
The First First-Person Shooter - Impossible
http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/5/21/8627231/the-first-first-person-shooter
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mark-r
This is one of those ideas that is totally obvious once the enabling
technologies are in place.

I played a Star Trek themed game on a time-share system around 1975 or so.
Unfortunately I can't pin it down exactly, and I don't know who wrote it. You
were shown a map using an ASCII character grid, and there was a sensor display
that would give you coordinates to objects of interest in your vicinity. You
could shoot either phasers or photon torpedoes at any other player, and the
damage they did was inversely proportional to the distance between you and the
strength of their shields.

The winning strategy was to aim directly at someone, then accelerate and turn
yourself 180 degrees, putting all power to the rear shields. Then get out your
watch, and time to the second when you would pass them, and fire all you had
at their back side once you passed them.

No graphical displays, this was done on a Teletype at 10 characters per
second!

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eropple
That's $SPACE or a descendant (maybe TREK73).

~~~
mark-r
Neither of those names is familiar. This was on a Control Data machine if that
helps.

~~~
rhizome
If it was like a square map like this, it was trek :) It's the one I played in
the olden days.

[https://ttygames.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/trek73.png](https://ttygames.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/trek73.png)

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dopeboy
Maybe I'm jaded but it's pretty refreshing to read about pure passion at work.
Three guys put together in the same room hacking (in the _real_ sense of the
word - going off message and pushing their machines) to produce a fun game
that they could share with their friends. No expectations of business value or
multimillion dollar exits - just pure fun.

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dabeeeenster
On this topic, I am always blown away by 3D monster maze for the ZX81 (16kb,
Z80)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Monster_Maze](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Monster_Maze)

~~~
blackhaz
And this what blew me away - I, Of The Mask (1985)

[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002433](http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002433)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kueN2DMN0J4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kueN2DMN0J4)

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JimmyM
I'm sorry, I don't enjoy using AdBlock, but I was forced to to even read this
article. I've not seen ads like the Flash ad at the bottom of the screen
before on Polygon, if it's an experiment it's been unsuccessful imo.

Combined with the gutters, it reduces the percentage of the screen that's
actually content to something like ~25% and is not removable. I want to
support authors and creators using whatever method they think is best, but if
your content is rendered illegible I'm afraid I will avoid that.

My personal standards can only stretch so far before I'll just take what I
want, and I imagine many consumers are similar. Please reconsider your ad
format.

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djloche
Which device / screen were you using to read this article?

On a 13" laptop with my browser window taking up 85-90% of my screen, the
formatting seemed appropriate. The width of the text column is probably close
to the edges of comfortable reading.

~~~
JimmyM
Macbook Air, I've revisited the page since making that comment and tried
turning AdBlock back off.

It seems to be a problem with just a couple of adverts I was unfortunate to
come across - they took up the bulk of the screen from the bottom, were fixed
position, and they didn't have 'close' options. One was a public health
campaign, don't remember the other one. Most of the adverts don't have this
problem because no matter how large they are, they have some kind of close
button.

I won't uninstall AdBlock, because I could quite easily imagine coming across
the same sort of ad in future, but I'm keeping it paused at least for now.

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tlarkworthy
Its crazy how quickly computers preferred use was gaming. We are clearly
hardwired for gaming.

~~~
bobajeff
Fun fact: Steve Jobs worked at Atari and Steve Wozniak worked on Breakout.
Also, the ATARI 2600 was made available the same year as the Apple II,
Commodore PET and TRS-80.

~~~
rasz_pl
Fact with more fun in it: Jobs pretended to work, actually he subcontracted
all of it to Wozniak for a fraction of the profits.

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masswerk
We may also consider in this context Spacewar! 4.4 (1963)
[http://www.masswerk.at/spacewar/4.4/](http://www.masswerk.at/spacewar/4.4/) –
not using perspectives, but still first person (as would be seen on a PPI
radar screen onboard of the respecitive spaceship).

~~~
jccalhoun
That is an interesting way of looking at it. The terminology of things like
"first person" and "third person" can be tricky in gaming. I wouldn't count
Spacewar! as first person but if someone were to remake on a modern device so
that the screen showed the Spacewar! playing field framed by a depiction of a
spaceship cockpit then it might be? A first person representation of a
representation of the battle?

~~~
masswerk
I know, and I'm aware that this is somewhat controversial. I'm currently
preparing a detailed write up including some theory. I would maintain that
it's a subjective view of a planar universe that shares most, if not all
properties and implications of a first-person position. To me, the problem in
terms of terminology is that we've either to create a new class for this with
just a single member, like "Ptolemaic multiplayer shooter", or we try to find
the best fitting class that's already in use, even, if we might have to
restrict the term somewhat.

(This is even more of a problem, as it predates anything alike by 10 years and
it's therefor not part of a tradition.)

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doctorstupid
Naturally, upon meeting someone in a maze the first feature one would want is
the ability to shoot them.

Perhaps something about human nature is revealed by the history of the
development of games.

~~~
shalmanese
People always bring this up as if it's got some huge insight into human nature
but I disagree. The simple fact is that conflict engenders dynamic equilibria.
It shifts a game from having exactly one right answer (why the original maze
game got boring) into one in which you need to constantly adjust strategies in
reaction to your opponent.

The pattern of something positive happening to you resulting in something
negative happening to someone else is one of the most prevalent mechanics in
game design. Shooting is simply one of the most literal instantiations of
that.

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iopq
Stuck in a redirect loop

~~~
drivers99
I was getting the same thing, but it seems to be working now.

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rshaban
This was a great read, thanks for sharing.

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bicknergseng
Has anyone who played the original tried the iOS version?

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tempodox
I didn't know there is one. What's the title?

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hitlin37
so the first person was shot or not?

