Q1. In 1958, using parts of devices otherwise used to plot missile
trajectories, a device was invented to amuse visitors at the
BrookHaven National Laboratory Open House. The three pics show parts
of the first ever video game. Tell us what they might have played with
it. Even better if you can give me the name.
[Pic1.gif,Higin2.gif,Higin3.gif][higinbotham.gif]
A. Tennis for Two. The knob was used to control the trajectory of the
ball and the button for resetting. The ball has to bounce off the
ground and not crash into the net.
Q2. Nolan Bushnell, the inventor of the arcade setup for the video
game, designed a game based on "Tennis for Two". It was named after
the electronic sound which the game made and had a one line
instruction.
HINT: The instruction was "Avoid missing ball for high score."
Bigger Hint: [nolan1.gif]
A. PONG
Trivia - Bushnell founded his own company and wanted to christen it
"Syzygy", but the name was already registered. So, he called it after
the word for the equivalent of "check" in the Japanese strategy game
"Go". [2triviaq.gif],[2trivia.gif]
A. Pong went on to be one of the biggest video games
[Trivia about Tank]
Q3. After dropping out of Reed College, he became Atari Employee #40.
He spent some months in India sponsored by Atari studying eastern
philosophy. Later, he used to sneak a good friend of his into the
factory after hours for playing marathons on Arcade games. He promised
to create the hardware for a new game in 4 days and got his friend to
do it, pocketing the promised $5000/- and sharing only $350/-. Later,
his friend who was working in HP came up with a way to display colour
on the screen and realised he could use BASIC to program. Since ATARI
is facing financial problems, they start their own company which goes
on to be its biggest competitor.
HINT - breakwj.gif
A. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Apple Computer Company.
Q4. [sfreaksnap.gif,sfreaksnap2.gif]
These are shots from the game "Speed Freak". Just tell me what is
happening.
A. Car Crash. This was the first realistic car driving and the bang
was one of the spectacular effects which it had.
Q5. This game upon release was responsible for riots in Japan along
with coin shortage. The country had to quadruple Yen production to
keep up. In America, videogames were introduced in department stores
for the first time to cope with its popularity.
[IMPROVE]
A. Space Invaders.
Q6. This game was Atari's comeback to Space Invaders and defined the
genre of addictive video games. Employees had to be pulled away from
the prototypes and made to work. The thrust, direction and hyperspace
buttons were new concepts and it was the first game to save High
Scores for all to see and went to smash all Space Invaders Records.
[sicomeback.gif]
A. Asteroids.
Trivia: Galaxian which followed shortly was the first true colour game.
Q7. This game caused the second coin shortage in Japan. In America, it
spawned a merchandizing bonanza of bedsheets, jackets, mugs, stuffed
toys, towels ... etc. It made it to the cover of Time and Mad, a #9
single by Buckner&Gracia, a cartoon by Hanna-Barber
A. It was created
to make video games like cartoons and to make them cater to women as
well.
A. PacMan
Q8. This company's name translates into "Work hard, but in the end, it
is in Heaven's hands". Their initial products were playing cards made
from the bark of mulberry trees and were used by the Japanese Mafi
A.
They later struck a deal with Walt Disney to print Disney characters.
It ventured into electronics producing light beam guns, toy robotic
arms and love testers. The movie KingKong was the inspiration for
their first indigineous game. How do we know this company today?
A. Nintendo. Donkey Kong was the first game.
Q9. Developed by 25 year old college graduate Jordan Mechner who
created the story, characters and levels this game took four years to
make. His father composed the music and he video taped his brothers
motions in order to make the animation realistic. Initially produced
on Appel II, it later made almost all platforms. What?
[Hint: The game had to be completed in 60 minutes]
A. Prince of Persia.
Q10.
William Joseph Blazkowicz was born August 15, 1911, to Polish
immigrants. Blazkowicz was a top spy for the Allied Forces, receiving
the Congressional Medal of Honor and other accolades for heroism.
"B.J.," (as he was called by his friends) married after World War II,
at age 40, to Julia Marie Peterson. Their son, Arthur Kenneth
Blazkowicz, became a television talk show personality in Milwaukee.
For show biz purposes, Arthur changed his last name to Blaze....
(and so goes the history of the family)
How do we know this person whose real face was never publicised?
A. The main star in Wolf 3D
Trivia - Was called Hundfelsen in German from the german words for dog and Stein -- Rock.
Q11 .... Blaze married Susan Elizabeth McMichaels. They had one son,
William, named after Arthur's father William, who signed his high
school homework as B.Blazea.
When B.Blaze's baby sitter was sleeping, he would don a helmet and
assume an alter ego, which was a expert with the pogo-stick.
Who was his alter Ego?
A. Commander Keene
Q24. Connect the terms frag, deathmatch, "The Colour of Money"
starring Tom Cruise.
A. Doom. The first two terms were coined for Doom.
In Colour of Money, Tom Cruise comes to play pool with a pool cue in a
case and is asked :
"What do you have in there?"
"Doom"
Q26.
In this game, One platinum blonde American fights a 7'6 cyborg.
A game to beat Quake at its own game, an attitude to make enemies
quake - this game brings you an experience :
Telephones which ring, urinals which flush, video games which can be
played tell me this break through of the third dimension.
A. Duke Nukem 3D.
Theme : (wolf3D, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Doom - Apogee)
Q13. On the first day of its existence, the original Pong game broke
down. The frustrated hall owner called the inventor and asked him to
take it back. Why?
A. The box was over stuffed with quarters.
Q17. The game had a Greek name, Russian creators, and Hungarian
programmers for its Apple implementation. Its marketing history
includes cross boundary lies and an international lawsuit which
continued for a few years, brought up issues of:
1. The game should not be made on mediums which we did not dream about
yet.
2. separate copyrights for "audio visual work, computer code and sound
track"
3. Is Nintendo a computer or an entertainment system under the
contract definition?
Even Michail Gorbachev was involved at somepoint in time. Name it.
A. Tetris.
FIRSTS:
Q12. In 1975, Scott Milner wrote Caverns of Kroz in Turbo Pascal and
sold it to a disk magazine. Later, in 1987, "Kingdom of Kroz" was
released and became a big hit to the amazement of the authors who did
not expect to make a profit from it. This game was a pioneer in two
ways, both related to its release. It set the trend for many games.
How was it released?
A. Shareware. The first game to be released in separate episodes.
Q20. What was special about the designer of Atari's 1981 game
Centipede?
A. She was the first female designer of a video game.
After the world is destroyed in the game "Missile Command",
what appears on the screen?
A. "The End"
Q16. Invented by Robert Donner of Microsoft, this is one of the most
popular games around today, combining luck and pattern recognition.
Besides a large fan following and world records it has even spawned
research papers. The game is... [obviously minesweeper] Now, tell me
what is special about your starting the game?
A. The first click never contains a mine. If it does, it is either
moved to a corner or to an adjacent square which is free.
JARGON:
Q14. What is a four course meal?
A. Eating all the ghosts of PacMan on one energy pellet.
Q15. What is a blue light district?
A. An area where arcade games are banned.
Q18. Often, in 3D games especially in car games, the boundaries are
very finite. Sometimes, when the horizon is reached, it can be
noticed that the world ceases to exist and the scenes which make up
the world "pop-up" into existence as you move foward. Why is this?
A. Scenes etc are all made up of polygons which have to be detailed.
Since they take up memory, the number of polygons in use will be
limited. Pop-up is a technique used to cope with limited video memory.
So, polygons are shapes, triangles, squares etc which have shading and constitute 3D figures and scenes and help make them more realistic.
Q19. High speed 3D action games prefer to have only one weapon. Any
guess as to why?
A. Doubling the number of weapons implies doubling the number of weapon
polygons which implies that frame rates will reduce.
Q21. What does voxel stand for?
A. Volume element.
Q24. Flat shading is giving one specific colour to a polygon and
building the shape from it. Gourad shading is shown in the other
picture. It uses the same number of polygons, but how is the effect so
good?
A. Take the colours on the vertices and then interpolate across the
polygon.
Q22. What is a George Down?
A. Putting a coin on a machine to show you want to play next.
Q23. Copy protection is a method of preventing copied games from
working. Early PC games required some interaction from the player
which they believed would only be possible if the game possessed was
original. What?
A. You would be asked for a word on a certain page of a manual etc.
Q25. The first part was released in 1987 and featured 2 characters
from US, Japan, England, China and Thailand and was a big flop because
people were more interested in Double Dragon. The company spent four
years re-working the game and released it to feature 12 characters.
Apart from two heroes from the original game, there was an Indian, a
spaniard, a female etc. This game got people back in the arcades and
spawned a whole genre of its kind. Name it.
Hint: Capcom
A. Street Fighter II The World Warrior.