Cobra Kai Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 What do you think it is? Defender is the earliest I can think of, but at 1981, it seems like there would be other games before that with a screen-clearing weapon of some sort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 Defender is the first one that I remember as well. But If I've learned one thing from Mame, there's a ton of arcade games out there that I've never seen, so there may be something obscure that beat it :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 Defender introduced me to the term Smart Bomb. Or maybe Tempest. Here's a link I found: https://www.giantbomb.com/smart-bomb/3015-144/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy ST Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 There were games launched the same year that did it (assuming you mean weapon and not like, killing a special enemy that clear the screen) the problem is, we don't have "months" of release for some of these games just the "year" and without painful research it's hard to determine which came out first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said: There were games launched the same year that did it (assuming you mean weapon and not like, killing a special enemy that clear the screen) the problem is, we don't have "months" of release for some of these games just the "year" and without painful research it's hard to determine which came out first. If you can name these games that information can be more or less found out (with a month or two of uncertainty) from Play Meter/Replay and other coin-op trade magazines. As it stands I can't think of much besides Defender that year that the player would have direct control over its usage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 Centipede? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Kai Posted October 5, 2020 Author Share Posted October 5, 2020 Definitely not Centipede. That doesn't even have the DDT found in Millipede. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 4 hours ago, atari2600land said: Centipede? No... It was Millipede that had the DDT bombs... but even that wasn't screen clearing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 Ah, OK. Wrong one then. It wasn't a "bomb", though, but you could clear the entire screen in that Channel F game where you can draw a picture. I assume you can also clear the screen in Video Graffiti as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Kai Posted October 5, 2020 Author Share Posted October 5, 2020 8 hours ago, Cafeman said: Defender introduced me to the term Smart Bomb. Or maybe Tempest. Here's a link I found: https://www.giantbomb.com/smart-bomb/3015-144/ That link also says Defender lays claim to the first smart bomb. Maybe that's what it is then. I had the year wrong, 1980. (I said 1981) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiddlepaddle Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 Missile Command (1980) has smart bombs, but they don't clear the screen, except sometimes they DO, when you are down to your last city and a smart bomb kills it. Also, Missile Command may also technically qualify because at the end, when you lose, the world always blows up (and clears the screen). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColecoKing Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 Midway shooter from 78 or 79 had it where you rack up score you can save screen clear to use but don't remember the name, some Space game Midway had a lot of those. Was not very big. Defender is the first popular game to do it though as it was big deal. Midway didn't become big deal until they publish that first person Space game and Pac man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 15 hours ago, fiddlepaddle said: Missile Command (1980) has smart bombs, but they don't clear the screen, except sometimes they DO, when you are down to your last city and a smart bomb kills it. Also, Missile Command may also technically qualify because at the end, when you lose, the world always blows up (and clears the screen). Missile Command smart bombs don't do any more damage than regular missiles. Smart bombs are enemy weapons anyway. 1 hour ago, ColecoKing said: Midway shooter from 78 or 79 had it where you rack up score you can save screen clear to use but don't remember the name, some Space game Midway had a lot of those. Was not very big. Defender is the first popular game to do it though as it was big deal. Midway didn't become big deal until they publish that first person Space game and Pac man. Midway didn't have that many space shooters. It shouldn't be hard to find on klov. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColecoKing Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 klov? Also it's not just Midway I forget that Midway was a subsidiary it couldn't been anyone in Williams all I remember is it was a space shooter and you could save screen wipe ability after criteria but you had to earn it and you only got one at a time. Now I think about it I don't even think you could hold more than one. Definitely star wars like graphics for sprite which was very very common. Honestly, maybe too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 Midway was owned by Bally and then bought by Williams in 1988. Williams barely had any video games before defender. What does star wars like graphics mean. Star wars is a vector graphics game. Klov: Http://www.arcade-museum.com Mameui64 is also good for finding an arcade game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColecoKing Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 What? Many space games had Star Wars graphics tai fighter and others sprites. Also many Star Wars games not jut vector. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torr Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 24 minutes ago, ColecoKing said: Many space games had Star Wars graphics tai fighter and others sprites. This Tai fighter you speak of... Was it a southeast Asian who fought... or someone who fought southeast Asians? Chirrut Imwe might be considered a Tai Fighter I guess! ?? I'll get my coat... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 (edited) I know the Midway game you’re talking about. Space Encounters I think? Anyway it’s not a smart bomb in terms of something you can deploy whenever, it’s a screen clearing object that periodically comes across the screen that activates when you shoot it. Edited October 7, 2020 by ubersaurus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColecoKing Posted October 8, 2020 Share Posted October 8, 2020 No, the game I am thinking of you use the weapon you actually hold it when you earn it or obtain it with limited use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted October 8, 2020 Share Posted October 8, 2020 The first game to offer a screen-clearing bomb should have been Space Invaders. Take that, you last alien going so fast I can never hit you before you get to the bottom of the screen! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted October 8, 2020 Share Posted October 8, 2020 On 10/6/2020 at 3:46 PM, Torr said: This Tai fighter you speak of... Was it a southeast Asian who fought... or someone who fought southeast Asians? Chirrut Imwe might be considered a Tai Fighter I guess! ?? I'll get my coat... Thai Fighter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted October 8, 2020 Share Posted October 8, 2020 Funny that what I thought about first from the thread title was an explosion that removes all graphics on the screen. Like an end of life or game over explosion. There is a very disruptive explosion when you die in Defender that I thought was pretty awesome at the time. While it doesn't clear the screen, it does "destroy" the graphics around it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColecoKing Posted October 8, 2020 Share Posted October 8, 2020 (edited) At first I though you were talking about Galaga and got confused, then I remembered that the alien in space invaders did move fast later. I never spend that much time with Space invaders to many better games at the same time or later. Asteroids was the big one. That's a game that could have benefited from screen nuke lol. Edited October 8, 2020 by ColecoKing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
negative1 Posted October 9, 2020 Share Posted October 9, 2020 (edited) On 10/4/2020 at 7:06 PM, Cobra Kai said: What do you think it is? Defender is the earliest I can think of, but at 1981, it seems like there would be other games before that with a screen-clearing weapon of some sort. Defender is close, but no its not. So I think that Tempest wins by default. The problem with defender, is a well known bug that doesn't kill everything when pods are on the screen. most times swarmers are left over. This is from one the masters of Defender that i asked about it: (John Mccallister, and also Eze, eric lidell) "Talking about the glitches. Williams had a slow processor and when too many objects appear on the screen it prioritizes which ones should stay and relocates the rest to another part of the planet. So when you smartbomb the pods a lot of stuff happens and sometimes they will all be killed and other times it will relocate them. " So although they tried to implement it, it didn't work. later -1 Edited October 9, 2020 by negative1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tripletopper Posted October 16, 2020 Share Posted October 16, 2020 On 10/8/2020 at 5:39 PM, ColecoKing said: At first I though you were talking about Galaga and got confused, then I remembered that the alien in space invaders did move fast later. I never spend that much time with Space invaders to many better games at the same time or later. Asteroids was the big one. That's a game that could have benefited from screen nuke lol. What year was Tutankhamun released? The arcade version had a left-right fire lever and a "genie bomb". This is one of those games that be the exception to index-to-index mirroring on most ambidextrous layouts. That's why I try to compensate for that on my joystick known as sinistersticks.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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