Computer Games:
History and Content
Presented by
Frank Maddix
(Original material by Barry Dean)
Game Genres
Shooters
Strategy
Sports
Adventure
World Control
Elements of Game Content
Environment
Players and Enemies
Animation
Visuals and Textures
Sound
FX
A.I.
Deployment
Some Game History
Late 1970s saw the emergence of
dedicated arcade consoles
Cocktail-Style Arcade Consoles
Atari Games System
The 1980s
The 1980s gave rise to the
‘Home Micro’ Market
1980s - microcomputers
Atari
BBC Microcomputer system
Commodore 16 & 64
machines able to be programmed
by user - many arcade games
ported to 8 bit platform.
‘home micro’ largest selling item
Christmas 1986
1980s
1980s:Sinclair ZX Spectrum
1980s: Commodore 64
1980s: BBC Micro
1980s: BBC Master 128 (1986)
1980s:Games: Chuckie Egg
1980s:Games:Felix
1980s:Games:Pole Position
1980s:Games:Frogger
Nintendo Game Boy (1989)
1990s- Technology Driven
16 Bit, consoles- Nintendo, Sega
PC emerges as a gaming platform
(DOS) - Wolfenstein 3D, Doom
32 bit Sony Playstation - software
now in CD format - console also
CD Player
Microsoft develop DirectX in an
attempt to challenge the games
console market
Internet provides for on-line games
culture
1990s:Nintendo
1990s Nintendo Games
Nintendo Games: Tetris
Super Nintendo (SNES)
Sega
Sega Games: Sonic the Hedgehog
Sega:Batman
1990s:Sony PlayStation
32-bit + CD Player
Sony PlayStation games
1990s:Sega Saturn
Game Consoles
Known capabilities for developers
Standard graphics environment
Standard sound
No deployment issues
But not scaleable
1990s What about the PC?
1990 still an ‘MSDOS world’ on the PC
Game complexity increases and even
require start-up disc to load game.
Windows 3.1.1 (1992) - no real gaming
Mid 1990s sees move towards better
game support on PC under the new
Windows 95 OS via ‘Game SDK’
Game SDK
Microsoft's solution to gaming for
the Windows 32-bit OS
First appeared in 1995 as the
‘Game SDK’
Renamed to DirectX where X
stands for a number of related
‘to the metal’ technologies.
DirectX
Direct3D (Real-time 3D)
DirectShow (Media Streaming)
DirectInput -force feedback joystick
DirectSound
DirectPlay (network gaming)
Principles of DirectX
Fast low-level libraries
Framework established by DirectX
had to shift the burden of hardware
support from developers to
hardware manufacturers
Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)
Hardware Emulation Layer (HEL)
Provides developers with a known,
dependable set of features they
can use
Examples of DirectX
DirectX SDK (version 10.0 - Vista)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/
PC Gaming provides for user
-created content development
so called ‘MODS’
Creating new levels, players, and
game scenarios
The game Counter Strike
developed as MOD of the
commercial game Half-Life
Open GL (Apple Mac)
Introduced in 1992
Open GL = Open Graphics Library
High performance cross-platform
graphics API
Specification and evolution guided
by the OpenGL Architecture
Review Board
Integrates with several languages
Open source code for developers
21st Century:State of the Art...
21st Century:Sony PlayStation 2
21st Century :Microsoft X Box
21st Century :Nintendo Game Cube
21st Century :Mobile Gaming
21st Century :Next Generation
Innovation:Nintendo Wii
Suggested Reading
High Score
The illustrated History of
Electronic Games - 2nd Edition
DeMaria R. Wilson J. Osborne 2004
URLs
http://msdn.microsoft.com
http://www.genesis3d.com
http://www.openwatcom.org
http://www.darkbasic.com
http://www.brackeen.com
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