PLATFORMS

Your task in this arcade game is to guide a frog across a treacherous road and river, and to safety at the top of the screen. Both these sections are fraught with a variety of hazards, each of which will kill the frog and cost you a life if contact is made. The road is … Continue reading “Frogger”

Baldor’s Castle is an early roleplaying game for the VIC-20. The player explores the halls of Baldor’s Castle from a top-down perspective, while collecting gold and defeating monsters. The character can fight with their sword or use arrows against a variety f monsters, and a map is available to help guide the player. The player has … Continue reading “Baldor’s Castle”

Cells & Serpents is a roleplaying game for multiple systems. The player explores a series of unending randomized dungeon rooms fighting monsters and looking for treasure. At any time the player can choose to move left, right, or forwards. These can take the player to stairs up, stairs down, a blank wall, corridors, rooms, or doors. … Continue reading “Cells & Serpents”

Q*bert is a popular arcade game. The goal is to change all of the tiles on a pyramid to the target color. To do this you guide Q*bert around the pyramid, and every tile he hops on will change color. On early levels, a single hop will change the tile to the desired color, but on … Continue reading “Q*bert”

One of the most popular and influential games of the 1980’s, Pac-Man stars a little, yellow dot-muncher who works his way around to clear a maze of the various dots and fruit which inhabit the board. Pac-Man’s goal is continually challenged by four ghosts: The shy blue ghost Bashful (“Inky”), the trailing red ghost Shadow (“Blinky”), the … Continue reading “Pac-Man”

In 1981, a sequel to Pac-Man was introduced in the form of his girlfriend, Ms. Pac-Man. This sequel continued on the “eat the dots/avoid the ghosts” gameplay of the original game, but added new features to keep the title fresh. Like her boyfriend, Ms. Pac-Man attempts to clear four various and challenging mazes filled with … Continue reading “Ms. Pac-Man”

The Bungeling Empire has stolen a huge cache of gold from its rightful owners, and your mission is to infiltrate its treasury and recapture it. This entails progressing through 150 screens of platforms, ladders and ropes. The Empire has sent robotic guards down to protect the gold, and contact with any of these will cost … Continue reading “Lode Runner”

You have been imprisoned by the Garrintrots in the mountain stronghold of Mount Drash. There are 15 levels of tunnels within the mountain, and you must find the exit in each one to escape. Some levels have gems which must be collected before you are allowed to leave. Along the way you will encounter a … Continue reading “Ultima: Escape From Mt. Drash”

There are few games more important to Nintendo’s history than Donkey Kong. Had it not been for the struggling toy company’s decision to let Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi convert its failing Radar Scope arcade machines into something more appealing, Nintendo may very well have bowed out of the video game market and we’d never … Continue reading “Donkey Kong”

Wizard’s Tower is a roleplaying game for the TRS-80 CoCo. The wizard King Zastor ruled your kingdom for over 100 years, through the powers of the three magical talismans: the Scepter of Speed, the Ring of Strength, and the Crown of Wisdom. As he lay dying, he magically hid the three talismans in the dungeon under … Continue reading “The Wizard’s Tower”