#002: Computer Space

That's an... interesting marketing campaign you've got there...

Release Date: November 1971

Platform: Arcade

Genre: Multidirectional Shooter

Developer(s): Syzygy Engineering

Publisher(s): Nutting Associates, Inc.

I think it's time to take a brief (or now unintentionally not-so-brief) break from the Prehistory series and get to playing and ranking some games! Helps that this first game is quite relevant to the most recent Prehistory article... 

Next up after Galaxy Game (the arguably-first arcade game ever made) is Computer Space (the other arguably-first arcade game), the first mass-produced, commercially sold, coin-operated arcade video game. Computer Space was developed by a little company known as Syzygy Engineering. Funky name choice, syzygy is an astronomical term referring to when three or more celestial bodies are lined up straight. What that has to do with video games, I have no idea.

But I digress, Syzygy Engineering was formed by two men whose names may be familiar to some - Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Though the reason you may not recognise the company name was that, after Computer Space was released, they had to change their name, as syzygy was already in use. The name they settled on was a term used in the Japanese board game Go, which Bushnell and Dabney played regularly - Atari. Yes, that Atari. The legendary and pioneering game company that's still around to this day (though whether it's really the same Atari now as back then is another debate entirely.) If we really want to be technical about it, then, we could say that Computer Space is actually Atari's first video game, not Pong.

So now let's have a little look into how Computer Space came to be. Bushnell came up with the idea for Computer Space after playing the legendary Spacewar! on a PDP-6 computer in 1969 (Bushnell had claimed to have seen it earlier at the University of Utah, but it's disputed whether there was actually a computer there that could've run Spacewar! at the time.) 

He felt that Spacewar! might be popular as a coin-operated game (funnily enough, he wasn't the only guy with that idea at this point in time, as we've already seen with Galaxy Game - more on that later.) The problem with his idea was that it just wasn't economically feasible in 1969 - computers were just too expensive. Heck, the PDP-1 which Spacewar! was developed on cost (in today's money) over US$1 million. Was not going to happen. 

By 1971, however, computer prices had dropped enough for the project to be viable (the computer Bushnell and Dabney used cost about $30k - still a pretty penny, mind you.) Lower-cost tech meant that there would have to be compromises in game design, so Computer Space ended up being quite different from Spacewar!. Gravity was simplified, the sun was removed, and the game was changed to one-player against computer-controlled UFOs. A prototype was manufactured by Nutting Associates, a company most well-known at the time for their Computer Quiz trivia game. The prototype's location testing in August 1971 was successful enough to convince Bushnell he was onto something. 

The arcade cabinet going for that 70s sci-fi look

Also during this month, Bushnell discovered that there was another pair that had come up with the same idea as him over at Stanford University. It's a game I've already covered - Bill Pitts & Hugh Tuck's Galaxy Game. Bushnell and those two actually had some dialogue and got to see each other's game. Pitts and Tuck were not all that impressed with Computer Space, seeing their game as a more faithful recreation of Spacewar!. Being faithful to the source does not always a good game make, however, as my review of Galaxy Game details. 

So, after producing four more cabinets for October 1971's Music & Amusement Machines Expo (all in a different colour), and receiving mostly positive feedback, Computer Space went into production in November. All in all, it's estimated around 1500 units were produced. A 2-player version was also produced later, in 1973, which also sold around the same number (created by Steve Bristow, who would eventually go on to work for Atari and develop one of their classic hits, Tank.) How many cabinets survive today is a different story, however. One estimate suggests that only a few hundred cabinets are still out in the wild in a functional or salvageable state.

The 2-player cabinet. Only comes in green.

Computer Space, despite initial positive tests, didn't fare all too well. Apparently four buttons were too much for half-drunk bar patrons to wrap their heads and hands around, and so the game was considered a commercial failure. Bushnell figured out that the problem was that it was exactly three buttons too many, and thus sought to simplify in that direction for his next stab at an arcade game. But that one's a story for another day.

Well, that's the historical component taken care of, so now let's look at the actual game. I must preface by saying that things are a little unusual when it comes to playing video games of Computer Space's vintage. You see, before 1975, microprocessors were not a thing, and therefore all video games were built using discrete components - otherwise known as transistor-to-transistor logic (TTL, the anagram I will be using henceforth for the sake of brevity.) With these TTL games, it's not as simple as dumping the ROM and booting up MAME to play a round or two. There is no ROM. To put it plainly, TTL games are effectively impossible to emulate. Or, at least, are much, much harder to emulate.

With that in mind, how then does one play Computer Space today without access to an actual cabinet or PCB of the game? Fortunately, one such boffin by the name of Mike "Moose" O'Malley thought of this way back in 2005, and produced a simulated version of the game (much akin to the previous simulators I've used in the Prehistory series), which can be downloaded here. His aim was to replicate Computer Space as accurately as possible, and I'd say he did a darn good job of it. It's not perfect by any means, but it's suitable enough for my purposes. His introductory document explains that he had plans to continue to improve the simulator after its v1.0 release, but 20 years on and there's not been a v.1.1, it seems...

Upon opening the simulator, we're met with a screen that attempts to replicate the gameplay area of the actual arcade cabinet, complete with scans of text and instructions actually featured on the arcade cabinet. The start button in the bottom right corner can actually be used to start a game if you prefer, otherwise the fire key (default A) is the default key for starting the game. The right mouse button can be used to bring up the options menu, where all sorts of mechanics and functions can be fiddled with. I tend to leave things as they are for the authentic experience, though I did adjust the controls to spread them out to make things feel better for my hands and make them seem a little closer to the actual cabinet layout.

Upon starting a game, the first thing you'll notice is the sound effects and how... vintage they are. Honestly the game sounds like an old sputtering tractor (whether the actual game made this noise is hard to say, videos of the original hardware don't seem to have it, so take it with a grain of salt.) Strange stuff. There's some analog beeps and boops also, which are high pitched and rather ear-grating, so turning down the volume is recommended. The explosion sound effects have fairly decent impact, so there's one redeeming quality in the sound.

Can be a bit hard to see what's going on here, unfortunately.

If you're at all familiar with Atari's classic Asteroids, Computer Space will look and feel very familiar (I suspect Asteroids was intended as a spiritual successor to Computer Space). The basic gameplay is essentially the same, though the objectives are different. Computer Space simply tasks you with shooting down the pair of UFOs as many times as possible within the time limit, preferably more times than the UFOs shoot you down. To control your rocket ship, you have rotate left, rotate right and thrust buttons and a button to fire missiles. These missiles are controllable with the rotate left and right buttons, which gives you a little advantage over the UFOs. Where you don't have an advantage is in missile range, with the UFOs having a significant advantage in how far their missiles travel before disappearing. Far too often I found my shots just barely out of range despite being rather close while the UFOs casually snipe me across the screen. The UFO's a decent aim, too, though not utterly relentless to the extent that the small UFOs are in Asteroids... those things give me nightmares. So it's a fair enough challenge, the lack of range on your missiles does force you to take risk in getting close enough to strike.

The hitbox on your ship is mildly suspicious... You may be able to just see the UFO's missile passing just above my ship, that counted as a hit.

It must be said that the game controls rather well. While the physics are not Newtonian-based like the source material of Spacewar!, it still feels weighty enough to give that sense of controlling a space ship while not feeling like being stuck in molasses like Galaxy Game's slow speed. Again, very similar to Asteroids, but slightly heavier.

There are a few design issues to be discussed, which seem to be more oversights than anything. The player hitbox is disproportionately large, missiles that should miss are counted as hits. Most notably is the fact that you and the UFOs can respawn on top of each other. Fortunately any collisions award a point to both sides, however you can also respawn close enough to the UFOs for them to instantly snipe you. It happens frequently enough to be an annoyance. I do find the movement of the UFOs to be quite frustrating at times. It's entirely random, but the speed they move at is similar to your ship's top speed, which means that if they keep moving away from you (which they will happily do), shooting them down becomes an exercise in frustration. Finally, the UFOs don't know what screen-wrapping is, either, so they will never attempt to wrap their missiles around in order to hit you, which you can take advantage of by hanging around the edges of the screen and wrapping your own missiles around.

I got stuck on 8 for the remaining 25 seconds. That's how this game goes.

There is one final thing to mention before getting onto the scores for Computer Space, and that's what the game calls "hyperspace." This is a feature that is not included in the simulator. It's got nothing to do with the hyperspace mechanic in Spacewar!, here it's essentially the game's extended play bonus, achieved when your score is higher than the UFO's at the end of the round. The timer is reset, effectively giving you an extra round to boost your high score, only the colours are inverted. So white background with black dots, it's an eyesore, as you could probably imagine. 

Anyway, that's all there is to mention for Computer Space. It's very simple, as you can imagine (though apparently not simple enough for the people of 1971), but it is somewhat enjoyable for what it is. Now, on to the scores!

Time Played: I've clocked in around 2 hours across several years of playing on-and-off, most likely. 

Difficulty: 6

A combination of the UFOs having decent aim, the weighty controls and the short range of your missiles can make Computer Space challenging occasionally. It varies from round to round depending on how nice the UFOs want to be, also.

Game Design: 9

The core design is simple and solid, but has some executional errors with the respawning problem. Missile range could be more balanced as it's more frustrating than it should be.

Controls: 7

Controls are sound, but ship movement is a little on the heavy side. Ergonomically they're not the most comfortable to use, either.

Sound: 2

It's not pleasant at all. Sputtering tractor engine aside, the high-pitched drone chosen for the missiles is ear-piercingly unpleasant. Explosion sounds give one redeeming sound effect.

Graphics: 3

Obviously dated, essentially consisting of a whole bunch of dots arranged on a black background. Except in hyperspace, where it's the reverse and a whole lot worse. The most interesting thing is that there's technically animation on the UFOs. The centre row of dots moves, giving a slight illusory 3D effect, which is actually somewhat ahead of its time. Those "Atari block letters," as I like to call them, are hideous as always.

Functionality: 5

Everything works as intended with no bugs or glitches in sight.

Accessibility: 4

It's quite easy to find the simulator online (an actual arcade cabinet less so), and is pretty easy to understand and play.

"Fun" Factor: 9

Obviously the most subjective category of my scoring system, but I do find Computer Space to be a enjoyable game to play a couple of rounds of on occasion, though nothing more than that. It's simplicity and lack of skill curve don't make it all that enticing to come back to very often, either. Can also be very frustrating if the UFOs don't play nice.

High Score: The best I've managed over the years of playing is 11. I don't play attention to the whole score line, just how many UFOs I managed to shoot down in the 99 seconds.

Overall, this gives Computer Space a final score of 31, which comes out as a percentage as 51.66%. As far as the tier list is concerned, it just misses out on the C-tier, ending with a spot high in the D-tier. It's actually going to be a fair score as far as 70s arcade and console games are concerned. I've played most of the games upcoming through the early-mid 70s quite a bit, so I already have a rough idea of where Computer Space sits in comparison and trust me, this is one of the better arcade/console games from this period.

If you have any interest at all in vintage gaming and haven't given Computer Space a try, I'd highly recommend it, even in spite of my relatively low score. It's a significant piece of gaming history, and I think the whole industry would look very different if it never existed. It's commercial failure led Bushnell to create Pong, so we are indebted to it just for that.

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Prehistory V: Spacewar!

This is the fifth in a series of mini-articles on the early history of video games. The game featured here will not receive a review score, and thus will not appear on the Tier List.

Release Date: April, 1962

Platform: DEC PDP-1

Genre: Multidirectional Shooter / Space Combat Simulation

Developer(s): Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner (and many more!)

Publisher(s): N/A

So now we come to Spacewar!, undoubtedly the most significant game of the Prehistory era, but also one of the most important and influential video games ever made. Spacewar! bears significant influence in the development of two of the three primary streams of video games (the three being computer/PC,  arcade, and console.) Spacewar! is one of, if not the first game to not be a "one pot wonder," so to speak, in that it did not stay on a single computer, but was ported and copied to several different computer systems and installations in universities all across America throughout the 1960s and early 70s. It was also almost solely responsible for the creation of arcade video games, as the first two, Galaxy Game and Computer Space, were entirely based off of the idea of creating a commercial version of Spacewar!

Spacewar! was originally the brainchild of the trio of Steve Russell, Martin Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen at MIT. The game concept was conceived in 1961 and, when the PDP-1 minicomputer was installed, Russell, along with assistance from other programmers at MIT, had the game working by early 1962. It became instantly popular with students at MIT, and would spread to universities all across the US over the following decade.

There's not much more for me to say from a historical perspective about Spacewar! apart from what's already been said about it, such is its importance, influence and whatnot. I think at this time, therefore, it's best to get into playing it a bit. Spacewar! is playable online via emulation developed by Norbert Landsteiner. Keep in mind that this is a two-player game only, and thus my time spent playing will be brief.

[Ed. This video was added later, and thus the following description of my playthrough will not match the video playthrough.]

This emulator gives us a few different builds of Spacewar! to play around with, ranging from the first public version seen in early 1962, to the final original build, plus some additional bonus versions and extras both old and new. What's neat is that it allows you to play all versions with USB gamepads.

So many choices...

As is custom with me, I have to try every version available here in chronological order. The earliest build is version 2B, which features "Minskytron Hyperspace." Funky name, but what it simply is is the nickname for Martin Graetz's original routine for the game's 'hyperspace' mechanic, before it was revised for later versions.

Slowly being sucked in by the star's gravity

The base format of all versions of Spacewar! are exactly the same: two starships determined to destroy each other. Not only must they contend with each other, but also the star in the centre of the screen, which functions as a gravity well that draws the ships into it, destroying them if they touch the star. The trick is to exploit the gravity to slingshot your ship across the screen instead of trying to fight it.

Curses! Just missed...

I continued to play around for a couple of minutes with the 2B version, before deciding it was time to move on and see what differences there are in the other versions of Spacewar! 

The 3.1 version is considered the "official" version, as it was the last build the original creators worked on. It has a few changes from the 2B version, mostly graphical, but the hyperspace mechanic was altered somewhat. The "Minskytron" routine allowed 3 hyperspace jumps maximum, whereas the 3.1 hyperspace has unlimited jumps, but there is always a chance your ship will simply blow up when you use it. This chance increases with each successive use.

Changes are relatively minor with each successive version of Spacewar!, therefore there really isn't anything else worth commenting on. Different versions have slightly different alterations you can make to gameplay, such as gravity strength, whether the star kills or whether your ships fire single-shot or salvos of missiles, but these don't impact gameplay a whole lot (well, they don't if you're playing alone like me.)

I think that, then, concludes my look at Spacewar!. I can only imagine what it would've been like to be in the university scene when this game appeared for the first time, it must have been massively exciting to see it. As for some trivia, apparently Spacewar! was the subject of the first official video game tournament (sponsored by Rolling Stone magazine, no less) - if Wikipedia is to be believed, that is. Spacewar! leaves a huge legacy, one that we will truly see blossom when the 1970s come around.

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#001: Galaxy Game

Release Date: September/November, 1971

Platform: Arcade

Genre: Space Combat Simulation

Developer(s): Computer Recreations (Bill Pitts, Hugh Tuck)

Publisher(s): N/A

The chronogaming journey begins here in 1971 with what is arguably the first coin-operated arcade video game, Galaxy Game.

Galaxy Game is essentially an coin-operated adaptation of Steve Russell's 1962 game, Spacewar!, a space combat game that had become massively popular and well-known in university circles. The idea to adapt Spacewar! into a coin-operated game came from Hugh Tuck, who suggested the idea to his friend Bill Pitts, both of whom played Spacewar! together frequently at Stanford University. 

Tuck's idea made a lot of sense, considering the growing popularity of Spacewar! throughout the 60s. A commercial, coin-op version would've probably made good money. The problem was that the computers of the late 60s that ran Spacewar! were far too expensive, making the production of a coin-op version completely unviable.

However, once 1970 rolled around, and DEC had released the next minicomputer in their PDP lineup, the PDP-11, things suddenly weren't quite as unviable as they were before. Granted, the PDP-11 still cost ~US$14,000, but that was still an awful lot cheaper than anything else around at the time. Seeing this, Pitts and Tuck decided that now it was worth building a prototype to test their idea, and so Galaxy Game was born.

The first prototype. A PDP-11 was able to run two simultaneously. Source: Gaming-History

Galaxy Game was installed in Stanford University's Tresidder building in 1971. There appears to be some confusion online regarding when exactly it was installed. Wikipedia's article states it was November 1971, however there are numerous other sources that say September instead. The MobyGames page sums this confusion up pretty well, having the release date as November, but just down the page in the game description it says September. I haven't dived too deep into this, and I don't think it's all that important, either, but I generally prefer earlier dates if there's enough sources to support it.

The second prototype at the Computer History Museum. Source: Wikipedia

Galaxy Game became quite the hit at Stanford, with people waiting for up to an hour at times just to play a single round. A second version (see image above) was produced in 1972 that allowed 4 cabinets to play simultaneously (though it appears this was never implemented due to space limitations). This version remained until 1979, when it was disassembled due to the processor becoming faulty. It was restored in 1997, and since 2000 has resided at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. 

Now let's get into the game itself. I'm playing it through MAME for this, though it is also available to play online.

After selecting how many games you want to play, the options menu appears. These options can be changed using the DIP switches. The choices are:

1. Positive or Negative Gravity
2. Sun or No Sun
3. Slow or Fast Speed
4. One or Two Player

On the surface it seems like there's quite a decent array of choices to customise your gameplay experience. In practice, however, it doesn't quite work out like that.

Naturally, I select the "one player" mode, assuming that there will be some form of computer opponent for me to face. Why else have a one player mode? But no, there is in fact no AI opponent. I control the ship starting in the bottom left, and the other ship perpetually travels a steady course south until I blow it up. It doesn't even shoot. Once I fly over to it and destroy it, that's it. Game over. I'm really not sure why the game even has this option, it's completely pointless. 

Galaxy Game gives you a few game settings to choose from.

As for the other options... well, let's discuss the gravity mechanic. The sun in the middle of the screen is supposed to have, like Spacewar!, gravity that pulls the ships toward it. Negative gravity would make it push the ships away. Note that I say supposed to. Gravity appears to not work at all. I've tried all manner of combinations and there simply isn't any gravity no matter what I try. Now, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt here and assume that this is an emulation issue, although I did try the archive.org online version as well, and there was no gravity there, either. Does it make much of a difference? Well, not really, since there's barely any game for me to play to begin with, but it is still an issue that one of the game's core mechanics is straight up non-functional.

It certainly looks like Spacewar! Fuel meters are in the bottom corners.

As for speed control, slow is fine if you enjoy watching snail races, otherwise I'd stick with the fast speed, it's far more exciting. I should also mention that there is fuel to manage and hyperspace like in Spacewar!, but they're a non-factor when playing alone. 

You can also, much to my amusement, blow yourself up, since the missiles wrap around the screen and travel quite the distance before disappearing.

There's not a whole lot left to discuss at this juncture, so on to the scores.

Play Time: Approx. 35 minutes (cumulative over several sessions)

Difficulty: 0/10

For Game Design, I can only give a 1, considering that a non-functional one player mode was included. Remember, I judge based on single-player experience, and this completely fails at providing a meaningful one.

Controls get a 7. The control layout transfers well onto keyboard for MAME. The Newtonian physics are sluggish, however, and even more so if running on the slow speed option (I don't know why anyone would ever willingly play on slow speed.)

Sound & Audio: There is no sound, so N/A.

Visual: The game doesn't look horrible; the starfield gives a sense of the vastness of space, and the particle effects after a ship is destroyed are particularly memorable. There is a lot of flickering going on, however, and it's quite distracting. The ships aren't drawn very well, either, with the bottom left one, being more wire frame-like in appearance, having lines disappear and merge constantly, yet another visual distraction. 4.

Story: N/A.

Functionality: Giving it a 1 because the game itself is still playable, even if one of the core mechanics doesn't work, invalidating several of the game options.

Accessibility: It's not a difficult game to access or understand how to play, but I did initially have some trouble figuring out how to change settings and to actually get a game started. 3.

'Fun' Factor: There's not really any point, so not really any fun to be had, therefore it gets a 0.

Overall that gives Galaxy Game a score of 16/70, or 22.8%, putting it in the F-tier. It's rather unfortunate that I give such a historically important game such a low score, but I can only judge what I can play. Out of historical interest, I'd say it's still worth a try, just bring a friend so that it can be appreciated properly.

[Ed. Score revisions have led to Galaxy Game getting a boost in score - now standing at 18/70, which is enough to promote it to the E-tier. Read more about the score revisions here and here.]

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