Questions tagged [gaming-history]
Questions about the history of games, conventions, customs, traditions and gaming terms, and how they have developed over time.
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Origin of the name "gaming console"
Why are they called "consoles"?
AFAIK, In computing, the name "console" for machine interface came from the fact, that initially it was a literal console table with typewriter on it. But gaming ...
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What was the first game to show toilets?
And by "toilets" I mean the actual thing you sit on, not just "restrooms".
Not trying to be weird, I just remember I first saw them in Fallout 3 (2008) and suddenly realized those ...
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What point-and-click game has the largest map? [closed]
I want to build a memory palace for myself, which is basically a method of remembering various things through locations.
For this reason, I wanted to play a point-and-click game with a large map and ...
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Why would Majora's Mask have needed the Expansion Pak for the "time mechanics"?
I watched this video and was annoyed by what he said here:
Why would the base Nintendo 64 not be able to keep a minimal number of true/false flags in its memory, as is ...
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What was the first commercial game to include a save feature that wasn't dependent on a battery backup?
What was the first commercial game on general release to include a feature that allowed you to save a game to persistent storage, and come back to it later, which wasn't dependent on any form of ...
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What was the first game to include a crafting system for non-critical in game items?
What was the first video game that allowed you to collect components or materials that had no intrinsic use by themselves, and then combine them into useful in game items such as weapons or food?
I'm ...
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What was the first video game console controller with ANALOG trigger buttons?
I want to emphasize the word "ANALOG" so that you understand that i am not referring to digital trigger buttons
I want to know what was the first controller with analog trigger buttons, not ...
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What was the first rhythm game?
A cursory look at the English Wikipedia says it was PaRappa the Rapper (1996), but I find it hard to believe that no-one thought to turn performing music into a game during the 16-bit era. The SNES ...
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What video games have been written only with C (not C++) language or/and Assembly language? [closed]
I am looking for video games that only contain Assembly language or/and C (not C++) language in their source code.
The best example of this that I can think of right now is RollerCoaster Tycoon (1999),...
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What's the longest speedrun world record?
Various classics have been speed run in surprisingly short amounts of time, for example Mario in under 5 minutes and Ultimate Doom in about 20 minutes and many others (Zelda, MineSweeper).
I learned ...
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What was the first video game to employ hidden balancing mechanics?
I'm currently researching the evolution of game balance in video games, and I'm particularly interested in the "hidden" mechanics that developers employ to maintain a fair and engaging ...
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Did any of Metagaming Concepts' board games make it to the PC?
I loved Metagaming Concepts' board games like Ogre and WarpWar and always thought that they could have been made into PC games.
Did any of Metagaming Concepts' board games make it to the PC?
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Origin of game trope where you travel between similar realities to progress?
In the recent years, many games seem to use a trope where you travel between slightly different realities to progress, either as a core mechanic or in a single level. The examples I can think of are ...
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What was the first video game to have a soundtrack performed by an actual orchestra?
Sources seem to vary on which video game was the first to use an actual orchestra to perform its soundtrack. Some sources say that it was Heart of Darkness.
Heart of Darkness marked another change in ...
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How was it calculated that Dream cheated on his Minecraft v1.16 glitchless speedrun?
The speedrunner Dream has recently been accused of cheating in his Minecraft Java v1.16 glitchless speedrun.
How did the Minecraft Java speedrunning mods calculate if Dream cheated?
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How many games did Romero and Carmack create before Doom?
Both Romero and Carmack created many games and sold them to computer magazines in the 80s as their initial foray making games.
I think I remember a line in Master of Doom that they had both created 80-...
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Who did what for the original "Shadowgate" on Macintosh and NES?
I am trying to determine who were actually involved in making the classic "Shadowgate" game for the Macintosh, and its NES port.
On MobyGames, I read:
Staff: David Feldman, David Marsh, ...
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What was the first game to have a "quicksave" feature?
Quicksave (according to Wikipedia, and my own experience) is a feature that allows the player to save their game state with a single keystroke, instead of (say) going through a lot of complicated ...
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What is the record word size for a gaming system?
Related: What does 8-bit / 16-bit actually refer to?
I remember the "bit wars" of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Genesis/Mega Drive and the PC Engine/Turbografx-16 were heavily marketed ...
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Why didn't the arcade machines keep on "scaling" as the years went by?
Growing up in the early to mid 1990s, visiting various arcades was truly fascinating. At home, the SNES already felt amazingly futuristic, and its games endlessly fascinated and impressed me. Yet, ...
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What's the first game to feature sacrificing at altars as a general game mechanic?
In NetHack you can sacrifice sufficiently fresh corpses at altars for various benefits. Are there any earlier games where such sacrifices are a general game mechanic? Going by the TV Tropes page on ...
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First ever game to alternate platforming or run-and-gun stages with scrolling shoot em up stages
Title pretty much covers it. I think the predecessor to Cybernator is the earliest I know (1990) but I wouldn't be surprised if there are earlier examples. I suspect the inspiration may have come from ...
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What's the earliest known use of the term "farming"?
The first time I saw the term farming in a videogame context was bonewall farming / "bonefarming" in Diablo 2. It makes sense in this case since you "plant" a bonewall then "...
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Which games use a neural network to influence game play? [closed]
Creatures was a video game released in 1996 (or 1997, depending on the region) that contained a real, working neural network. It used the neural network to influence game play, by affecting the way ...
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How did the term 'noob' originate?
The terms 'n00b', 'nub', and 'newby' are all over gamer culture, but where did they come from? Did someone just decide we need a general word for someone who is unskilled? Is it a corruption of 'new' ...
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Is 'Sierra Online' somehow related to 'Valve Studios'?
Is there any connection between the two developer studios: 'Sierra Online' and 'Valve Studios'?
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Sphere Grid/Skill Tree history?
In games like Diablo, a character class had a fixed tree.
In Final Fantasy X, every node on the Sphere Grid may be accessed by every character.
This fundamental idea then has been used in Path Of ...
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First DOS videogame ever?
I wanna know the first videogame ever released for DOS (any version of it). When I was a kid I was a heavy user of DOS, and I remember playing lots of very old games which were developed way before I ...
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Is Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Super Off Road the first game to implement paid upgrades?
I went to the arcade recently and played Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Super Off Road (long name) for the first time. I noticed you could put tokens in the machine with the purpose of buying upgrades for ...
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When was the game mechanic of online invasion of single player mode first introduced?
It seems to me that more and more games in the last few years feature an invasion mode for their campaigns, in which another player (usually in a hostile role) enters the single player campaign mode ...
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Why do Electronic Arts games for Genesis (Mega Drive) have a different cartridge size?
Why do Electronic Arts games for Genesis (Mega Drive) have a different cartridge size?
Jungle Strike Cartridge:
NHL95:
The Immortal:
"Normal" USA/Europe cartridge:
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What was the first ever FPS with secondary fire?
What was the first ever first person shooter to feature a secondary fire mode? I can think of a couple of 1997 examples (Outlaws, Blood) but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been done a year or two ...
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Was "SD Art of Fighting" ever released?
Electronic Gaming Monthly #45 and Super Play #21 both announced "SD Art of Fighting" as an upcoming Super Famicom game. Was it ever released under another name, or did it get canceled?
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What is the origin of "s-tier" in video games? [duplicate]
It occurred to me the other day that I don't remember ever hearing the term "s-tier" (meaning the best in a tier list, far better than anyone else - the highest tier) before Super Smash Bros ...
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Which game first introduced the concept of weapon recoil?
Context
This morning while watching a video of Wolfenstein 3D from 1992 and Doom (1993) I noticed that weapons don’t need to be compensated for any recoil. Then on my trip down memory lane I watched a ...
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Which was the first game to use multiple Rock Paper Scissors mechanics?
There are many games that use a tactical or elemental Rock Paper Scissors mechanic. Some of them try to make things more interesting by modifying the mechanic, such as by changing the number of ...
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What console game has been released with the highest number of optical discs?
Nowadays, games being released in 1 or 2 discs is considered normal (for example, RDR2 for PS4/Xbox One in 2 50GB Blu-ray discs and GTA V for the Xbox 360 was 2 9.5GB DVDs), but I remember that around ...
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What was the first FPS game with strafing?
What was the first FPS game that introduced strafing?
As far as I remember it was there in Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, which were my first encounter with PC games.
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Are there any non-fiction games? [closed]
There are fiction books like Harry Potter, and non-fiction books (like a Biology textbook for example), but I think all of the games I've ever played were fiction.
So are there any non-fiction games?
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What are Typing Jet and De La Jet Set Radio?
On the tag wiki page for jet-set-radio, I noticed that one of the listed platforms was java-micro-edition, with two Japanese only releases from 2001 under the names De La Jet Set Radio and Typing Jet.
...
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What are the oldest electronic (electric?) arcade games?
Up until now I was more than sure that the history of electronic or electric arcade games (played be teenagers in "game saloons") were around early seventies / late sixties of twentieth ...
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Is there a standardized rating system for game difficulty?
I was recently reading about the various game content rating systems in place in various areas of the world. When describing the PEGI system, Wikipedia observes, "The age rating does not indicate ...
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What was the first game to have a livestream mode to try to avoid legal issues?
Cyberpunk 2077 has an option to remove copyrighted music to (try to) avoid legal issues when live streaming:
Was Cyberpunk 2077 the first game to have a livestream mode to try to avoid legal issues?
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Is Avenging Spirit the first game that features a possession gameplay mechanic?
I was recently playing an old arcade game named Avenging Spirit that has a main character that is kind of similar to Nintendo's Kirby. It features a "possession" game mechanic, where the ...
CommunityBot
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What is "Horse and Pony II", created by the Battlefield devs (Refraction Games)?
Refraction Games were a company who famously developed "Codename Eagle", the precursor to modern Battlefield games. Shortly after its release, the developers were bought by DICE and went on ...
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What examples of games break the fourth wall and direct the player to read the manual? [closed]
There are video games that break the fourth wall and talk directly to the gamer. The best example was always the TV show "Hugo" where you control the character with your telephone. He would ...
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What sort of hardware was used to transfer Mew at Pokemon Red & Blue worldwide events?
Many years ago when Pokemon Red / Blue was immensely popular, I attended a Pokemon tour in Melbourne. For attending you got a showbag with a Pikachu trading card (with a gold logo stamped in the top ...
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Was return to castle wolfenstein ever released in Germany or Austria?
In countries were any type of Nazi imagery is outright banned how did a game like Return to castle Wolvenstein ever see a release?
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What was the first Mario game that featured taking down Bowser with 3 hits?
In all of the Mario games I played (which are not that many), I have to take down Bowser with three hits. I was wondering which Mario game first had that specific gameplay mechanism, since it seems to ...
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What is the first game to have first-person cutscenes where you can’t move the character but you can turn their head?
In many Bethesda-publisher games, such as Dishonored and Skyrim, you can move your head during cutscenes. Sometimes, the camera pulls you in a certain direction, like with the cutscenes with the ...
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