1980s
The golden age. 8-bit and 16-bit machines transform bedrooms into game development studios.
1980
52 eventsAdventure
Adventure for Atari 2600 created the action-adventure genre and contained gaming's first Easter egg, hidden by developer Warren Robinett.
Arcade Ports
Arcade ports brought coin-op experiences to home systems, requiring creative compromises to fit powerful arcade hardware onto limited home machines while maintaining the essence of the original.
Arpeggio
Arpeggios rapidly cycled through notes of a chord, simulating polyphony on sound chips limited to single-note channels—a defining technique of chiptune music.
Bad Ports
The phenomenon of poorly-executed platform conversions that failed to capture the original game's essence, from Pac-Man 2600 to countless rushed arcade conversions.
Battlezone
Battlezone pioneered first-person 3D combat using vector graphics, placing players inside a tank with a periscope viewfinder for a uniquely immersive arcade experience.
BBS Door Games
Turn-based multiplayer games that ran on bulletin board systems, allowing multiple callers to compete asynchronously before broadband internet made real-time online gaming possible.
Beam Software
The Australian game developer founded in 1980, creators of The Hobbit text adventure's revolutionary parser, and one of the southern hemisphere's most significant studios.
Bedroom Coder
The culture of individual programmers creating commercial games from their bedrooms, enabled by accessible hardware and direct publisher relationships in the 1980s.
Berzerk
Berzerk combined maze navigation with frantic shooting against robots, featuring synthesised speech that taunted players with 'Intruder alert!' and 'The humanoid must not escape!'
British Game Development
British game development grew from bedroom coders into a major industry, shaped by accessible hardware, magazine culture, and distinct creative sensibilities.
Brøderbund
Brøderbund published landmark titles including Prince of Persia, Lode Runner, and Carmen Sandiego, maintaining high quality standards across games and educational software.
Cambridge Games Scene
Cambridge's games industry grew from Acorn Computers and the university, producing Elite, Frontier Developments, and a tradition of technically ambitious game development.
Cheat Codes
Cheat codes evolved from developer tools into gaming culture staples, providing shortcuts, easter eggs, and playground legends.
Commodore VIC-20
The first computer to sell a million units, the VIC-20 brought colour computing to the masses and paved the way for the C64.
Copy Protection
Copy protection evolved from simple checks to elaborate schemes as publishers battled pirates, sometimes inconveniencing legitimate customers more than crackers.
Crunch Culture
The game industry practice of extended overtime periods before deadlines, exposed by the 2004 'EA Spouse' blog and remaining a persistent labour issue despite ongoing criticism.
Dithering
Dithering created the illusion of additional colours by interleaving pixels of different shades, expanding limited palettes through optical mixing.
Eugene Jarvis born
Master of mayhem
Game & Watch
Nintendo's 1980-1991 line of dedicated LCD handheld games created by Gunpei Yokoi, which invented the D-pad and established the template for portable gaming.
Game Clone Legality
The legal precedents establishing that game mechanics cannot be copyrighted while specific expressions can, shaped by cases from KC Munchkin to Fighter's History.
HAL Laboratory
HAL Laboratory created Kirby and the Super Smash Bros. series while serving as a key Nintendo partner, with future Nintendo president Satoru Iwata among its programmers.
Hewson Consultants
Hewson spotted garage talent, paid fair royalties, and helped launch classics like Paradroid, Uridium, and Cybernoid.
Homebrew Ports
Homebrew ports bring games to platforms they never officially reached, demonstrating dedication and technical skill in the retro computing community.
Interrupt-Driven Music
Interrupt-driven music used timer interrupts to update sound chips at regular intervals, allowing music playback while the CPU handled game logic.
Licensed Games
The phenomenon of video games based on films, TV shows, and other media, which funded much of the industry despite wildly varying quality from masterpieces to disasters.
Magazine Covers
Gaming magazine covers featured bold artwork that competed for attention on newsagents' shelves and now serve as nostalgic time capsules.
Magazine Distribution
Gaming magazines reached readers through newsagent distribution networks that determined which publications survived and which found their audiences.
MC6847 VDG
The Motorola Video Display Generator used in the Dragon and TRS-80 Color Computer, offering text and graphics modes but limited colour flexibility compared to custom chips.
Memory Banking
Memory banking allowed systems to access more memory than their address buses could directly reach, swapping different banks of RAM or ROM into the same address range.
Missile Command
Missile Command captured nuclear age anxiety in game form, challenging players to defend cities against relentless ICBM attacks using limited anti-missile batteries.
Pac-Man
Namco's 1980 maze-chase created gaming's first mascot, transcended arcades into mainstream culture, and taught the industry that characters sell.
Palette Cycling
Palette cycling created animation effects by rotating colour values rather than redrawing graphics, enabling flowing water, glowing effects, and pulsing lights without CPU overhead.
Permadeath
Permadeath removes the safety net of saving, making every decision consequential and every death meaningful by forcing players to restart from the beginning.
Procedural Generation
Procedural generation created game content through algorithms rather than manual design, enabling vast worlds, endless replayability, and experiences that fit in kilobytes.
Pulse Width Modulation
Pulse width modulation varied the duty cycle of square waves, transforming simple bleeps into rich, evolving tones that defined the sound of chip music.
Raster Tricks
Raster tricks push hardware beyond specifications by precisely timed manipulation during screen display, achieving impossible-seeming effects.
Regional Censorship
The practice of modifying game content for different markets, from Nintendo's cross removal to Germany's robot replacements, reflecting varied cultural sensitivities and legal requirements.
Roberta Williams born
Adventure game pioneer
Rogue
Rogue created the roguelike genre with procedurally generated dungeons, permadeath, and ASCII graphics, establishing design principles that would influence games for decades.
Scrolling
Scrolling techniques expanded game worlds beyond single screens, from smooth hardware-assisted movement to creative software solutions that defined platformers and shooters.
Sinclair BASIC
Sinclair BASIC came built into the ZX Spectrum ROM, providing accessible programming that launched countless coding careers.
Sound Drivers
Sound drivers were the software engines that controlled audio hardware, translating composer's music data into the bleeps, samples, and synthesised sounds that defined each platform's acoustic character.
Spinner Controller
The specialised arcade input device offering continuous 360-degree rotation, essential for games like Tempest and Tron.
Sprite Multiplexing
By repositioning hardware sprites mid-frame as the raster beam passes, programmers displayed far more objects than the hardware officially supported.
Technosoft
Technosoft created the Thunder Force series and other technically accomplished games, demonstrating exceptional mastery of Mega Drive hardware before their unfortunate closure.
The Learning Company
The Learning Company dominated educational software with *Reader Rabbit*, *Math Blaster*, and other titles that taught millions of children through play.
Tile Maps
Tile maps constructed game worlds from small reusable graphic blocks, enabling large levels within tight memory constraints while simplifying collision detection and level design.
Tile-Based Collision
By checking which tiles a character overlaps rather than testing every object, tile collision provides fast, memory-efficient collision detection for platform games.
TRS-80 Color Computer
The Tandy/Radio Shack 6809-based home computer line (1980-1991), known as the CoCo, which shared architecture with the Dragon and evolved into the capable CoCo 3.
UK Games Industry
The British games industry grew from bedroom coders into a global force, producing studios behind *GTA*, *Tomb Raider*, and countless classics.
Zork
Zork defined text adventure gaming with its sophisticated parser, witty writing, and sprawling underground world, establishing Infocom as the master of interactive fiction.
John Lennon murdered
The murder of former Beatle John Lennon outside his New York apartment marks the end of an era and sparks global mourning.
1981
21 eventsBBC Micro
Acorn's BBC Micro brought computing to British schools, taught a generation to program, and spawned the ARM processor architecture.
Centipede
Centipede combined fast action with strategic mushroom management, becoming one of gaming's first hits with female players thanks to Dona Bailey's design sensibility.
CIA: The C64's Swiss Army Chip
The MOS 6526 Complex Interface Adapter handled keyboard scanning, joystick input, serial communication, and timing—the unsung heroes of the Commodore 64.
Defender
Eugene Jarvis's Defender broke every rule of early arcade design—five buttons, a scrolling playfield, a radar scanner—and became one of the highest-grossing arcade games ever made.
Donkey Kong
Shigeru Miyamoto's 1981 arcade debut introduced Jumpman (later Mario), invented the platformer genre, and saved Nintendo's American division.
Frogger
Konami's 1981 arcade hit turned crossing the road into an art form, spawning countless ports and cementing the grid-based action genre.
Galaga
Galaga refined the fixed shooter formula with challenging attack patterns, the revolutionary capture mechanic, and addictive score-chasing that kept arcades profitable for years.
GCE
General Consumer Electronics, the company that created the Vectrex console in 1982 before being acquired by Milton Bradley.
Level 9
Level 9 Computing brought sophisticated text adventures to 8-bit machines, cramming Infocom-quality experiences into 48K of RAM.
Nihon Falcom
Nihon Falcom pioneered action RPGs with Ys and Dragon Slayer in the 1980s, maintaining independence through decades while creating sprawling interconnected worlds in the Trails series.
PC Gaming
PC gaming evolved from hobbyist computing to a dominant gaming platform, distinguished by openness, modding culture, and continual hardware advancement.
Scramble
Scramble established the side-scrolling shooter template with fuel management, terrain navigation, and multiple weapon types that defined the genre for decades.
Sinclair ZX81
Clive Sinclair's black wedge computer brought programming to Britain's bedrooms, despite its 1KB RAM and membrane keyboard.
Softdisk
The disk magazine publisher where John Carmack, John Romero, and other id Software founders worked before leaving to create DOOM and change gaming forever.
Stealth Mechanics
Stealth mechanics reward patience and planning over reflexes, using light, sound, and AI awareness systems to create tension through avoidance rather than confrontation.
Technos Japan
Technos Japan created the beat-em-up genre with Renegade and perfected it with Double Dragon, establishing the template for side-scrolling brawlers that dominated arcades.
Tempest
Tempest pioneered 3D perspective in arcade gaming, sending players down geometric tubes to blast emerging enemies in one of Atari's most visually striking creations.
Ultima
The Ultima series established computer RPG conventions from character creation to open worlds, with Ultima IV pioneering ethical gameplay and virtue systems.
Wizardry
The 1981 Sir-Tech dungeon crawler that defined first-person RPG mechanics and directly inspired Dragon Quest and the entire JRPG genre.
IBM PC launched
IBM's entry into personal computing legitimises the market and establishes the architecture that dominates business computing for decades.
MTV begins broadcasting
Music Television launches with 'Video Killed the Radio Star,' creating a new visual medium that transforms pop culture and advertising.
1982
57 events6510: The C64's Custom Core
The MOS 6510 added an integrated I/O port to the 6502, giving the Commodore 64 its signature memory banking and tape control.
Argonaut Software
Jez San's Argonaut Software pioneered 3D graphics on home computers and co-developed Nintendo's Super FX chip, shaping console gaming's polygonal future.
Attribute-Aware Design
Attribute-aware design on the ZX Spectrum embraced hardware limitations, using colour clash as aesthetic choice rather than fighting against it.
Choplifter
Choplifter pioneered the rescue-focused shooter, tasking players with piloting a helicopter behind enemy lines to save hostages while battling tanks, jets, and anti-aircraft fire.
Colour Clash
Colour clash occurred when ZX Spectrum's attribute system forced entire 8×8 pixel blocks to share foreground and background colours, creating visual artifacts when sprites crossed block boundaries.
Commodore 1541
The 1541 floppy disk drive was famously slow but contained a complete 6502-based computer, enabling fast loaders and copy protection schemes.
Commodore 64
Launched in 1982, the C64 paired the SID and VIC-II chips with an accessible price, becoming the best-selling home computer ever.
D-pad
The directional control pad invented by Gunpei Yokoi for the 1982 Donkey Kong Game & Watch, which became the universal standard for game controllers.
Dig Dug
Dig Dug combined maze creation with unique combat as players tunnelled through dirt, inflating enemies until they popped or crushing them with falling rocks.
Dragon 32
The 1982 Welsh home computer featuring the Motorola 6809 CPU, offering 32KB RAM and compatibility with the TRS-80 Color Computer, though it struggled against the Spectrum and C64.
Dragon Data
The Welsh computer company that produced the Dragon 32 and 64 from 1982-1984, bringing 6809-based computing to the UK market before folding due to competition.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
The rushed 1982 Atari 2600 game that became synonymous with the video game crash - not because it caused it, but because it symbolised everything wrong with the industry.
Electronic Arts
Trip Hawkins founded Electronic Arts with a revolutionary idea: treat game developers like artists and put their names on the box.
Filter Sweeps
Filter sweeps create dynamic timbral changes by gradually adjusting filter cutoff frequency, a signature effect of the C64's SID chip.
Imagine Software
Imagine Software burned bright and crashed hard, becoming a cautionary tale of hype, overspending, and unfulfilled promises.
Inside the VIC-II
Sprites, smooth scrolling, and colour on a budget—how the VIC-II (6567/6569) pulled off the C64’s signature look.
Isometric Projection
Isometric projection created the illusion of three-dimensional space on 2D screens, enabling exploration games impossible with flat side-views.
Joust
Joust replaced shooting with jousting physics, pitting players against enemies and each other on flying ostriches in one of gaming's most original concepts.
KERNAL I/O Routines
The C64’s KERNAL ROM exposes a patchable API for keyboard, screen, tape, disk, and serial I/O—perfect for BASIC and assembly alike.
Liverpool Games Scene
Liverpool was the UK's games development capital in the 1980s, home to Imagine, Ocean, Psygnosis, and a concentration of talent that defined British gaming.
Llamasoft
Founded by Jeff Minter, Llamasoft mixed arcade precision with absurd humour, mail-order hustle, and loyal fans.
LucasArts
The legendary game studio that revolutionised adventure games with the SCUMM engine and a player-friendly design philosophy that eliminated unfair deaths and dead ends.
Lucasfilm Games
Lucasfilm Games (later LucasArts) created the SCUMM engine and genre-defining adventures including Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and Day of the Tentacle with wit, polish, and no dead ends.
Machine Code for Beginners
Books and magazines taught assembly language programming to home computer users, creating a generation who understood their machines at the deepest level.
MicroProse
MicroProse built an empire on military simulations and strategy games, publishing works by Sid Meier that defined genres for decades.
Microsoft Flight Simulator
The *Flight Simulator* series set the standard for aviation simulation across four decades, from 1982's wireframes to 2020's planet-scale photorealism.
Moon Patrol
Moon Patrol introduced parallax scrolling to arcade games, creating an illusion of depth as players drove a lunar buggy across the moon's surface, jumping craters and shooting enemies.
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
The notoriously poor 1982 port of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 that sold millions yet disappointed everyone - a cautionary tale of overproduction and compromised quality.
Parallax Scrolling
Parallax scrolling moved background layers at different speeds to create an illusion of depth, transforming flat 2D games into seemingly three-dimensional spaces.
PETSCII Character Chart
PETSCII codes, screen codes, and control characters—the complete reference for displaying text and graphics on the Commodore 64.
Pitfall!
David Crane's jungle adventure sold four million copies, proved third-party games could be best-in-class, and defined the platformer before Mario existed.
POKE Culture
The 1980s culture of sharing memory addresses and POKE commands through magazines, enabling players to modify games for infinite lives and other cheats.
Pole Position
Pole Position established the behind-the-car racing perspective and sprite scaling techniques that defined racing games for a decade.
PRINT vs POKE
Performance comparison of PRINT and POKE for screen output—and why understanding the difference makes you a better C64 programmer.
Q*bert
Q*bert challenged players to hop across pyramid cubes while avoiding enemies, becoming an arcade icon with distinctive visuals and synthesised swearing.
Raster Tricks 101
Raster timing turns the VIC-II into a multitool: split-screen status bars, colour gradients, sprite multiplexing, and more.
Robotron: 2084
Eugene Jarvis's Robotron: 2084 defined twin-stick shooting with its dual-joystick controls, relentless enemy waves, and the desperate goal of saving the last human family.
Rocky's Boots
The Learning Company's 1982 game that taught Boolean logic and circuit design to children through engaging puzzles.
Screen Memory
Screen RAM, colour RAM, and the VIC-II—understanding how 1000 bytes create 40×25 characters of colourful text.
Seibu Kaihatsu
Seibu Kaihatsu created the Raiden series and other arcade shooters, establishing templates for vertical shooting that influenced the genre throughout the 1990s.
SID: The Sound of the C64
The SID 6581/8580 chip gave the Commodore 64 synthesizer-class sound, inspiring composers and hardware hackers alike.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
Clive Sinclair’s £125 Spectrum put colour computing within reach, igniting the UK’s bedroom coding boom.
Software Scrolling
On systems without scroll registers, software must move every byte of screen data—a CPU-intensive technique that defines the feel of ZX Spectrum games.
Sprite Scaling
Sprite scaling created the illusion of 3D depth by drawing sprites at different sizes based on distance, enabling racing games, shooters, and flight simulators on 2D hardware.
System 3
Mark Cale's System 3 delivered some of the C64's most technically impressive games, from The Last Ninja to International Karate+.
The Hobbit
Melbourne House's 1982 text adventure that pushed the genre forward with independent NPCs, a sophisticated parser, and a living world that changed whether you interacted with it or not.
Tim Stamper born
Ultimate mastermind
UK Gaming Boom
The early 1980s saw British gaming explode as affordable computers, accessible publishing, and teenage talent combined to create a unique industry.
ULA: The Spectrum's Heart
The Ferranti ULA combined display generation, memory access, keyboard scanning, and I/O into a single gate array—making the ZX Spectrum affordable and iconic.
Ultimate Play the Game
The Stamper brothers' Ultimate created the most technically impressive games of the Spectrum era before becoming Nintendo's Rare.
Universal vs Nintendo
The 1982-1984 lawsuit where Universal Studios claimed Donkey Kong infringed King Kong, only for Nintendo to win by proving Universal had previously argued Kong was public domain.
Usborne Computing Books
Usborne's computing books taught programming to a generation through colourful illustrations, clear explanations, and type-in programs.
Vectrex
The 1982 vector graphics game console with built-in monitor, using the Motorola 6809 CPU to create sharp line-based graphics unlike any other home system.
VIC-II Chip Reference
Complete programmer's reference for the VIC-II (6567/6569)—registers, memory layout, display modes, and hardware quirks.
Yoshio Sakamoto born
Metroid director
Yuji Horii born
Dragon Quest's creator
Zaxxon
Zaxxon pioneered isometric 3D in arcade shooters, challenging players to navigate fortress walls while managing altitude in a visually groundbreaking experience.
1983
37 eventsAPU: The NES Audio Engine
The NES Audio Processing Unit delivered two pulse waves, a triangle, noise, and sample playback—creating the iconic sound of 8-bit Nintendo.
Atic Atac
Atic Atac trapped players in a haunted castle, searching for key pieces while managing depleting food supplies and avoiding supernatural horrors.
Attack of the Mutant Camels
Released in 1983, *Attack of the Mutant Camels* turned the VIC-20 and C64 into neon arcades with absurd humour and serious bite.
Bomberman
Hudson Soft's *Bomberman* perfected competitive multiplayer through simple mechanics: place bombs, avoid explosions, eliminate opponents.
byuu (Near) born
The accuracy advocate
Chuckie Egg
A&F Software's 1983 platformer that became one of the BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum's defining games, featuring tight controls and addictive egg-collecting gameplay.
Compile
Compile created the Puyo Puyo puzzle phenomenon and developed acclaimed shoot-em-ups including Zanac and Aleste, before financial troubles led to their closure and IP sales.
Disk Fastloaders
Fastload cartridges and custom DOS routines slashed wait times, turning the C64’s pokey disk drive into an arcade-ready accessory.
Dragon 64
The 1983 upgrade to the Dragon 32, doubling RAM to 64KB while maintaining 6809 architecture and CoCo compatibility.
Elevator Action
Elevator Action sent players into a thirty-floor building as a secret agent, riding elevators and escalators while collecting documents and shooting enemy spies.
Fast Loaders
Fast loaders accelerated tape and disk loading on 8-bit computers, reducing frustrating wait times through optimised data transfer routines.
Galaksija
The 1983 Yugoslav computer whose complete schematics were published in a magazine, allowing hobbyists to build their own computers from available parts—the ultimate bedroom computing story.
Granny's Garden
The 1983 BBC Micro educational adventure that traumatised and educated a generation of British schoolchildren.
Interplay Entertainment
Interplay Entertainment published defining RPGs including Baldur's Gate, Fallout, and Planescape: Torment, nurturing studios that would shape Western role-playing games.
Jetpac
Jetpac launched Ultimate Play the Game with addictive single-screen action, challenging players to build a rocket while fighting aliens across increasingly difficult waves.
Jon Ritman born
Head Over Heels creator
Lode Runner
Lode Runner combined puzzle-platforming with a level editor that let players create and share their own challenges—a template for user-generated content decades before Minecraft.
Manic Miner
Matthew Smith's 1983 platformer brought precise jumping and memorable music to the Spectrum, launching a legend.
Mario Bros.
Nintendo's 1983 arcade game that introduced Luigi, established Mario's plumber identity, and pioneered simultaneous two-player cooperative (and competitive) gameplay.
Mastertronic
Mastertronic flooded newsagents with budget games, giving bedroom coders a fast path from hobby to paycheck.
MSX
MSX attempted to standardise home computers, succeeding spectacularly in Japan while struggling elsewhere, and launching Konami and Metal Gear.
Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo’s Famicom/NES defined global console gaming, pairing strict licensing with polished 8-bit experiences.
Ocean Software
Ocean Software dominated 8-bit gaming with licensed hits, arcade conversions, and some of the era's most memorable loading screens.
Origin Systems
Origin Systems created Ultima and Wing Commander, pioneering story-driven games before Electronic Arts acquired and eventually shuttered the studio.
Planetfall
Steve Meretzky's *Planetfall* combined Infocom wit with genuine emotional impact, featuring a robot companion whose fate became gaming legend.
PPU: The NES Picture Processor
The Ricoh 2C02 Picture Processing Unit gave the NES hardware sprites, tile-based backgrounds, and smooth scrolling—defining the look of 8-bit console gaming.
Regional Differences
Games often varied between regional releases—different content, censorship, difficulty adjustments, and even genre changes between Japan, America, and Europe.
Sega AM2
Sega AM2 created the most technologically advanced arcade games of their era, from OutRun to Virtua Fighter, pushing hardware boundaries under Yu Suzuki's direction.
Sprite Flicker
Sprite flicker rapidly alternated which sprites displayed each frame, allowing games to show more objects than hardware supported at the cost of visible flickering.
Spy Hunter
Spy Hunter combined vertical scrolling driving with James Bond gadgetry, letting players deploy oil slicks, smoke screens, and missiles against enemy vehicles.
Squaresoft
Squaresoft created Final Fantasy and dominated Japanese RPGs through the PlayStation era before merging with Enix to form Square Enix.
The Quill
The Quill enabled non-programmers to create text adventures on the ZX Spectrum, spawning thousands of amateur and commercial adventures.
Thunder Force
Thunder Force evolved from free-scrolling computer game to Mega Drive showcase, with Thunder Force III and IV delivering some of the finest 16-bit shooting action.
Tokuro Fujiwara born
Capcom's action architect
Track & Field
Track & Field transformed athletic events into frantic button-mashing competitions, destroying joysticks and creating a multiplayer party game phenomenon.
Virgin Games
Virgin Games grew from Richard Branson's entertainment empire to become a major publisher, creating original titles and handling lucrative Disney licences before merging into larger entities.
Xevious
Xevious established templates for vertical shooters with its dual weapon system, detailed scrolling landscapes, and mysterious alien aesthetic that influenced countless games.
1984
55 events1942
1942 established Capcom's shooter pedigree with vertical scrolling World War II aerial combat, spawning a long-running series and countless imitators.
Action RPG
Action RPGs combine role-playing progression systems with real-time combat, from *Zelda II* through *Diablo* to the modern looter-shooter.
Adventure Game Deaths
Adventure game deaths divided the genre: Sierra killed players frequently with creative death messages, while LucasArts promised players couldn't die or get stuck—fundamentally different design philosophies.
AGI Engine
Sierra's AGI engine powered early graphical adventures from *King's Quest* to *Space Quest*, defining the parser-based adventure game genre.
Amstrad CPC
Alan Sugar’s Amstrad CPC bundled a computer, cassette deck, and monitor—bringing tidy, reliable 8-bit power to the masses.
Atari Games
Atari Games continued Atari's arcade legacy after the company split, creating classics like Gauntlet, Paperboy, and the Hard Drivin' series throughout the late 1980s and 1990s.
Balloon Fight
Balloon Fight pitted players against balloon-wearing enemies in floaty aerial combat, featuring physics-based movement that clearly inspired by Joust but added its own Nintendo charm.
Boing Ball
The bouncing checkered ball demo that became the Amiga's unofficial mascot, demonstrating the machine's graphics capabilities at its 1984 CES debut and symbolising the platform ever since.
Bomb Jack
Bomb Jack combined precise platforming with strategic bomb collection, challenging players to defuse explosives across famous world landmarks.
Boulder Dash
Boulder Dash combined puzzle-solving with real-time physics, creating a uniquely tense experience where every move could trigger a deadly cascade of falling rocks.
Chunsoft
Chunsoft developed Dragon Quest's early entries and created the Mystery Dungeon roguelike series before merging to form Spike Chunsoft.
Dave Theurer dies
Dave Theurer (1978–1984)
Dialogue Trees
Dialogue trees structure interactive conversations as branching paths, letting players shape character relationships and story outcomes through accumulated choices.
Domark
Domark built their business on arcade conversions and licensed properties, bringing Star Wars, Hard Drivin', and James Bond games to home computers before merging into Eidos.
Dragon Data closes
Dragon Data (1982–1984)
Duck Hunt
Duck Hunt bundled with the NES and Zapper light gun, challenging players to shoot ducks while enduring the mockery of the infamous laughing dog.
Elite
David Braben and Ian Bell's 1984 space trading game offered an entire galaxy on a single floppy, inventing the open-world genre.
Excitebike
Excitebike combined responsive motocross racing with a track editor, letting players create and share custom courses while managing engine temperature through strategic turbo use.
Falling Block
Falling-block puzzles challenged players to manage descending pieces, creating a game format that Tetris defined and countless variations explored.
Filmation Engine
Ultimate Play the Game's Filmation engine created the isometric action-adventure genre, rendering 3D-like environments on 8-bit hardware through clever 2D techniques.
Firebird
Firebird turned a telecom side project into a publishing label that ranged from £1.99 tapes to prestige releases like *Elite*.
GCE closes
GCE (1981–1984)
Gremlin Graphics
Gremlin Graphics grew from Sheffield bedroom coding to become a significant UK publisher, creating original titles like Monty Mole and later the Actua Sports series.
Ian Bell born
Co-creator of Elite
Imagine Software closes
Imagine Software (1982–1984)
Impossible Mission
Epyx's 1984 platform puzzler combined speech synthesis, smooth animation, and devious puzzles in one unforgettable package.
Jet Set Willy
Matthew Smith's sprawling sequel to Manic Miner let players explore a massive mansion—bugs and all.
Jordan Mechner born
Prince of Persia creator
Karateka
Karateka pioneered cinematic game design with rotoscoped animation, dramatic camera angles, and storytelling techniques that Jordan Mechner would later refine in Prince of Persia.
King's Quest
King's Quest pioneered graphic adventures with animated characters exploring fairy tale worlds, establishing Sierra as the adventure game company and Roberta Williams as its creative force.
Knight Lore
Knight Lore's Filmation engine brought 3D perspective to 8-bit gaming, creating a visual style that defined British game design for years.
Kung-Fu Master
Kung-Fu Master established the side-scrolling beat-em-up formula, sending a lone martial artist through floors of enemies to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend.
Magnetic Scrolls
Magnetic Scrolls created the most sophisticated British text adventures—beautifully written, gorgeously illustrated, and technically advanced.
Manual Protection
Manual protection required players to consult physical documentation to play games, deterring piracy through information unavailable on copied disks.
Marble Madness
Marble Madness challenged players to guide a marble through isometric obstacle courses against the clock, pioneering the trackball racing genre with Atari's FM synthesis sound.
Mark Cerny born
Designer to architect
Moon Logic
Moon logic describes adventure game puzzles whose solutions make sense only to their designers, requiring leaps of reasoning that frustrated players while becoming the genre's defining criticism.
Naughty Dog
Naughty Dog evolved from Crash Bandicoot mascot platformers through Jak and Daxter to narrative-driven Uncharted and The Last of Us, becoming Sony's most prestigious first-party studio.
NES Zapper
Nintendo's iconic light gun controller that brought Duck Hunt to millions of living rooms and defined home light gun gaming.
Newsfield
The UK publishing company founded by Roger Kean that produced the definitive 8-bit gaming magazines CRASH (Spectrum) and ZZAP!64 (C64), setting standards for enthusiast gaming press.
Open World Design
Open world design creates large, explorable spaces where players choose their own paths, balancing freedom with direction and content density.
Password Systems
Password systems encoded game progress into alphanumeric strings, allowing players to resume without expensive battery-backed save RAM in their cartridges.
Psygnosis
Rising from Imagine's ashes, Psygnosis combined Roger Dean artwork with ambitious games, from Shadow of the Beast to WipEout.
Punch-Out!!
Punch-Out!! challenged players to read opponent patterns and counter with precision timing, turning boxing into a puzzle game starring the undersized Little Mac against memorable caricatured opponents.
Rail Shooters
Rail shooters move players through environments automatically while they focus on shooting targets, from light gun arcade games to spectacle-driven modern entries.
Rainbow Arts
German publisher Rainbow Arts brought technical excellence to European gaming, most notably with the *Turrican* series and Factor 5's ambitious productions.
Robot Odyssey
The Learning Company's notoriously complex 1984 puzzle game where players programmed robots to escape an underground city.
Sabre Wulf
Sabre Wulf combined smooth scrolling, vibrant graphics, and expansive exploration in a hostile jungle, establishing Ultimate's reputation for technical and design excellence.
Spy vs Spy
Spy vs Spy adapted the MAD Magazine comic strip into simultaneous split-screen gameplay where two spies set traps, searched for items, and raced to escape before each other.
Summer Games
Summer Games brought Olympic events to home computers with polished presentation, national anthems, and multiplayer competition that defined Epyx's sports game formula.
Tetris
Alexey Pajitnov's falling-block puzzle conquered the world, sold the Game Boy, and proved games could transcend language and culture.
Toaplan
Toaplan created influential arcade shooters including Zero Wing, Truxton, and Batsugun, establishing conventions that defined the bullet hell genre before their closure spawned legendary successor studios.
US Gold
US Gold brought American software to European markets, publishing arcade conversions and licensed games throughout the 8-bit and 16-bit eras.
Yuji Naka born
Sonic's programmer
Apple Macintosh launched
Apple's Macintosh introduces the graphical user interface to mass audiences, heralded by the iconic '1984' Super Bowl advertisement.
1985
49 eventsAction Replay
The hardware cartridge series that enabled game freezing, cheat creation, and memory manipulation across Commodore 64, Amiga, and consoles - controversial but widely used.
Agnus: The Amiga's Memory Master
Agnus coordinated all memory access on the Amiga, housing the Blitter for fast graphics and the Copper for beam-synchronised effects.
Amiga Art Style
The distinctive visual aesthetic of Amiga graphics—rich gradients, skilled dithering, chrome effects, and airbrushed realism that defined game art and digital illustration in the late 1980s.
Atari ST
The Atari ST married a 68000 CPU with built-in MIDI ports, making it a darling of musicians, demosceners, and bedroom developers.
Blitter: The Amiga's Graphics Accelerator
The Blitter moved, combined, and transformed graphics data faster than any CPU could—making the Amiga's smooth scrolling and complex visuals possible.
BOBs: Blitter Objects
BOBs used the Amiga's Blitter to draw sprites into the playfield—offering unlimited objects at the cost of CPU coordination and flicker-free rendering.
CD-ROM
CD-ROM transformed gaming through massive storage capacity, enabling full-motion video, voice acting, and expansive worlds impossible on floppy disks.
Cinemaware
Cinemaware pioneered cinematic gaming with Defender of the Crown and It Came from the Desert, combining Hollywood production values with varied gameplay in ambitious multimedia experiences.
Commando
Capcom's vertical run-and-gun became an arcade staple and spawned one of Rob Hubbard's most beloved C64 soundtracks.
Commodore Amiga
The Amiga family fused 68000 power with custom chips for graphics, sound, and multitasking, redefining creative computing in the late 80s.
Commodore Amiga Chipset
The Amiga's custom chipset—Agnus, Denise, and Paula—worked in concert to deliver graphics and sound capabilities that outclassed competitors for years.
Copper: The Amiga's Display Coprocessor
The Copper synchronised effects to the video beam with just WAIT and MOVE—enabling rainbow gradients, split screens, and per-scanline palette changes.
Couch Co-op
Couch co-op brought players together physically, sharing a sofa and screen for cooperative or competitive gaming that defined the social experience of the N64 and PlayStation eras.
Cover Tapes
The distribution method where UK gaming magazines included cassette tapes with full games, demos, and utilities, revolutionising game discovery and making magazines essential purchases.
Deluxe Paint
Electronic Arts' Deluxe Paint defined digital art on the Amiga, creating the pixel art that filled a generation's games.
Denise: The Amiga's Display Engine
Denise transformed raw bitplane data into stunning visuals with dual playfields, eight hardware sprites, and the famous Hold-And-Modify mode.
Dirty Rectangles
Dirty rectangle rendering optimised screen updates by tracking and redrawing only the areas that changed, saving CPU cycles when most of the display remained static.
Famiclones
The unlicensed Famicom/NES clones produced primarily in Asia and sold worldwide, often marketed as educational devices, introducing millions to gaming outside official channels.
Future Publishing
The UK publishing company that built an empire of gaming magazines including Amiga Format, Amiga Power, PC Gamer, and many others, becoming one of the largest gaming media companies in the world.
Gauntlet
Atari's four-player dungeon crawler ate quarters by design and spawned a genre of cooperative action games.
Ghosts 'n Goblins
Capcom's brutal 1985 platformer sent Arthur through graveyards and dungeons in his underwear, teaching patience through punishment.
Gradius
Konami's pioneering side-scroller introduced the power-up bar, the Moai heads, and gaming's most famous cheat code.
Hang-On
Hang-On pioneered the full-body arcade experience with its motorcycle cabinet, letting players lean into turns while racing through scenic courses at impossible speeds.
Hint Lines
The telephone services of the 1980s-1990s where stuck players called premium rate numbers for game hints, generating significant revenue for publishers until internet guides made them obsolete.
Ice Climber
Ice Climber sent Popo and Nana hammering upward through icy platforms, breaking blocks and avoiding enemies in vertical-scrolling cooperative platforming.
Import Gaming
Import gaming culture emerged as enthusiasts sought games unavailable in their regions, driving demand for modified consoles, specialist retailers, and fan translation communities.
Louis Castle born
Westwood's co-founder
Monty on the Run
The C64 platformer became legendary for Rob Hubbard's six-minute loading theme—a SID chip masterpiece.
NewTek
The American company that created the Video Toaster, transforming the Amiga into affordable broadcast equipment and launching LightWave 3D into the professional market.
Paperboy
Paperboy turned newspaper delivery into an obstacle course of dogs, cars, and lawn ornaments, with the unique goal of delivering papers while causing maximum property damage.
Paradroid
Andrew Braybrook’s 1985 masterpiece blended shooter action with territory control aboard a hijacked robot freighter.
Paula: The Amiga's Voice
Paula delivered four independent 8-bit audio channels with DMA playback—giving the Amiga the most capable sound system of its generation.
R.O.B.
Nintendo's robot accessory that helped the NES enter American stores by positioning the console as a toy rather than a video game system.
Rare
Rare evolved from Ultimate Play the Game on the ZX Spectrum to become Nintendo's most important Western partner, creating Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye.
Region Locking
Region locking prevented games from one territory playing on consoles from another, fragmenting the global market and creating demand for imports and modifications.
Repton
Superior Software's *Repton* series challenged BBC Micro owners with boulder-physics puzzles and spawned one of the platform's most beloved franchises.
Sega Master System
The Sega Master System was technically superior to the NES but couldn't overcome Nintendo's head start and third-party lock-in.
Space Harrier
Space Harrier pioneered the into-screen shooter with sprite scaling technology, sending players flying through surreal landscapes at unprecedented speed.
Spectrum Clones
The hundreds of ZX Spectrum variants produced across the Soviet bloc and beyond, from the Pentagon to the Didaktik, enabling computing education where official imports were impossible.
Strategy Guides
Strategy guides sold solutions and secrets in book form, from Prima and BradyGames publications to official Nintendo Player's Guides.
Super Mario Bros.
Bundled with the NES, Super Mario Bros. rescued the American games industry and established the vocabulary of platform game design.
The Amiga Custom Chipset
Three custom co-processors gave the Amiga capabilities that PCs wouldn't match for years: graphics, blitting, and four-channel stereo audio.
TwinBee
TwinBee pioneered the cute-em-up genre with its colourful aesthetic, bell-juggling power-up system, and two-player cooperative shooting featuring adorable bee-shaped ships.
Way of the Exploding Fist
Melbourne House's 1985 fighting game brought martial arts to home computers with smooth animation and precise controls.
Westwood Studios
Westwood Studios invented the real-time strategy genre with Dune II and Command & Conquer, defining gaming's 1990s before EA's acquisition led to the studio's closure.
Westwood Studios
Westwood Studios created the real-time strategy genre with Dune II and Command & Conquer, defining how millions would wage digital warfare before EA's acquisition.
Winter Games
Winter Games brought snow and ice sports to home computers with seven events including ski jumping, bobsled, and figure skating, continuing Epyx's successful Olympic formula.
Wrecking Crew
Wrecking Crew challenged Mario to demolish walls in the correct order, combining puzzle-solving with action as enemies interfered with the destruction.
Live Aid concerts
Simultaneous concerts in London and Philadelphia raise over £100 million for Ethiopian famine relief, watched by 1.9 billion people.
1986
46 eventsAdventure Island
Adventure Island sent Master Higgins running through tropical stages, constantly eating fruit to maintain stamina while skateboarding and throwing axes at enemies.
Alex Kidd
Alex Kidd served as Sega's mascot before Sonic, starring in platformers that combined action with rock-paper-scissors boss battles and vehicle sequences.
Amiga Animation Culture
The community of animators who created and shared cartoons, demos, and short films on the Amiga, distributing their work via BBSes, Aminet, and disk swapping years before online video existed.
Arkanoid
Taito's 1986 update to Breakout added power-ups, enemies, and boss battles, perfecting the paddle-and-ball formula.
Atlus
Atlus carved a niche with mature, challenging JRPGs through Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, building devoted audiences who appreciated darker themes and demanding gameplay.
Battery Backup
Battery backup used small batteries inside cartridges to maintain save RAM, enabling complex RPGs and adventure games to preserve player progress automatically.
Battery Save
Battery-backed SRAM allowed cartridge games to save progress permanently, enabling longer adventures and collection games that passwords couldn't support.
Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda Softworks created vast open-world RPGs with The Elder Scrolls and later acquired Fallout, building immersive sandbox worlds where player freedom trumps narrative linearity.
Bubble Bobble
Taito's 1986 arcade classic turned cooperative bubble-trapping into one of gaming's most joyful experiences.
Castlevania
Konami's vampire-slaying platformer combined deliberate combat, horror atmosphere, and memorable music into an NES classic.
Codemasters
From *Dizzy* to *Micro Machines*, Codemasters blended sibling creativity, aggressive marketing, and tight budgets.
Defender of the Crown
Cinemaware's 1986 strategy game demonstrated Amiga graphics that seemed impossible, even if gameplay didn't quite match.
Disk Magazines
Publications distributed entirely on floppy disk, combining text articles with interactive demos, music, and art - bridging traditional magazines and the demo scene.
Dragon Quest
Dragon Quest established Japanese RPG conventions that would dominate console gaming, creating a cultural phenomenon that still causes school absence spikes on release days.
Fantasy Zone
Fantasy Zone combined side-scrolling shooting with a shop system and pastel aesthetics, pioneering the 'cute-em-up' subgenre with its colourful, whimsical approach to the shooter formula.
Intelligent Systems
Intelligent Systems developed Fire Emblem's tactical RPG template, Advance Wars' turn-based combat, and Paper Mario's RPG adventures as a key Nintendo partner.
Jackal
Jackal sent players driving military jeeps through enemy territory, rescuing POWs and battling through vertically scrolling battlefields in intense cooperative action.
Jon Hare born
Sensible Software founder
Judge Dredd
2000 AD's future lawman appeared in numerous games, from early 8-bit action titles to arcade shooters, with varying degrees of quality and authenticity.
Kid Icarus
Kid Icarus blended vertical platforming with Greek mythology as the angel Pit escaped the Underworld, combining exploration, RPG elements, and punishing difficulty.
Konami Code
The iconic button sequence (Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A) created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto for Gradius that became the most recognisable cheat code in gaming history.
Life Force
Life Force (Salamander) alternated horizontal and vertical scrolling as players flew through a massive alien organism, featuring cooperative play and Gradius-style power-ups.
Metroid
Nintendo's atmospheric action-adventure introduced Samus Aran, non-linear exploration, and the template for an entire genre.
Metroidvania
Metroidvania describes games combining exploration with ability-gated progression, named after *Metroid* and *Castlevania: Symphony of the Night*.
Multiface
Romantic Robot's hardware device that could freeze ZX Spectrum games, search memory for cheats, and save snapshots - enabling both piracy and legitimate game enhancement.
Out Run
Sega's 1986 arcade racer combined stunning visuals, branching routes, and a Ferrari Testarossa into the definitive driving fantasy.
OutRun
OutRun defined the arcade racing experience with its branching routes, iconic Ferrari, and unforgettable soundtrack, creating the template for aspirational driving games.
Power Pad
Nintendo's floor mat controller for the NES that pioneered physical gaming years before Dance Dance Revolution.
Rampage
Rampage let players become giant monsters destroying cities, punching buildings, eating people, and battling the military in gleeful urban destruction.
Rolling Thunder
Rolling Thunder combined cover-based shooting with stylish spy aesthetics, tasking players with infiltrating enemy strongholds while managing limited ammunition.
Rygar
Rygar combined side-scrolling action with overhead exploration sections, sending a warrior with a yo-yo-like shield weapon through mythological landscapes.
Salamander
Salamander brought simultaneous two-player action to Gradius-style shooting, with direct power-ups replacing the selection bar and organic alien environments.
Sensible Software
Jon Hare and Chris Yates built Sensible Software into a creative powerhouse, from Wizball to Sensible Soccer to Cannon Fodder.
Space Quest
Space Quest followed hapless janitor Roger Wilco through comedic sci-fi adventures, parodying Star Trek, Star Wars, and science fiction tropes with Sierra's punishing puzzle design.
Square
Square developed the Final Fantasy series, revolutionising Japanese RPGs with cinematic presentation, emotional storytelling, and technical innovation that defined the genre.
Starglider
Argonaut's 1986 3D combat flight game that brought filled polygon graphics to home computers, establishing the studio's reputation for technical wizardry.
Super Robin Hood
The Oliver Twins’ *Super Robin Hood* packed platforming, traps, and treasure into a £1.99 cassette that made them household names.
The Designers Republic
The Designers Republic brought graphic design credibility to gaming through WipEout's visual identity, proving games could be culturally cool through aesthetic sophistication.
The Juggler
Eric Graham's 1986 ray-traced animation of a chrome robot juggling balls that stunned the computer world, proving home machines could produce photorealistic 3D imagery.
The Legend of Zelda
Miyamoto's action-adventure masterpiece gave players an open world, battery-backed saves, and a sense of discovery that defined a genre.
Thrust
Jeremy Smith's physics-based game brought Gravitar-style gameplay to home computers with brutal precision requirements.
Ubisoft
The Guillemot family built Ubisoft from a French software distributor into a global publisher behind *Assassin's Creed*, *Rayman*, and *Far Cry*.
Uridium
Andrew Braybrook’s *Uridium* pushed the Commodore 64 to deliver blistering horizontal shooters with cinematic flair.
Wonder Boy
Wonder Boy combined platforming with constant forward momentum, as the skateboard-riding hero raced through jungle stages collecting fruit to maintain vitality while rescuing his girlfriend.
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
The Space Shuttle Challenger breaks apart 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members and halting the US space programme.
Chernobyl nuclear disaster
An explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine becomes the worst nuclear accident in history, with global repercussions.
1987
56 events3D Realms
3D Realms created Duke Nukem and pioneered shareware distribution, building a gaming empire from the shareware model before the infamous Duke Nukem Forever development saga.
Acclaim Entertainment
Acclaim built a business on licensed games, from early NES sports titles to controversial marketing, experiencing both tremendous success and eventual bankruptcy.
Acorn Archimedes
The Acorn Archimedes was the most powerful home computer of its era, introducing the ARM processor that now powers most smartphones.
After Burner
Yu Suzuki's 1987 fighter jet spectacular put players in a rotating cockpit for the ultimate arcade power fantasy.
Apogee Software
The company that invented the modern shareware model, giving away the first episode free to sell the rest - launching Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, and publishing Wolfenstein 3D.
Bionic Commando
Bionic Commando replaced jumping with a grappling arm, forcing players to master swinging mechanics while fighting through enemy territory in this distinctive action platformer.
Bullfrog Productions
Bullfrog Productions created Populous, Theme Park, and Dungeon Keeper, pioneering god games and business simulations under Peter Molyneux's direction.
California Games
California Games captured 1980s West Coast culture with six sun-soaked events including surfing, skateboarding, and hacky sack, becoming Epyx's most successful sports compilation.
Contra
Konami's run-and-gun classic defined cooperative action and immortalised the Konami Code.
Coverdisks
The distribution method where Amiga and Atari ST magazines included floppy disks with demos, full games, and utilities, becoming essential for game discovery in the 16-bit era.
Cyan
Cyan created Myst and its sequels, pioneering contemplative puzzle design and CD-ROM gaming before continuing to explore mysterious worlds through decades of development.
Darius
Darius brought triple-screen spectacle to arcade shooting, featuring massive aquatic-themed bosses and branching stage paths across an enormous playfield.
Dave Jones born
Lemmings and GTA creator
Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure
Codemasters and the Oliver Twins built a puzzle-platform franchise around a lovable egg and some fiendish inventory riddles.
DMA Design
DMA Design emerged from Dundee, Scotland to create Lemmings' puzzle innovation and Grand Theft Auto's open-world crime gameplay, later becoming Rockstar North.
Double Dragon
Technos' 1987 arcade brawler codified the belt-scrolling beat-em-up, letting friends punch through gangs together.
Dungeon Master
FTL's 1987 RPG abandoned turn-based combat for real-time dungeon crawling, creating the template for action-RPGs.
Eutechnyx
Eutechnyx developed racing games across multiple platforms for decades, from early motorsport titles through licensed NASCAR games before studio troubles in the 2010s.
Factor 5
Factor 5 emerged from the German demo scene to create technically stunning games—from Turrican on C64 to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron on N64.
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy was meant to be Square's last game. Instead, it saved the company and launched one of gaming's most enduring franchises.
Guildford Games Cluster
Guildford became the UK's densest concentration of game development talent, spawning studios from Bullfrog to Media Molecule through decades of cross-pollination.
Head Over Heels
Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond's isometric masterpiece split control between two characters with complementary abilities.
International Karate+
System 3's fighting game sequel added a third simultaneous fighter, creating chaotic competitive brilliance.
Keiji Inafune born
Mega Man's co-creator
Leisure Suit Larry
Leisure Suit Larry followed a hapless lounge lizard's romantic misadventures, bringing adult humour to adventure games while hiding surprisingly clever puzzles behind age verification.
LucasArts Adventures
LucasArts adventure games combined wit, puzzles, and the promise that you couldn't die, creating beloved classics from *Maniac Mansion* to *Grim Fandango*.
Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion established the point-and-click adventure genre with its SCUMM engine, multiple playable characters, and irreverent humour that defined LucasArts.
Maxis
Maxis created the simulation game genre with SimCity, then expanded into diverse 'Sim' titles before The Sims became one of gaming's best-selling franchises.
Mega Man
Capcom's 1987 NES platformer introduced weapon-stealing mechanics and non-linear stage selection, launching one of gaming's longest franchises.
MOD Format
The MOD format stored music as patterns and samples in a single file, enabling the tracker music scene and portable compositions across platforms.
MOD Format Technical
The MOD file format stores sample data and pattern sequences in a self-contained file, enabling portable tracker music across platforms.
Natsume
Natsume developed and published games across genres, most notably creating the Harvest Moon farming simulation series that spawned the entire farming game genre.
Nebulus
John Phillips' 1987 tower-climbing game created the illusion of 3D rotation on 8-bit hardware through clever programming.
NetHack
NetHack expanded Rogue's foundation into one of gaming's deepest systems, where almost everything interacts with everything else across decades of community development.
PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16
NEC's PC Engine bridged 8-bit and 16-bit generations, dominated Japan briefly, and introduced the CD-ROM add-on that would reshape gaming.
Phantasy Star
Phantasy Star brought Japanese RPG excellence to the Master System with 3D dungeons, a female protagonist, and science-fantasy storytelling that rivalled anything on Nintendo's platform.
Pirates!
Sid Meier's Pirates! created open-world gaming in the 17th-century Caribbean, combining ship combat, fencing, trading, and exploration in a seamless sandbox adventure.
Point and Click
Point-and-click interfaces replaced text parsers with mouse interaction, making adventure games accessible while spawning debates about verb systems, smart cursors, and puzzle design.
R-Type
Irem's 1987 shooter combined beautiful sprite art with the innovative Force pod, creating the definitive side-scrolling shooter.
R.C. Pro-Am
R.C. Pro-Am delivered addictive isometric racing with weapons and upgrades, showcasing Rare's technical prowess on the NES with smooth scrolling and detailed graphics.
Rainbow Islands
Taito's 1987 sequel transformed Bub and Bob into human form, swapping bubbles for rainbows in vertical platforming perfection.
SCUMM
SCUMM powered LucasArts adventure games from Maniac Mansion through The Curse of Monkey Island, providing tools that let designers focus on puzzles and dialogue rather than low-level code.
Shinobi
Shinobi established Sega's ninja franchise with tight platforming, hostage rescue missions, and the devastating ninja magic attacks that cleared screens of enemies.
Size Coding
Size coding emerged from demo scene competitions with strict byte limits, pushing programmers to achieve impossible effects in 64KB, 4KB, or even 256 bytes.
Skate or Die
Skate or Die brought skateboard culture to home computers with five competitive events, attitude-filled presentation, and the rebellious spirit that defined 1980s skating.
Street Fighter
Capcom's 1987 arcade fighting game that introduced special move inputs and laid the groundwork for Street Fighter II's revolution - even if the original is largely forgotten.
Subor
The Chinese company famous for its Jackie Chan-endorsed 'learning computer' Famiclones, which introduced millions of Chinese users to gaming in the 1990s.
Tectoy
The Brazilian company that licensed and manufactured Sega hardware, making Brazil the world's largest Master System market and continuing production into the 2020s.
The Bitmap Brothers
The Bitmap Brothers combined striking metallic visual design with polished gameplay, creating Speedball 2, Xenon 2, and The Chaos Engine.
The Last Ninja
System 3's martial arts masterpiece combined isometric exploration, combat, and Ben Daglish's legendary SID soundtrack.
Tiertex
The UK development studio whose name became synonymous with poor-quality rushed arcade conversions throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, primarily working for US Gold.
Tracker Music
The music format and composition method that emerged from the Amiga scene, using sample-based synthesis and pattern sequencing that became the standard for game audio throughout the 1990s.
Wings of Fury
Wings of Fury delivered intense World War II carrier aviation with satisfying bombing runs, strafing attacks, and carrier landings across the Pacific theatre.
Wizball
Sensible Software's surreal shooter paired innovative gameplay with Martin Galway's dreamy SID soundtrack.
Zenobi Software
The influential UK software house that championed text adventures through the late 1980s and 1990s, publishing hundreds of independently-written games and keeping the genre alive.
Black Monday stock market crash
Stock markets around the world crash, with the Dow Jones falling 22.6% in a single day—the largest one-day percentage decline in history.
1988
27 eventsAltered Beast
Altered Beast launched with the Sega Genesis, featuring a resurrected centurion who transformed into powerful beasts by collecting spirit balls while fighting through ancient Greece.
Bad Dudes
Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja asked players if they were bad enough to rescue the President, delivering side-scrolling beat-em-up action with ninja enemies and memorable one-liners.
Blaster Master
Blaster Master combined side-scrolling tank gameplay with top-down on-foot sections, creating a unique exploration action game as Jason searched for his pet frog.
BlueSky Software
BlueSky Software created technically impressive games for Sega platforms, including Vectorman and its sequel, showcasing the Mega Drive's capabilities in its twilight years.
Chase H.Q.
Chase H.Q. combined OutRun-style racing with vehicular combat, tasking players with chasing down criminals and ramming their cars until they surrendered.
Core Design
Core Design created Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, defining 3D action-adventure before annual sequels and franchise fatigue led to the series leaving their hands.
Cybernoid
Raffaele Cecco's brutally difficult shooter showcased technical mastery and Jeroen Tel's pounding SID soundtrack.
Delphine Software
French studio Delphine Software created *Another World* and *Flashback*, games that elevated interactive storytelling through rotoscoped animation and cinematic presentation.
Delphine Software
Delphine Software created visually groundbreaking games like Another World and Flashback, pioneering cinematic storytelling in games.
Dundee Games Scene
Dundee evolved from bedroom coding to Europe's first game design degree, anchored by DMA Design's creation of Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto.
Eiji Aonuma born
Zelda's guardian
Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Ghouls 'n Ghosts refined the punishing action of Ghosts 'n Goblins with improved controls, new weapons, and the infamous requirement to complete the game twice for the true ending.
Madden NFL
EA's *Madden* franchise has dominated American football gaming for over three decades, becoming synonymous with the sport itself.
Mega Man 2
Mega Man 2 refined everything from its predecessor, delivering tight platforming, memorable boss battles, and one of gaming's greatest soundtracks.
MMC3
Nintendo's MMC3 mapper chip enabled larger, more sophisticated NES games through bank switching, scanline counting, and expanded capabilities.
Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden combined brutal difficulty with pioneering cutscenes, telling a revenge story through animated sequences that elevated NES storytelling.
Parodius
Parodius parodied Konami's own shooters with penguins, octopi, and Las Vegas showgirls, combining tight Gradius gameplay with surreal Japanese humour.
SCI Engine
Sierra's SCI engine succeeded AGI with higher resolution graphics, mouse support, and better audio, powering adventure games through the 1990s.
Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
The Mega Drive broke Nintendo's stranglehold, brought Sonic to life, and made 'Genesis does what Nintendon't' the most aggressive slogan in gaming.
Splatterhouse
Splatterhouse brought slasher film aesthetics to arcades, with a hockey-masked hero fighting through grotesque monsters in one of gaming's first explicitly horror-themed brawlers.
Split-Screen
Split-screen multiplayer divided a single display between multiple players, enabling local competitive and cooperative gaming at the cost of reduced visibility for each player.
Super C
Super C continued Contra's run-and-gun action with new weapons, overhead stages, and relentless alien battles, maintaining the series' reputation for demanding cooperative gameplay.
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. 3 expanded Mario's abilities with suits and power-ups, delivering eight diverse worlds and becoming the NES's defining platformer.
Tactical RPG
Tactical RPGs combine grid-based strategy combat with RPG character progression, from *Fire Emblem* to *Final Fantasy Tactics* to *XCOM*.
Ultimate Play the Game closes
Ultimate Play the Game (1982–1988)
Wasteland
Interplay's *Wasteland* created the post-apocalyptic RPG template that would later inspire *Fallout*, featuring party-based combat and a persistent, reactive world.
YM2612
Yamaha's YM2612 FM synthesis chip gave the Sega Mega Drive its distinctive sound, enabling complex timbres impossible on competing hardware.
1989
33 eventsApe Inc.
Ape Inc. developed the Mother/EarthBound series under Shigesato Itoi's direction before reorganising into Creatures Inc. and becoming part of the Pokémon empire.
Atari Lynx
The 1989 Atari handheld that was the first with a colour backlit display and hardware scaling, technically superior to Game Boy but defeated by battery life and price.
Batman (Ocean)
Ocean Software's 1989 *Batman* tied to Tim Burton's film and defied licensed game expectations with quality platforming and faithful adaptation.
Bonk's Adventure
Bonk's Adventure starred a bald caveman who attacked with his enormous head, serving as the TurboGrafx-16's mascot platformer in competition with Mario and Sonic.
DuckTales
DuckTales combined Disney charm with Capcom's platforming expertise, sending Scrooge McDuck pogo-jumping through non-linear stages in search of treasure.
Final Fight
Final Fight refined the beat-em-up formula with three playable characters, memorable enemies, and polished combat that established Capcom's dominance in the genre.
Firebird closes
Firebird (1984–1989)
Game Freak
Game Freak evolved from a fan magazine into the developer of Pokémon, creating one of the world's most valuable media franchises from Satoshi Tajiri's childhood bug-collecting memories.
God Games
God games place players in positions of supreme power over simulated worlds and populations, from *Populous* to *Black & White*.
Golden Axe
Golden Axe brought fantasy to the beat-em-up genre, combining hack-and-slash combat with rideable beasts and screen-clearing magic.
Hard Drivin'
Atari's *Hard Drivin'* brought filled polygon 3D graphics to the arcade, creating a driving simulation that felt startlingly real for 1989.
Infocom closes
Infocom (1979–1989)
Junichi Masuda born
Pokémon composer and director
Link Cable
The Game Boy Link Cable enabled multiplayer gaming and data transfer between handhelds, becoming essential for Pokémon trading and competitive play.
Masahiro Sakurai born
Kirby and Smash creator
Nintendo Game Boy
Gunpei Yokoi's Game Boy chose battery life over power, outlasting technically superior rivals to define handheld gaming.
Populous
Bullfrog's Populous invented the god game genre, letting players reshape terrain and guide followers to dominance in a battle of divine powers.
Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia pioneered fluid rotoscoped animation in games, creating a cinematic platformer where precise movement through deadly traps became an art form.
Racing Simulation
Racing simulations prioritise realistic physics and authentic motorsport experience over arcade accessibility, demanding precision and practice.
River City Ransom
River City Ransom combined side-scrolling brawling with RPG progression, letting players buy food, learn techniques, and build stats while punching through gang-controlled streets.
Rotoscoping
Rotoscoping traced real human movement frame by frame, creating fluid animation in games like Prince of Persia and Another World that felt remarkably lifelike.
Shadow of the Beast
Shadow of the Beast showcased the Amiga's graphical power with unprecedented parallax scrolling and atmospheric visuals, becoming a system-selling technical demonstration.
Shigesato Itoi born
Mother/EarthBound creator
SimCity
SimCity invented the city-building genre, letting players zone, build, and manage urban development while balancing budgets, traffic, and the occasional disaster.
SimCity
SimCity let players build and manage cities from scratch, pioneering the simulation genre with its open-ended gameplay and systems-driven urban development.
Strider
Strider delivered acrobatic ninja action across a dystopian world, with Hiryu's plasma sword slicing through enemies as he climbed walls, hung from ceilings, and flipped through the air.
Super Mario Land
Super Mario Land brought the plumber to Game Boy, adapting the formula for portable play with unique vehicles and Gunpei Yokoi's design sensibility.
Takaya Imamura born
Star Fox's visual architect
TMNT: The Arcade Game
Konami's 1989 four-player beat 'em up that became the gold standard for licensed games and arcade co-op, proving that treating licenses seriously produced excellence.
Toshihiro Nagoshi born
Yakuza's creator
Xenon 2: Megablast
Xenon 2: Megablast combined vertical shooting with upgrade shops and a licensed Bomb the Bass soundtrack, defining the Bitmap Brothers' style.
Tiananmen Square protests suppressed
Chinese military forces suppress pro-democracy protests in Beijing, with the iconic 'Tank Man' image broadcast worldwide.
Berlin Wall falls
East Germany opens the Berlin Wall, symbolically ending the Cold War division of Europe and beginning German reunification.