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50 Landmark Game Design Innovations
Next Generation has put together a lengthy list of landmark game design innovations that many of your favorite games probably wouldn't exist without. They break them out into self-contained units, though it's sometimes ambiguous how they're demarcating game design elements. Just the same, it's an interesting look at where game industry trends have led us: "23. Gestural interfaces. Many cultures imbue gestures with supernatural or symbolic power, from Catholics crossing themselves to the mudras of Hindu and Buddhist iconography. Magic is often invoked with gestures, too--that's part of what magic wands are for. The problem with a lot of videogame magic is that clicking icons and pushing buttons feels more technical than magical. The gestural interface is a comparatively recent invention that gives us a non-verbal, non-technical way to express ourselves. Best-known example: Wii controller. Probable first use: Black & White, 2001."
Role Playing
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whether it's obvious or not, the whole computer gaming model for player vs enemy combat is still largely the same as the dungeons & dragons model. The controls may vary from game to game, but it's largely choose the weapon, roll the dice, and survive the encounter by having more hit points left than your enemy does. Before this was implemented in videogames, you had the one-shot kill gameplay of space invaders or the hunt the wumpus "you're dead" text adventures.
Side Scrolling Screens
I'm not enough of a historian to say what game came up with it first, but the exploration possibilities of side-scrolling created really big worlds to explore.
Let's face it, most action games are about force. Even when confronted with overwhelmingly powerful enemies, your only option is to avoid their killing shots while grinding away at them or searching for their vulnerable spots. In stealth play the idea is to never even let the enemies know you're there, and it requires a completely different approach from the usual Rambo-style mayhem. Best-known early example: Thief: The Dark Project, 1998. First use: unknown.
Really? Not Metal Gear? 1987 for the original, or also 1998 (according to Wikipedia, two months before Thief: The Dark Project) for Metal Gear Solid?
Games used to be written for 5+ platforms. How many platforms did Lemmings come out on? Or the original Prince of Persia? Apple ][, Commodore 64, DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari possibly.
A game supporting 3 platforms is nothing, relatively speaking. (Since this topic is about the history of games spanning all the way to the beginning.)
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