Prehistory II: Pool & Relay Moe

This is the second in a series of mini-articles on the early history of video games. The games featured here will not receive review scores, and thus will not appear on the Tier List. The first article in the series can be found here.

For this second article in my prehistory series we're jumping across the pond to the United States, as that's where the overwhelming majority of significant video game developments take place from hereon. I will also be skipping years with regularity, as not every year during this period has anything of interest for me. For instance, in this article I will be completely skipping over 1953 and 1955, as there are no noteworthy items to cover.

Pool (1954)

Always shoot-a pool, Giuseppe gonna flunk-a school

Quite the technological step-up from Draughts and OXO, isn't it? This pool simulator was developed by William Brown and Ted Lewis on the University of Michigan's MIDSAC computer. Much like those previous games, Pool was intended as a technical showcase to display the capabilities of MIDSAC. Unlike those previous games, however, Pool displays real-time motion, and is also the first instance of what could be called a more conventional control system. Fortunately, there is a simulator of the game available online, courtesy of Retrogame Deconstruction Zone, so I'm able to show off what Pool would have played like:

One of the things you may notice immediately is the control panel on the left. Pool's main controls are a dial to change the cue direction, and an analog joystick to position the cue. Buttons are used to shoot the cue ball, rack up and reset the cue ball position. How interesting it is that Pool uses such a conventional control scheme. A dial would be the precursor to the rotary paddle controls seen in arcade classics like Pong and Breakout, and analog joysticks are still in use to this very day. Why change something that works so well? 

It's surprising to see how early this control scheme was figured out in all honesty. And you'd know it works full well for Pool, as it makes the game very easy to play. However, it needs to be mentioned that the position of the cue is completely irrelevant to gameplay, only the direction matters. It helps a little to move the cue near the cue ball for visual reference, but the game can be played perfectly well without even touching the joystick. I wouldn't be surprised if it was impossible to program in the necessity for the cue stick to need to touch the cue ball in order to shoot. 

A good break is always the most satisfying part of playing pool

Otherwise, Pool is actually decent fun to play. The easy controls make it simple to play and physics are satisfying and feel somewhat analogous to the real thing. There is no power control for shooting, and the default power is quite strong, but I always found it entertaining to shoot as hard as I could when playing pool anyway. I struggle to nail angles for pocketing balls here the same as in real life as well. Good fun, it's worth a try on the simulator.

Relay Moe (1956)

Tic-Tac-Toe, Relay Moe

This next entry is an odd footnote in gaming history, but nevertheless one I find quite interesting, hence my making mention of it. Relay Moe is a standalone electronic device, developed by Edmund C. Berkeley, that simply plays Tic-Tac-Toe. Now it may on the surface seem odd to make mention of another tic-tac-toe machine (and this won't even be the last one), seeing as I've already covered OXO in the previous Prehistory article, but there are elements of this device that are of enough interest to me to bring it to attention.

As can be seen from the above magazine cover featuring Relay Moe, it appears to be a rather small device for the time. When computers took up entire sheds and rooms, Relay Moe can, based on that picture, sit neatly on your dining table. This would make it a form of portable device, and it brings to mind early 1970s handheld electronic games such as Mattel's Auto Race and others of their devices, even if those games are much smaller than Relay Moe. 

The magazine had a full feature article on Relay Moe

What also drives home the similarity to those early handhelds for me is Relay Moe's display method. It doesn't use any form of TV or CRT display system, instead opting for a system of coloured lights, somewhat akin to the LED displays used in Mattel's early handheld games. Squares you select light up green, and the computer's selections appear red. 

What is also quite fascinating about Relay Moe is its implementation of a form of dynamic difficulty, called "variable intelligence" by Berkeley in his magazine article, who also claims that Relay Moe is the first tic-tac-toe playing machine to implement such variability. The machine has 4 different "conditions" that the computer will set itself to run by which affect how the computer plays. All in all, it would allow the human player to win roughly 50% of the time. It's fascinating to see these nascent sort of video game developers already thinking about mechanics that would eventually become essential components of video game design.

I am unsure whether Relay Moe ever saw a commercial release, or was even intended for one. Berkeley's article suggests that it was part of a study on "the behavior of intelligent machines," and that it could only be played at his laboratory in New York. Therefore I assume it did not release publicly, nor was it intended to. Meaning, once again, that another early video game was intended not for entertainment purposes, but as a scientific experiment. 

Regardless, if I've piqued your interest on this odd little device, the full article written by Edmund Berkeley in the December 1956 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine can be found here.