Most ahead of its time game

[Billy Beans]

Games ahead of their time. I would nominate:

 

Starflight (PC)

Pirates (Various systems)

Railroad Tycoon (PC)

Donkey Kong Country (SNES)

Treasures of Tarmin (Intellivision, previously mentioned)

B-17 Bomber (Intellivision)

Adventure (Atari 2600)

Airborne Ranger (C64)

Legend of Zelda (NES)

 

[electricmastro]

An attempt at an MMORPG from 1985:

 

 

"Habitat is a multi-participant online virtual environment, a cyberspace. Each participant ("player") uses a home computer (Commodore 64) as an intelligent, interactive client, communicating via modem and telephone over a commercial packet-switching network to a centralized, mainframe host system. The client software provides the user interface, generating a real-time animated display of what is going on and translating input from the player into messages to the host. The host maintains the system's world model enforcing the rules and keeping each player's client informed about the constantly changing state of the universe. (Farmer, 1993).
5) Users in the virtual world were represented by onscreen avatars. The players in the same region (denoted by all objects and elements shown on a particular screen) could see, speak (through onscreen text output from the users), and interact with one another Avatars, had to barter for resources within the Habitat, and could even be robbed or "killed" by other avatars. Initially, this led to chaos within the Habitat, which led to rules and regulations (and authority avatars) to maintain order." - https://ultimatehistoryvideogames.jimdofree.com/habitat

Edited November 3, 2021 by electricmastro

[BydoEmpire]

12 minutes ago, electricmastro said:

An attempt at an MMORPG from 1985:

 

"Habitat is a multi-participant online virtual environment, a cyberspace. Each participant ("player") uses a home computer (Commodore 64) as an intelligent, interactive client, communicating via modem and telephone over a commercial packet-switching network to a centralized, mainframe host system. The client software provides the user interface, generating a real-time animated display of what is going on and translating input from the player into messages to the host. The host maintains the system's world model enforcing the rules and keeping each player's client informed about the constantly changing state of the universe. (Farmer, 1993).
5) Users in the virtual world were represented by onscreen avatars. The players in the same region (denoted by all objects and elements shown on a particular screen) could see, speak (through onscreen text output from the users), and interact with one another Avatars, had to barter for resources within the Habitat, and could even be robbed or "killed" by other avatars. Initially, this led to chaos within the Habitat, which led to rules and regulations (and authority avatars) to maintain order." - https://ultimatehistoryvideogames.jimdofree.com/habitat

I was trying to remember the name of Habitat, thanks!  I never played it, but I do remember thinking it seemed pretty interesting at the time.

[IntelliMission]

I'm particularly impressed by the 1976 Interceptor arcade game. It's a great example of how good ideas and creativity are more important than specs. When you compare that game with the similar mini-game where you shoot other planes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, the graphic adventure), it makes you want to cry (I still wonder how they choose to add that terrible section to that amazing game with all the options available, including removing that action sequence altogether).

[turboxray]

5 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

I'm particularly impressed by the 1976 Interceptor arcade game. It's a great example of how good ideas and creativity are more important than specs. When you compare that game with the similar mini-game where you shoot other planes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, the graphic adventure), it makes you want to cry (I still wonder how they choose to add that terrible section to that amazing game with all the options available, including removing that action sequence altogether).

On a side note: The original 1989 EGA version of The Last Crusade... almost all videos of it on youtube are from dosbox with EGA emulation. Except the fixed 16 palette isn't real EGA version. The fixed 16 colors have been tweaked to make them less harsh on the eyes. Tones like the garish saturated-orange they use for skin tones, have been desaturated, etc. It's definitely disingenuous when most people aren't even aware of it. 

[IntelliMission]

That's very interesting. It's one of my top 3 games of all time. I wish I could see a comparison with screenshots (real MS-DOS PC Vs. DOSBox).

[electricmastro]

Speech recognition game from 1984:

 

 

[electricmastro]

Music game from 1983. Definitely sounds futuristic:

 

 

[electricmastro]

Art game from 1982:

 

 

 

 

https://ultimatehistoryvideogames.jimdofree.com/alien-garden

[bluejay]

Not sure if it’s been mentioned before but Dungeons of Daggorath was pretty damn impressive for 1982. I wasn’t alive back then to experience it when it was new, but it sure impressed 12 year old me when I played it for the first time. Not many other games in history have reached its level of balance between fun and terrifying.

[Steven Pendleton]

I think I should also go ahead and mention Hydlide.

[+jgkspsx]

3 hours ago, electricmastro said:

Art game from 1982:
 

https://ultimatehistoryvideogames.jimdofree.com/alien-garden

Wow, shades of Undertale.

[Reaperman]

Lots of good ones mentioned.

 

I'll add:

Star Raiders,

Little Computer People,

Koronis Rift, (probably for the same reasons rescue on fractalus was mentioned, I can't remember which was first)

Super Mario Brothers 1,

Dune II,

 

Some of them are more 'wow, games can do that!?' and others are 'wow, they really tried that back then??' but all of them have that something that was much expanded upon later.

[electricmastro]

7 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Wow, shades of Undertale.

Yep, you against the world by farming for crystals. haha

[electricmastro]

4 hours ago, Reaperman said:

Dune II

Real-time strategy had definitely come a long way since the 70s:

 

 

[Asaki]

Jurassic Park: Trespasser (1998). An unfinished game that was rushed to release alongside The Lost World film, it was too ahead of its time for its own good.

It did a lot of things that were never seen again, or not until recently.

 

You had to actually move your hand(s) around to aim your gun, you can even aim it at yourself. It's clunky, but it's alright once you get used to it. You also use the hand(s) to open doors and cupboards, pick up and throw items, swing melee weapons, etc. It would be quite some time before VR brought this feature back.

Advanced physics (before Havoc), you had to pick up and stack things like crates to reach higher ground.

Super advanced AI (although some of it is disabled in the released game). It's the only game I've played where it feels like the enemies are actually intelligently hunting you. Scary as heck sometimes, especially the raptors. In the disabled code, dinos were supposed to actually keep track of things like thirst and hunger levels, and go looking for food.

Software mode featured bump mapping and specular highlighting for dino skins.

On more modern hardware, you can increase the draw distance to huge levels, decreasing the amount of "billboard" scenery. IIRC, the island is all based on real life satellite data, converted to height maps.

Dynamic foley system. If you throw a paint can at a patch of grass, it sounds like a paint can hitting the grass. If you throw it at a brick wall, it sounds like a can hitting a brick wall. I don't think I've ever seen that in another game.

All of the animation is done through inverse kinematics. Some of the dinosaurs kind of look like marionettes when they walk downhill, but it's still really cool. Again, I don't know any other games that did this.

 

On 11/3/2021 at 7:04 PM, electricmastro said:

An attempt at an MMORPG from 1985:

Well, MUD first came out in 1978

[Goochman]

1 hour ago, Asaki said:

Jurassic Park: Trespasser (1998). An unfinished game that was rushed to release alongside The Lost World film, it was too ahead of its time for its own good.

It did a lot of things that were never seen again, or not until recently.

 

You had to actually move your hand(s) around to aim your gun, you can even aim it at yourself. It's clunky, but it's alright once you get used to it. You also use the hand(s) to open doors and cupboards, pick up and throw items, swing melee weapons, etc. It would be quite some time before VR brought this feature back.

Advanced physics (before Havoc), you had to pick up and stack things like crates to reach higher ground.

Super advanced AI (although some of it is disabled in the released game). It's the only game I've played where it feels like the enemies are actually intelligently hunting you. Scary as heck sometimes, especially the raptors. In the disabled code, dinos were supposed to actually keep track of things like thirst and hunger levels, and go looking for food.

Software mode featured bump mapping and specular highlighting for dino skins.

On more modern hardware, you can increase the draw distance to huge levels, decreasing the amount of "billboard" scenery. IIRC, the island is all based on real life satellite data, converted to height maps.

Dynamic foley system. If you throw a paint can at a patch of grass, it sounds like a paint can hitting the grass. If you throw it at a brick wall, it sounds like a can hitting a brick wall. I don't think I've ever seen that in another game.

All of the animation is done through inverse kinematics. Some of the dinosaurs kind of look like marionettes when they walk downhill, but it's still really cool. Again, I don't know any other games that did this.

 

Well, MUD first came out in 1978

  I like the JPT game alot when it came out - only problem I had were enemies were in "sectors" - if you were able to outrun a T-Rex it would freeze right in front of you until you crossed an invisible line and it was activated again.  Other than that it was a fantastic game.

[+jgkspsx]

The unreleased game that invented touchscreen edutainment software that would take over the DS many years later

 

 

 

[electricmastro]

3D graphical racer from 1981:

 

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by electricmastro

[roots.genoa]

Nintendo made a few "full motion video" (technically it's celluloid film) games in the 70s.

[mr_me]

51 minutes ago, electricmastro said:

3D graphical racer from 1981:

Turbo predates Pole Position but I was far more impressed with Pole Position.  The most impressive 3D for me at the time were Red Baron and Battlezone from 1980.

[electricmastro]

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

Turbo predates Pole Position but I was far more impressed with Pole Position.  The most impressive 3D for me at the time were Red Baron and Battlezone from 1980.

As well as Hang-On from 1985, which was 16-bit:

 

 

[+jgkspsx]

13 hours ago, electricmastro said:

3D graphical racer from 1981:

I’ve never played Turbo (I think) but does it really play that bad? Controls seem awful and collision detection nonexistent.

[PressureCooker2600]

Doom

 

Dune II

 

Super Mario Bros.

 

Raiders of the Lost Ark

 

Adventure

[+neogeo1982]

On 11/3/2021 at 12:00 PM, Billy Beans said:

Starflight (PC)

My nomination too. Yeah 21 years before Mass Effect!