Questions tagged [gaming-history]
Questions about the history of games, conventions, customs, traditions and gaming terms, and how they have developed over time.
89
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Unsold Atari videogames dumped in a desert?
I've heard about a massive amount of Atari consoles and video game cartridges (most of them were unsold copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) buried in a sort of dump in the middle of a desert in the ...
- 41.4k
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3
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Why does the original Game Boy support four shades of grey? [closed]
Why does the Game Boy specifically support four shades of grey, why not three or five? Is there something about the hardware that made four colours optimal?
Was there a precedent to using four shades ...
- 749
65
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1
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Origin of achievements
Achievements have become pretty standard in games (and other gamified content, like Stack Exchange) these days. However, they definitely weren’t part of “classic” gaming, in the arcade/8-bit/16-bit ...
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59
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1
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How did Minecraft's Java/Bedrock split come to pass?
It's been a very long time since I've last touched Minecraft. Recently my interest was sparked again and to my surprise I've learned that now there are 2 dominant Minecraft versions: Java and Bedrock. ...
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51
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1
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What happened on September 24 1990 (or 1998) at 08:24?
I’ve just bought Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. It’s a great game! Played through the first world already.
There are retro pop culture references all over it!
Anyway, in the opening scene there is ...
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46
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4
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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 ...
43
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9
answers
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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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38
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3
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Where does the colour-coded item rarity come from?
In most new titles, especially RPGs, item rarity is colour coded in an easy to remember white-green-blue-purple-orange progression, sometimes with omissions (no green, no orange) or additions (extra ...
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1
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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?
user273012
33
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6
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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 ...
- 465
33
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3
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What is the origin of the WASD key scheme?
My gaming memories go way back to the Atari 2600 with its single-button gamepad, and with computer gaming I started with the PC XT.
Back in the day, movement would be controlled by the arrows and ...
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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 ...
29
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2
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What tools were used to analyze & challenge the records for Dragster?
I was reading an article on Polygon which was talking about a longstanding record for an Atari Game called Dragster. In the article it was talking about how people challenged the record by using "...
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3
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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 ...
- 1,438
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6
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Where did 'Soon™' originate?
I've seen coming Soon™ attached to some Valve and Blizzard products, but did it start with one of them (and if so, which)? What was the first game (or other product) that was to be launched with the ...
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24
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1
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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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2
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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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22
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1
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Was SSI's isometric RPG "M" ever released?
Saw this waaaay back in the day in a FASA/SSI ad booklet that came in my Mechwarrior 2 box:
Transcription:
What is M?
THE MOST VISUALLY STUNNING, TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED, INTRICATE AND COMPELLING ...
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21
votes
3
answers
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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:
- 525
18
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3
answers
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How did the term 'buff' originate?
I was interested in learning that the term 'nerf' originated from Nerf gun toys. The opposite of nerf is buff, but I have found no information on the origin of it.
In the video game community, how ...
- 9,205
16
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3
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How do people discover cheat codes in games?
Cheat codes are programmed into some games by developers. As an example: Have you ever played International Super Star Soccer 64? Well this game had several codes that would unlock new teams, give the ...
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5
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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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2
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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 ...
- 289
12
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2
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What game came up with the Heart metaphor for health?
I'd like to know what game came up with hearts for showing the player's character's health.
It's very common today in many games, but how did this come to be?
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3
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What was the first console or handheld to have a user interface outside of games?
Consoles like the NES didn't have any sort of menus when not playing a game. Nowadays, however, stuff like the Switch and PS4 have all sorts of stuff built in:
What was the first video game ...
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11
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1
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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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0
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What is the origin of the standard color coding scheme for item rarity? [duplicate]
I recently started playing Hearthstone, and I realized I already knew the correct rarities of different cards without having it explained to me, because I'd seen it before. Stopping to think about it, ...
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1
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How did people discover the Konami Code?
Everybody knows it, everybody's done it, the famous Konami Code has been around for as long as cheat codes have existed, and is one of the most famous and well known cheat codes in history - most well ...
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Was the Atari 2600 the first home console to have a screen saver?
The Atari 2600 had a screen saver feature, where the colors of objects in the screen were randomly changed.
Was it the first home console to have such feature, if not who holds the title?
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2
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What factors contributed to E.T's reputation as a bad game?
According to a documentary on Atari called Game Over it is stated that "ET" is the worst video game ever made.
Why is that?
I played the game when it was released, and although very young, I ...
- 385
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votes
1
answer
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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 ...
- 10.2k
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What was the first game to intentionally use letterboxing to indicate a cutscene?
A widespread convention or trope in games is the use of black bars at the top and bottom of the screen during a cutscene or cinematic. I assume this is a stylistic choice, and/or a UX choice to ...
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1
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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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2
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Is there any truth to the myth of Polybius?
There is an old urban legend about an arcade game Polybius.
An arcade machine that would have been made to be a government experiment, appeared just for a few days in a few arcades, and then some men ...
- 40.8k
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1
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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 ...
- 209
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2
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Where does the term "quick time event" come from?
I know what the term quick time event means and that one of the first usages of the gameplay element was in Dragon's Lair, but I don't know why they are called that. Was that the term used by Dragon's ...
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7
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1
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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.
user44534
7
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1
answer
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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 ...
- 459
6
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4
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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, ...
6
votes
1
answer
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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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2
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What is the etymology of the term "Console Wars"?
(After this discussion on Meta, the question has been undeleted.)
As we know today, there is a competition between the holy trinity of the console gaming industry (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) about ...
- 15.2k
6
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1
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502
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Who wrote the game 'The Pits'?
I'm looking for info on a game called 'The Pits', a text based adventure game which was on "The Source", a BBS computer system in the early 80s.
Who wrote this game? Was it ever ported to more modern ...
6
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1
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1k
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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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6
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1
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609
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What is Blast processing?
Back in the Super Nintendo era, Sega's whole Marketing campaign hinged on one thing: Blast Processing.
I don't think I've ever seen it explained. It was just "WE GOT IT AND NINTENDONT."
So, What is ...
- 40.8k
6
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1
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908
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What games were released for the PS2 in China during the Console Ban? (if any)
This Kotaku article from 2013 mentions that:
The PS2 didn't make its original launch date. Instead, Sony waited till 2004 to launch the PS2 in China. Even then, there were issues with game releases, ...
- 10.2k
6
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1
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265
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Who made the game "Torus" in the 1990s?
I'm trying to find the publisher of a game from the early 1990s called "Torus".
It was a 2d realtime puzzle game on DOS or Windows 3.x. Spinning rings of different colors fell from above onto spikes ...
- 363
6
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1
answer
145
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First game with resolution choice
What was the first game to offer a choice of screen resolutions? I'm mostly interested in DOS (which is where I expect the answer will be) but also curious if any other platform (e.g. Mac or Amiga) ...
- 459
6
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3
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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 ...
- 1,438
5
votes
10
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4k
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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?
- 239
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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 ...
- 405
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