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Breakout (video game)

History and development

Breakout, a discrete logic (non-microprocessor) game, was designed by Nolan Bushnell, Steve Wozniak, and Steve Bristow, all three who were involved with Atari and its Kee Games subsidiary. Atari produced innovative video games using the Pong hardware as a means of competition against companies making "Pong clones". Bushnell wanted to turn Pong into a single player game, where the player would use a paddle to maintain a ball that depletes a wall of bricks. Bushnell was certain the game would be popular, and the two partnered to produce a concept. Al Alcorn was assigned as the project manager, and began development with Cyan Engineering in 1975. Alcorn assigned Steve Jobs to design a prototype. Jobs was offered US$750, with an award for every chip fewer than 50. Jobs promised to complete a prototype within four days.*

Bushnell offered the bonus because he disliked how new Atari games required 150 to 170 chips; he knew that Jobs' friend Steve Wozniak, an employee of Hewlett-Packard, had designed a version of Pong that used about 30 chips. Jobs had little specialized knowledge of circuit board design but knew Wozniak was capable of producing designs with a small number of chips. He convinced Wozniak to work with him, promising to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Wozniak had no sketches and instead interpreted the game from its description. To save parts, he had "tricky little designs" difficult to understand for most engineers. Wozniak placed the high score at the top of the screen. The original deadline was met after Wozniak worked at Atari four nights straight, doing some additional designs while at his day job at Hewlett Packard. This equated to a bonus of $5000, which Jobs kept secret from Wozniak. Wozniak has stated he only received payment of $350; he believed for years that Atari had promised $700 for a design using fewer than 50 chips, and $1000 for fewer than 40, stating in 1984 "we only got 700 bucks for it". Wozniak was the engineer, and Jobs was the breadboarder and tester. Wozniak's original design used 42 TTL (transistor-transistor logic) chips; the final, working breadboard he and Jobs delivered to Atari used 44, but Wozniak said, "We were so tired we couldn't cut it down."

Atari was unable to use Wozniak's design. By designing the board with as few chips as possible, he made the design difficult to manufacture; it was too compact and complicated to be feasible with Atari's manufacturing methods. However, Wozniak claims Atari could not understand the design, and speculates "maybe some engineer there was trying to make some kind of modification to it". Atari ended up designing their own version for production, which contained about 100 TTL chips. Wozniak found the gameplay to be the same as his original creation, and could not find any differences.

Uncube

Uncube is an online magazine.

Quake (video game)

Gameplay

In Quake's single player mode, players explore and navigate to the exit of each dark and Gothic level, facing many challenging monsters and some secret areas along the way. Usually there are buttons to press or keys to collect in order to open doors before the exit can be reached. Once reaching the exit, the game takes the player to the next level. Before the start level, there is a set of three pathways with easy, medium, and hard skill levels; in order to reach the Nightmare skill level (described in the game manual as "so bad that it was hidden, so people won't wander in by accident"), the player must drop through the water before the Episode 4 entrance and jump into a secret passage.

Quake's single-player campaign is organized into four individual episodes of about eight levels each (each including a secret level, one of which is a "low gravity" level that challenges the player's abilities in a different way). As items are collected, they are carried to the next level, each usually more challenging than the last. If the player's avatar dies, he must restart at the beginning of the level. Games may be saved at any time. Upon completing each episode, the player is returned to the hub Start level, where another episode can be entered. Each episode starts the player from scratch, without any previously collected items. Episode I (which formed the shareware or downloadable demo version of Quake) has the most traditional ideology of a boss in the last level. The ultimate objective at the end of an episode is to recover a magic rune. After all of the runes are collected, the floor of the Start opens up to reveal an entrance to the End level which contains the final boss.

Multiplayer

In multiplayer mode, players on several computers connect to a server (which may be a dedicated machine or on one of the player's computers), where they can either play the single-player campaign together in co-op mode or against each other in multiplayer. When players die in multiplayer mode, they can immediately respawn but lose any items that were collected. Similarly, items that have been picked up previously respawn after some time, and may be picked up again. The most popular multiplayer modes are all forms of deathmatch. Deathmatch modes typically consist of either free-for-all (no organization or teams involved), one-on-one duels, or organized teamplay with two or more players per team (or clan). Teamplay is also frequently played with one or another mod. Typically, monsters are not normally present, as they serve no purpose other than to get in the way and give away the player.

The gameplay in Quake was considered unique for its time because of the different ways the player can maneuver through the game. For example: bunny hopping or strafe jumping can be used to move faster than normal, while rocket jumping enables the player to reach otherwise-inaccessible areas at the cost of some self-damage. The player can start and stop moving suddenly, jump unnaturally high, and change direction while moving through the air. Many of these non-realistic behaviors contribute to Quake's appeal. Multiplayer Quake was one of the first games singled out as a form of electronic sport. A notable participant was Dennis Fong who won John Carmack's Ferrari 328 at the Microsoft-sponsored Red Annihilation tournament in 1997.

Development

<--- Background and Carmack's plans for Quake ---!> <--- Early development and role-playing game (RPG) ---!> <--- Id Tech 2 (Quake engine) ---!> <--- Conflicts ---!> <--- Late development and first-person shooter (FPS) ---!> <--- Release ---!>

Pre-release

<--- QTest ---!> <--- Alpha ---!> <--- Shareware ---!>

Reception

<--- Release, sales, and charts ---!> <--- Critical reception and positive reviews ---!> <--- Praise of graphics ---!> <--- Praise of (online) multiplayer ---!> <--- Criticism ---!>

Accolades

<--- Honors, awards, and nominations ---!> <--- Retrospective reviews ---!> <--- Lists ---!>

Legacy and impact

<--- Impact on FPS genre and video game industry ---!> <--- Quake engine, graphics ---!> <--- Online multiplayer and deathmatch ---!> <--- Mods, customization, add-ons ---!> <--- Expansion packs: Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon - released on February 28, 1997, developed by Hipnotic Interactive and published by Activision & Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity - released on March 31, 1997, developed by Rogue Entertainment and published by Activision ---!> <--- Quakeworld ---!>