Fire One! was a player-versus-player or player-versus-computer submarine showdown, designed and programmed by David Rolfe, Ted Michon, and Susan Ogg for Exidy in 1979. The cabinet was split into two halves, with each player controlling their first-person submarine perspective on their half of the screen.
The primary objective of the game is to find and destroy the enemy's submarine, while avoiding the enemy's torpedoes. Through your virtual periscope you are free to launch one of your 8 torpedoes to take out any of the enemy's various ships for extra points. It takes some time to reload each torpedo tube, so you must be judicious in how you plan your attacks.
In addition to being able to control the left/right rotation of your periscope, the game also features a submerge button which you can use to temporarily hide from the enemy. Holding this button down keeps you hidden but also keeps you out of the action, allowing the enemy free reign over the seas.
Ozma Wars is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade game, and the very first game developed and published by SNK, who were still known as "Shin Nihon Kikaku" at the time. The game is also known as the second ever vertical shoot 'em up game, after Taito's Space Invaders (which ran on the same arcade hardware), but is also additionally known as the first game with disparate "levels". The game is also notable for being the first action game to feature a supply of energy, resembling a life bar, a mechanic that has now become common in the majority of modern action games. The game allowed the player to refuel energy between each level, and it featured a large variety of alien enemies.
The player controls a space craft which must fend off UFOs, meteors, and comets. Instead of lives, the player is given an energy reserve that is constantly diminishing; getting hit by the enemy causes gameplay to stop momentarily and a large amount of energy is depleted. Every so often, a mothership will appear and dock with the player's spacecraft,
Intruder is an arcade game originally released by Konami as Space War. It is a one-on-one spaceship combat game with each player controlling a ship at the top or bottom of the screen. Between the players is a stream of innocent space ship traffic limiting the possibility of getting a clean shot.
When your fuel reaches a high number (like 75 or so) your laser will reach the other side of the screen to get your opponent. Once you fire your laser your fuel drops sharply and you must wait for it to build before you can shoot at your opponent again.
Space War is Konami's first known original video game design. It was licensed by Taito, who released it as Space Laser (in Europe), and by Game Plan, who released it as Intruder (in North America).
Tail Gunner is vector arcade game created by Vectorbeam in 1979. As enemy space craft attack the player, they must aim a set of cross-hairs and shoot the enemies before they move past the player's laser cannons or use shield to bounce them back into play.
Space Launcher is an arcade video game by Nintendo that was surprisingly original (many of the games Nintendo made during the late '70s were clones of popular titles like Pong, Space Invaders and Breakout). The game is similar to Frogger, though is not a clone since it predates it by at least two years. The game takes place in space, and your goal is to maneuver around space objects and dodge oncoming enemy fire from the aliens that are stationed above. There are also treasures at the top, and your goal is to fly up, grab the treasure, and come soaring back down after which you must repeat it until all of the treasures have been scavenged.
The game's poster seems to be inspired slightly by the Star Wars films, which were very successful at the time of this game's release. Even the yellow font of this game's logo could be said to be based on Star Wars' logo.
The game starts with the player's spacecraft docked inside the mothership at the top of the screen. Below the mothership is an asteroid field and below that, the surface of the moon. There are three platforms which can be landed on and six stranded astronauts that need rescuing. You control a small spacecraft. The player must press the button to release their spacecraft from the mothership and manoeuvre through the asteroid field. The craft can only move left or right or use up a finite amount of fuel by engaging the thrust (the same button again) to slow its descent. If the craft is landed successfully on one of the available platforms, one of the astronauts will run towards and board the craft.
The asteroid belt now changes into a swarm of flying saucers, some of which drop bombs. The player must now guide the spacecraft back up to the mothership (the craft ascends without using up fuel), avoiding the flying saucers. The thrust button is now a fire button which can be used to shoot at enemies above (as in Space
Monkey Magic is a video game released in arcades by Nintendo in 1979. It is a Breakout clone and one of Nintendo's earliest arcade games. Some sources claim that Ikegami Tsushinki also did design work on Monkey Magic. Players control a paddle to hit the ball at a large number of blocks shaping a monkey's face. Players can also earn different numbers of points by catching blocks that fall, as well as hitting the ball in different places.
The game of Astro Fighter consists of 4 waves and a refueling stage, which are then repeated with increasingly higher difficulty. The player's task is to eliminate the four successive waves of different types of attacking craft, while avoiding being hit by missiles and bombs, and then refuel by shooting the 'GS' ship before repeating the process. The player starts with 3 lives and receives a bonus life on reaching a score of 5000. 300 bonus points are received for shooting each 6 falling bombs and for 950 for hitting the GS ship accurately on the first shot. A very large bonus of 10,000 is given for getting through 4 waves and refueling by using exactly 2 shots more than the minimum needed. As the higher levels of Astro Fighter are difficult to survive consistently, even for the best players, the highest scores have been achieved by the achieving the 10,000 bonus deliberately.
Warrior is a 1979 arcade fighting game and is considered one of the first games of its genre. Developed by Tim Skelly while working at Cinematronics, it was released under the Vectorbeam company name shortly before Cinematronics closed Vectorbeam down. The game featured two dueling knights rendered in monochrome vector graphics and based on crude motion capture techniques. Due to the limitations of the hardware used, the processor could not render the characters and gaming environment at the same time and backgrounds were printed, with the characters projected on the top.
Galaxian is a shooter arcade game developed by Namco in 1979. It was released by Namco in Japan and a few months later by Midway Games in North America. The game was developed to compete with Taito Corporation's Space Invaders, released a year earlier, and featured a similar space theme. The player controls a space ship in the bottom part of the screen and shoots at enemies descending from the top of the screen.
The game was received very well by the public and has continued to be a game with a competitive community to this day. It was followed by a successful sequel called Galaga in 1981 and two less known sequels called Gaplus in 1984 and Galaga '88 in 1987. Galaxian was one of the most popular games in the golden age of arcade video games.
Collect all the dots in the maze without colliding with (or being collided by) the missile. You can use your speed boost as long as you have fuel left. If the missile gets behind you on a long stretch it will speed up and the only way to avoid collision then is to turn a corner.
Rich Man is an early arcade game from Konami. It is a clone of Namco's Bee Gee, a combination of Breakout and pinball gameplay. It was the final game Konami released before their aquisition of their publishing partner Leijac.
Barrier is a maze arcade game using vector graphics released by Vectorbeam in 1979. In this very basic game, players move a small triangle around on the grid, while attempting to avoid the diamonds that are also moving around on the grid. Reaching the end of the grid teleports the player back to the front of the grid to gain points. The game is played on a 3x9 grid that is displayed at angle to make it appear to be in 3-D. The game was sold to Vectorbeam by Cinematronics.
A football/Breakout-style arcade game made by Taito. Despite its name it is less of a football game and more of a Breakout variant, with the player represented by a paddle and the opposing team guarding the goal and at the top of the screen. The game is controlled with a paddle, like most Breakout variants.
Originally called Space Invaders Part II in Japan, this is the first sequel to the coin-munching hit Space Invaders. This game is notable for introducing the concept of a cut-scene.