spiders, to name a few—have been featured in National Geographic and Popular Photography, among others. Northway, an independent game designer and programmer, saw […]
From Training, to Toy, to Treatment: The Many Lives of Full Spectrum Warrior
How do people use games, toys, and other playthings? It’s a question play scholars and historians must grapple with. A blanket, for instance, serves as a warm companion on a cold night, but it may also act as, among other things, a superhero’s cape or a princess’s gown. One needs only to scan ICHEG’s online collections to get a sense of the variety of ways in which video games might be used to entertain and educate. However, as media theorist […]
Continue Reading about From Training, to Toy, to Treatment: The Many Lives of Full Spectrum Warrior
Games on a Plane
When I hear the word “vacation” I feel happy and relaxed, but the word “travel” often evokes just the opposite. Earlier this month, I took a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana. In order to keep myself occupied during travel, I packed a carry-on bag full of fun diversions, including music, books, and video games.
Despite the compact size of portable video games, I still had to choose carefully among my favorites. I settled on games for the differing circumstances in which […]