Atari 2600 games with no point system

[Schmudde]

Hey all, I'm thinking about Atari 2600 games with no point system. I'm curious to look at a list like that, because I'd like to see what other objectives the designers wrote into these games considering the console's limitations.

 

Off of the top of my head I have Adventure and Raiders of the Lost Arc but I'm sure there is many more.

 

Cheers,
Schmüdde

[Goochman]

Raiders does have a point system - the Pedestal height is a 'score'. Though no digits it is an alternative point system.

[roadrunner]

Star Strike

[Bakasama]

Superman, the whole point of the game is to capture Lex Luthor and his gang, find and put the bridge pieces together, and change into Clark and go to Daily Planet in the least amount of time.

[+xucaen]

in Star Raiders, you earn a rank.

[Shawn]

Those goals can all be related to in said games as a "point" system. They just don't use a numeric value to assign the points is all.

[+atari2600land]

Secret Quest?

[retrorussell]

Haunted House?

[high voltage]

Adventure

[retrorussell]

Adventure

Mentioned by the threadmaster.

[WolfAmongWolves]

If you count measurements like time and rank as points, then the list will probably be relatively short. Space Shuttle, maybe? It's been a while (like 30 years) since I last played it, but I don't remember any points or ranks being assigned there.

[Nukey Shay]

Space Shuttle does give you an onscreen rank. But any game can have an achievement measurement assigned whether or not onscreen counters exist. Counting how many seconds it takes you to finish Adventure, for example. Or how many times you swap objects to do so. And if the difficulty switches are used. Fill in your own criteria, it's possible for pretty much any game.

[BioForceApe]

Video Life?

[high voltage]

Mentioned by the threadmaster.

didn't even see that, doh.

Pitfall?

[Mister-VCS]

Ghostbusters II

[Schmudde]

It kind of makes Adventure even that much more anachronic in the development of video games considering how difficult it is to find contemporaries that don't have any sort of point system.

 

I would agree with others on the thread - rank and speed (time left over) are definitely point systems. The amount of time it takes to complete a race is what makes car driving a sport.

 

And while you could time your time-to-completion of Adventure, it's not part of the game mechanic designated by the author, so I don't think that counts. One of the unsung advances of the Atari 2600 over the Odyssey is on-screen score keeping, for example. It enforces that mechanic as part of the gameplay.

 

Back to Adventure - considering the game's precedence is a text adventure, I see how it came into existence without a score. But in the 2600's library, it's quite an anomaly.

 

Thanks for all these ideas though - keep them coming!

 

Cheers,
Schmüdde

[Crimefighter]

Video Chess. You either win or lose. No points, time or ranking.

[Crimefighter]

3D Tic Tac Toe - win or lose, no points, time or rank.

[Schmudde]

Ghostbusters II

This is an interesting title. I've never played it. 1992, eh?

 

Looks like a mess, but there doesn't seem to be a rank or a high score; the objective seems to be to beat the game on (I'm guessing) successively more difficult manifestations (with no on-screen indicator).

 

Schmüdde

[godzillajoe]

Video Life?

 

It counts how many generations have evolved.

[SoulBlazer]

Pole Position doesn't have points, per say, just winning and losing.

[retrorussell]

Sneak 'N Peek

ET

[WolfAmongWolves]

 

ET

I thought about ET as well, but it has a point system. At the end there's the screen with Elliot pacing and you're awarded points based on the number of M&Ms collected, etc.

[Nukey Shay]

RE: Chess & Checkers...Better players of the game are determined by fewest moves to win. This would transfer to the video game versions. And any game could use total playing time as a factor whether or not an onscreen counter is present (i.e. speedruns).

[davyK]

Not really a game - but Video Grafitti mode in Surround.

 

Like Chess and Checkers, there's also Backgammon - though the margin of a victory can be scored in that game.

 

The Nim games in Codebreaker are a win/lose type of game.

 

Maze Craze doesn't keep score.