Prehistory III: Tennis for Two

This is the third 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. 

Release Date: October 18, 1958

Platform: Donner Model 30 analog computer

Genre: Sports

Developer(s): William Higinbotham

Publisher(s): N/A

When arguments about what the first video game is arise, William Higinbotham's Tennis for Two is often put forward as a contender. As I've shown in this Prehistory series, I don't ascribe to that line of thinking, but I will say that Tennis for Two is certainly one of the most famous early video games, and certainly the most well-known from the 1950s. Only 1962's Spacewar! would be more famous from this prehistory era, and is also by far the more influential of the two. 

In fact, Tennis for Two would not be known or spoken of for almost 20 years after its initial launch at the annual exhibition of Brookhaven National Laboratory and subsequent disassembling a mere three days later (although it did return the following year due to its popularity.) Tennis for Two only came onto the radar of gamers in the late 1970s on account of a series of infamous lawsuits instigated by Magnavox against what seemed like literally every video game company in existence at the time. Even Higinbotham himself was dragged into some of the proceedings upon the game's discovery!

While we may look back in derision at those lawsuits, they did cause the profile of Tennis for Two to rise dramatically, much like the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes. Higinbotham's creation for years after was lauded as the first video game and a significant ancestor to Ralph Baer's Brown Box prototype, which would become the first home console: the Magnavox Odyssey, and the game that launched the arcade industry, Pong. Despite Tennis for Two bearing no influence on them, one cannot help but marvel at the similarities.

On that topic, let's now have a look at Tennis for Two. Once again, a simulator has been created by Retrogame Deconstruction Zone, so that all can see what Tennis for Two would have played like.

Tennis for Two presents a game of tennis from a side view, unlike the top-down view of the Magnavox Table Tennis game or Pong. This also means that it uses gravity to determine the ball's trajectory. I would say the game screen and gameplay more resembles a later Atari game, Rebound from 1974. The controllers only featured a dial, which adjusts the angle of the player's shots, and the button to serve and return. That's one button more than Pong, and a few dials less than the Odyssey's controller. The switch for 2-player or vs. cpu is an addition for the simulator exclusively (CPU plays right-side), you needed two players for the original game. It's also important to note that Tennis for Two has no score display, players must keep track of match progress themselves. Whether you play a Table Tennis-style first to 11 game, or a traditional tennis match, it's up to you and whoever you're playing with. Or make up your own rules!

CPU returned serve well. It doesn't always.

You'll rotate the dial anti-clockwise for a more obtuse angle, and clockwise for more acute. There's not much reason to go anti-clockwise as your shot will end up out of bounds quickly. Going for sharp angles closer to the net usually works well. Rotating the dial is actually quite simple on the simulator, clicking the dial will lock it onto the mouse movement, making sudden angle adjustments possible, while serving is done with the S key. Alternatively you could use the Z and X keys for incremental adjustments. 2-player mode does not use the mouse, but only the S/Z/X keys for player 1 and ;, ., and / for player 2 (those are rather awkward to format...)

Well that's definitely out.

Just from playing the simulator, one can understand why the original display was so popular. It's a simple game, but one with strong basic mechanics, making it a darn good bit of fun. Heck, that was the entire point, making Tennis for Two at least the first video game designed purely for entertainment and not merely as a scientific experiment or education tool. It certainly would have been good fun for all who sampled the display back in 1958, likely not having seen anything like this before. Tennis for Two was so popular, in fact, that an upgraded version of it returned for the 1959 exhibition that featured adjustable gravity. The game was also rebuilt in 1997, and has occasionally been displayed at Brookhaven ever since.

So, despite its disappearance from history for roughly 20 years, Tennis for Two is - while not the first video game - arguably the first to leave a real legacy.