1973 Introductions
Entry posted by Guest
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Breaking format before I start talking about each of the 1973 games.
There's a really excellent thread over at the Digital Press forums and I highly recommend it to anyone who is remotely interested in the original Odyssey.
Go to it here.
The discussion was started by a man named Don Emry and, according to him, he was the designer for three of the 1973 Odyssey games. (not that I don't believe him, I just thought I should be specific about my source.) Here are some of what I consider the more interesting quotes.
One only has to spend two minutes trying to play roulette to realize how little it was play tested.The original overlay games with all the bits and peices were essentially developed by an outside game consultant. Bob Fritsche told me that he and his family did most of the testing on those games. I did some of the user instructions on the original games and those instructions were written after the complete game designs were completed. I recall going over to a tennis center to find out how a game of tennis was scored. I don't think there was a great deal of play testing on the low action games like roulette. It was always my impression that "filling up the box" was more important to the marketing guys than the playability of the games.
In context of the times, consider that the simple fact that you could do anything on a TV, besdies watching, it was an amazement for most everyone. The initial "wow" factor carried the project.
It's great to hear someone from back in the day talk about the "wow" factor.
I just love that quote. (not days and certainly not weeks.).So I sat in my office and played with the bare game to understand how the screen actions worked and then drew up simple overlays to try various concepts. I would then grab anyone who could spare a few minutes to play the concept with me on the two player games. However, I could seldom get anyone to play with very long because by that time I was really proficient in using the controls. Baketball was an exception. I had a friend that was really excited about Odyssey and he and I spent a lot of time on that game, hours (not days and not certainly not weeks).
Taking the implications of that comment, one could infer that even if you were the most fanatical videogamer on the planet in 1973, you could play out your favorite game in a couple of hours and be left with nothing to play until 1975. (unless you were willing to sink a lot of quarters in the arcades.)
I dig the whole "game design theory" thing going on in that quote.The game box electronics was designed to have certain screen attributes and reactions to the control movements. Each of the 12 cards selected a set of these attributes.
Now the real esotric concept is that no game existed until a human defined the manipulations according to set of rules. Therefore, you can take the same set of attributes and define different games. The game rules were enhanced (or limited) by the overlays. Then you add the extra bits and pieces, primarily as scoring deviices or used the game attributes as "psuedo set of dice" to manipulate the external bits and pieces.
For example, I created basketball and Interplanetry voyage by redefining to the players what the contollable screen attributes represented. Then reinforced that definition with the overlays. Brain wave used the "psuedo dice" concept, a battle session that was another game when played with another overlay, to determine the movement/placement of pieces on an external game board.
If you carefully examine any video game, you will see the same phenomon. A set of controlable attributes defined by context to create the "game". You can really extend this insight to almost any board game. Look at the motion/attributes that determine the flow of play.
Now, the really good question is what makes a particular set of attributes and visual support into a poor, good, great or superb game?
The four 1973 games are W.I.N., Brain Wave, Basketball and Interplanetary Voyage. They are rare and I paid way too much for them. That being said, three of them were the most fun we had on the Odyssey.
I'll talk about W.I.N. next entry.
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