“A Brief History of Computer Games and Interfaces” by Game Arcade – Cute Museum
Title:
- A Brief History of Computer Games and Interfaces
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
Artist Statement:
ISEA’94 provides a rare chance to look at the evolution of computer games and interfaces. Cute Museum at CompuCafe presents a full view to computer games; from the beginnings the field in the late 1970’s to the most recent 3D games like Doom and Myst.
The rise of games, like Ping Pong and Spacewar, is presented with workable machines, like Altair, VIC-20, Sinclair and Spectrum. The user sees the most thrilling and addictive games, which are based on a couple of visual bytes on the screen, but take hours to play.
The second generation of console games – the mid-1980’s – is mapped with early Nintendo dataglasses and data glove PowerGlove of Sega. The Museum shows also a rare (and powerful) Japanese PCEngine console, which was never launched to the European market.
Cute Museum presents the beginning of the Internet network games, like Nethack, which is text-based and one of the most addictive computer games ever released. There is also real-time access to MUD (Multi User Dungeons) which is one of the most popular ways to spend time on the Net nowadays.
Computer games are a significant part of the evolution of computer as a medium. Usually the new computer interfaces – like Windows – are developed only when the producers think that it is time to release a new version. Quite silly and difficult interfaces are in use just because there is nothing else to use.
The essential part of making a good game is the design of a good interface, or playability. As can be seen at the Cute Museum, computer games are leading interface developers and for example the newest games have nearly ubiquitous interfaces at the moment – a phenomena which will come to other computer interfaces only after a while. You don’t see any menus or icons – all you have to do is
to click where you wants to go or what to do-like in real life.
Another important feature of games is 3D. The newest games, like Wolfenstein, provide us with a full real-time three dimensional environment, where the user can move freely. The first virtual reality will take place in the homes, in computer and console games.
Other Information:
The Cute Museum is produced by CUTE communications Inc and Pure•Byte Inc, Helsinki.
