Indrema's Messages

Sorry that is hard to read and has a few gramatical errors--apparently you can't edit guest book entries.

Damn you edge! *shakes fist*

Good discussion the other day; even if it did digress too far away from the article. You definitely made some good points, and I'll be following your comments and blog entries in the future.

Anyway, I went back and saw your last comment today, and it inspired me to look up some of the early history of the genres you mentioned. Something I'm glad I did because there were some really interesting projects in each one, and I was ashamed to realize how little I knew about the roots of some of my favorite Genres. I was also surprised that not all of the people you mentioned were credited as pure inventors, but usually as those who polished the genre into its modern form. Likewise, even Miyamoto's invention of the Platformer is somewhat in doubt, although Donkey Kong "was the first game that allowed players to jump over obstacles and across gaps, making it the first true platformer."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platformer#History

Anyway, if you're interested here's a bit of what i found out from the genres you mentioned as well (it is admittedly mostly from wikipedia):

God Games: The first is generally considered to be Utopia by Don Daglow, built for intellivision. It came out in 1982, and actually looks fairly deep and interesting, for an intellivision game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(video_game)
Molynieux did of course have the first God Game for a computer--Populous--released in 1989.

Stealth Game: Its unclear what is exactly the first, but somewhat ironically, one of the earliest stealth games is actually Castle Wolfenstein from 1981 (6 years before Metal Gear). Commercially Castle Wolfenstein is unrelated to Wolfenstein 3-d (the studio that published it--Muse Software--closed down, thus id was able to use the name), but it is credited to inspiring that game, which would obviously go on as its own genre setter years later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wolfenstein

Which brings us to...

FPS: The earliest example that most people note is Maze War, released in 1974. Of course it is also accepted that the "genre coalesced with 1992's Wolfenstein 3D, which is generally credited with creating the genre proper and the basic archetype upon which subsequent titles were based."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_person_shooter

So really I probably would credit Carmack and Romero for invention in that case, seeing as I likewise credited Miyamoto, despite 2 debatable predecessors.

Anyway, it's all interesting stuff. And who knows, it could even come in handy at cocktail parties--if you go to cocktail parties with nerds.

Now, in saying that, it could be just me.

Then again, I just don't know. Maybe we're both right.

Ugh.

Coffee time.

Help me out here. Dreamhunk is now giving me a headache. When he said that there is no need of publishers for developers and that console games don't make several million I landed a comment on him like a Sumo Wrestler, but I don't think he'll get it.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/tomb-raider-developer-cuts-25-staff#comm...

I just....I....I just......it's like I'm talking to a PC fanboy then someone who is rational.....I just....I'm off to get coffee.