This week, we delve into an innovation that used to be pretty rare to see within the games themselves - the Bestiary aka the Monster Encyclopedia. This innovation has proven to be more than just a collection of fantastical creatures; it can be a narrative tool, a world-building device, and a strategic resource. Furthermore, it helped games go fully digital by putting what would otherwise be in a manual or foldout into the game itself.

The concept of a Monster Encyclopedia can be traced back to the roots of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and the earliest computer game adaptions of them. In 1977, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the pioneers behind Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), introduced the first D&D Monster Manual. It provided dungeon masters with a catalog of creatures derived from mythology and folklore, enriching the gaming experience by letting players anticipate what they would face and to define how monsters were shaped across different gaming sessions. However, the video game bestiary actually goes back to two years before this and the computer game dungeon (PDP-10, 1975), which I've covered in an earlier part of this series. Accessed from the main menu, the bestiary in this game shows single color sprites representing categories of monsters and lists what those monsters are (25 in total), then it lists their HP and EXP value on a separate page.

Paradroid & Paradroid '90 (1985/1990) - In this early action adventure/maze shooter game, players control an influence device sent out to explore and clear out a group of space ships populated by various robots that went rogue and killed the human inhabitants, before these end up in enemy hands. Using the influence device, the player can fire a weak weapon or they can engage in a unique mini-game to temporarily take over any enemy encountered, allowing them to use that robot to fight the others and giving them a second chance if they are destroyed in this form. At computer terminals found aboard each ship, a bestiary (droid database) can be found. Each robot is named with a three digit number shown on its in-game sprite, gets a more detailed picture of what it looks like, and has various other stats listed across two pages. The '90 game's bestiary features more detailed robot pictures, as seen above.

Civilization (1991) - The first game in this influential 4X (explore, expand, exploit and (optionally) exterminate) turn-based strategy series features a pretty detailed general encyclopedia called the Civilopedia, which includes information on all 28 military units (including ones with no attack like the diplomat) and can be accessed at any point during a game. These feature detailed artwork and descriptions (which also manage to have some educational value) on one screen, while a second screen shows the unit's stats, cost and technology requirements.

Aretha: The Super Famicom (1993) - In this JP only (but fan translated) RPG's monster encyclopedia, you can see an image of each monster, its basic stats, and Soul drop (these are used for crafting new equipment). Once you get it from a character called Jack near the beginning, you can open it by selecting the item in the Special Item menu.

X-COM: UFO Defense (1994) - Here's an example of using a bestiary combined with game mechanics to convey world-building and storytelling. To get a bestiary entry on an alien species, one of them must be stunned and captured in battle, then contained in a certain building and researched on using your employed scientists. Alien corpses can be researched for separate autopsy entries. The encyclopedia entry gives you a general description of an alien species' strengths, weaknesses and behavior, while autopsies provide more info on their anatomy and sometimes their origins. Research on captured alien commanders can also give access to new technology, as well as unveil the alien invaders' plans, ultimately leading to finding out how to completely stop them.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997) - Probably the game (or series) that popularized the term and concept for console games, along with Pokémon. Symphony of the Night features a massive bestiary of 130+ enemies which is accessed through the master librarian, an NPC found in Dracula's castle. It shows an enemy's stats, an image of its in-game sprite, what item(s) it can drop (after you've made it drop one of the item), and a short sentence describing it in some way. To fill it in, enemies must be encountered and either hit or killed.

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What is your favorite memory involving a unique or memorable creature from a Bestiary or Monster Encyclopedia? Share your thoughts and experiences!

This week, let's explore a classic mechanic that many RPG enjoyers but also Open World enjoyers tend to love: Manual Stat Allocation on Level Up. In the world of classic RPGs, the concept of manually allocating attribute or skill points upon leveling up adds a strategic layer to character development, while increasing the player's say in how their character develops, if not personality- or story arc-wise then at least stats-wise. It is also left in the player's hands through their entire adventure, not just during character creation if that exists. With this innovation, they can tailor their characters based on individual playstyles and preferences, or to fit a backstory they thought up and can tweak based on major events in the game so as to roleplay character development. It not only enhanced the roleplaying experience but also deepened the connection between players and their in-game avatars.

The roots of manual stat allocation seem to have begun growing in 1978 with the game Beneath Apple Manor (AII), a recurring game in this series. It's a groundbreaking Dungeon Crawler RPG and proto Rogue-like. While there is no character creation, players can distribute points across the attributes strength, intelligence, dexterity and "body" by trading in gained experience points that are rewarded for taking gold from chests. This simple yet revolutionary feature set the stage for future RPGs, although it's hard to say how influential this particular game was on future games besides Rogue.

Some More Retro Game Examples:

Ultima III (1983) and Ultima VI (1990) - The third Ultima included various interesting features for the time such as fast travel, avoidable encounters and tactical, top down view battles, and of course manual stat allocation. Stats are gained by going to Ambrosia and donating at the shrines there (in Ultima VI you also raise stats at shrines). Each shrine raises a specific attribute and each multiple of 100 gold donated will raise the respective attribute by one point. The maximum value each stat can have depends on the character's race. In Ultima VI, players also have to think about which shrines are the most useful to them and thus should be freed first as they are more spread out.

Zelda II (1987) - In the only Action RPG in the main Zelda series, Nintendo devised a fairly unique system which is deceptively simple. When leveling up, players can choose to increase either Life (defense), Magic (decreases the cost of spells) or Attack (damage dealt), and each requires a certain amount of experience points depending on the stat and which level they're currently at, where Attack is the most expensive to level. There is more nuance here however, as players can also choose not to level up a stat and save the points for later, focusing on one stat for several levels for example. Yet another layer is provided from the fact that canceling sets a pointer in the level up menu to a more expensive stat (after the most expensive it cycles back to the least expensive), and the shrines found after the boss of each temple fully level the player up. So if you canceled to set the pointer to the next stat, you also get more out of these level ups.

Ultima VII and Serpent Isle (1992/1993) - Here, gaining levels also grants training points – three points per level. These points can then be used in training sessions with the various trainers in the game to gain stats, and each trainer trains a number of attributes equal to the number of training points they require. The attributes that can be trained include the primary attributes of strength, dexterity and intelligence, alongside the secondary attributes of combat and magic (interestingly there is also a rubber band effect to combat based on how far below dexterity it is). You need a certain amount of training points to start training, but if a stat in question is already maxed out, then the point is not wasted, and instead returned to the pool of points.

Final Fantasy V (1992) - This one's a little different and more complicated to explain. By choosing to master specific jobs/classes (which level up through separate ability points rather than experience points and max out between levels 3-7), players have limited control over the gains on their main stats/attributes in that certain classes gain bonuses to certain stats but also a decrease to one or more stats. However, the default Freelancer (aka Bare) job gains all the highest stat increase(s) for mastered jobs to its job only, while any negative modifiers aren't applied, giving players detailed control over stat gains for each party member. That job also has two ability slots for choosing abilities gained through leveling up the different jobs, since they learn all of a job's innate abilities besides Berserk and don't need to equip them. For example it can inherently dash and see hidden passages (thief), avoid traps (geomancer) and wield two weapons in battle (ninja). There is also the Mime job, which works the same except it replaces the Fight and Item commands with a Mime one and has three empty ability slots, but can't equip Dancer gear such as ribbons.

Heroes of Might and Magic II-III (1996/1999) - Starting with the second game in this seminal SRPG series, players choose between two secondary skills at a time when leveling up, and they can also find NPCs that hand out a skill, sometimes as a quest reward. Skills include diplomacy which affects how likely neutral creatures are to join your army, logistics which affect movement on land, mysticism which increases MP regeneration per day and scouting which increases how far a hero can see on the overworld/adventure screen. The secondary skills can be upgraded two times each.

Fallout 1-2 (1997/1998): Fallout took the concept to a post-apocalyptic setting and elevated it to new heights for WRPGs, allowing players to customize their character's skills during character creation and through the leveling system. Three main skills are picked from a big list: three ranged+melee weapons as well as unarmed and throwing skills for combat, first aid, doctor, sneak, lockpick, steal, traps, science, repair, speech, barter, gambling and outdoorsman. Players can choose to strengthen their main skills or any of the other skills when leveling up and the amount of points they can distribute is determined by their Intelligence stat, but also Perks. Perks provide additional bonuses to stats and/or skills (oftentimes they can be upgraded twice as well), and the player gets to choose one of these every third level, increasing the customization of their build even further.

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What are your favorite examples of this mechanic in retro RPGs and ARPGs? Which games handled it the best, or the worst? Share your thoughts and experiences!

We all know the satisfaction of discovering a unique way to overcome a challenge or to have our favorite playstyle be a valid option in a game. Even better if no one else had thought of the solution before us, perhaps not even the developers of the game! For this week, let's have a look at an innovation that in some ways ties into the previously tackled object interaction topic: alternative solutions to problems. Now, while using a different weapon or taking out parts of a boss or enemy in a specific order might technically qualify, for this post I'm gonna focus on games that went a step beyond and offered more distinct options like puzzle solving, stealth, sabotage, trapping, avoidance or negotiation. Or a combination of them. Basically these are the precursors and early examples of what some call immersive sims nowadays. These games tend to reward creativity, experimentation, attention to detail and thinking outside the box.

The first example is a bit tricky to pin down; the previously covered High Noon (Mainframe, 1970) technically counts, having multiple endings. Later versions of Star Trek (1971) give you more tactical options. But I've chosen to go with two 1975 RPGs for this post: First up is Dungeon, in which there is character creation where players roll for stats or pick between premade ones, and depending on these, different options will be available to them. For example, a spellcaster can avoid monsters that they don't want to be facing with invisibility spells or ones that reduce the random encounter rate, they can disarm different enemy types or level ranges of enemies with sleep, charm and hold person, and they can detect hidden doors. A cleric will be able to cast an assortment of buffing and healing spells, and a fighter can take on the enemies in melee combat. It seems all types can bash doors to get into rooms, where treasure is found (which is worth experience points in this game so you'll want as much as possible, however you'll need to be careful as you can't escape from a monster while in a room). At least, this is how it works in theory as some spells will always work, and the game favours some builds and spells over others. It's also wildly unbalanced and can put you up against way overpowered enemies on the first dungeon floor. As for other options, there is no diplomacy nor any non-monster encounters, and no stealth mechanics in the way we know them now.

Next is moria, a game that plays quite similarly except for being in first-person view, using different names for the stats and making players pick between premade builds. It stands out in two ways relevant to the topic - first, it features use-based stat progression like the later Dungeon Master, Quest for Glory and Final Fantasy II, letting players tweak their characters with every action taken as well as adjust things they don't like about their character over time by focusing on certain activities. Second, it allowed for network multiplayer gameplay where players can adventure separately or form parties of up to 10 (!) players, and where the game continues after a character dies. As you can imagine, this opens up new possibilities when it comes to tackling the dungeon, PvP competition and diplomacy. A very good thing since there aren't any neutral or friendly NPCs here either.

Other Notable Retro Game Examples:

Metroid (1986) - This early NES classic by Nintendo would provide a lot of freedom for players to take their own path through the game other than the intended or recommended one by the developers. This tends to be called sequence breaking nowadays and it's a feature that has stuck with the series for the most part. In Metroid, creative use of earlier weapons and tools (see bomb jumping) allows players to skip both the ice beam and the high jump boots and still beat the game. Or if they do get the ice beam, they can enter the final area much earlier than they're supposed to. A glitch-free playthrough can actually take under half an hour if you really know what you're doing!

Quest for Glory (1989) - The first game in this cult classic RPG/Adventure hybrid series by Sierra is a non-linear experience that also features various alternative solutions to problems, some of which won't be obvious to a first time player. For example, there's an alternative solution for the bird's nest puzzle which those stuck in "adventure mode" might not think to try - you can use the Flame Dart spell to burn the nest and it'll fall to the ground, letting you take the ring inside. The "Open" spell is one of three possible solutions for the Spore Spitting Spirea puzzle where you are expected to acquire the seed being juggled between the flowers. When used they will open up and the seed will drop to the ground. While both non-linearity and multiple solutions are actually in the King's Quest series tradition, Quest for Glory introduced three classes that change how the player can interact with the world (you can combine them to an extent), added various new ways to interact, dialogue trees, as well as non-random enemy encounters in hostile areas which can be avoided in two different ways. Quest for Glory also reacts subtly to many player actions by rewarding different amounts of points depending on what they do, and your final score also affects the ending. So for example, being inquisitive when talking to people isn't just a good way to figure out what to do.

Damocles/Mercenary 2 (1990) - This Open World game with a for its time complex physics engine has players start off initially stranded on the planet Eris with a non-functional spacecraft. A comet named Damocles is moving towards Eris, adding a time limit to each playthrough - players must both escape Eris and prevent Damocles from destroying it. The game expands its scope compared to the prequel, offering exploration of an entire solar system called the Gamma system, and there are multiple distinct ways to beat the game, encouraging players to find an alternative to the more obvious and destructive one. One of these involves manipulating planetary bodies to divert the Damocles comet.

Ultima VI (1990) - In this Open World RPG, players have the freedom to do many things, both moral and immoral. For example, players can purchase a ship for exploration, or take a ruthless approach by eliminating the shipwright and stealing all their deeds. When it comes to puzzle solutions, there's one where the main character and his party come up on one side of a portcullis and there's a lever on the other side of it that you have to flip to raise it and make progress. If you don't have the telekinesis spell, the intended way to get past that portcullis, you can instead use Sherry the Mouse. The portcullises in the game were designed so that only Sherry could pass under them, and Sherry can also interact with the lever, letting the rest of the party through. Warren Spector, producer and director of Deus Ex, has said that watching a playtester discover this unintended solution was a formative experience for him as a game designer.

Fallout 1-2 (1997/1998) - Dating back to the original Fallout, the series is known for its open ended, post apocalyptic world and gory deaths during combat but it also allows for a high degree of player agency. Players can negotiate, bribe, detonate, sneak and/or lockpick their way through its many quests. The choices made throughout the game have far-reaching effects on the story, and it's even possible to beat the game as a pacifist (sort of, as you do end up convincing the villain to kill himself). Game designer Tim Cain explains all seven different solutions to one of the earlier quests in the game, "Rescuing (or not) Tandy", in this video.

Conquests of the Longbow: Robin Hood (1991) - Some would say this is still the best Robin Hood game and in relation to this topic, it is rather impressive even today. This is a partially non-linear Adventure game where most scenarios have several different outcomes, and which lets you decide if you want to play as a spotless hero, more of an anti-hero, a coward, a fool or somewhere in-between. You play as Robin Hood of course, leading a band of outlaws as a resistance force in an oppressed medieval Nottinghamshire with fantasy elements added for some additional flavor. Already in one of the first events where Robin Hood catches one of the corrupt sheriff's men trying to kidnap a peasant woman, there are four different outcomes. After confronting the guy, you can quickly draw your bow and take him out. The woman thanks you, your band takes care of the body and if you want to, you can give her some money (this is another Sierra game that keeps track of your score and where it has an effect on the ending). You can move straight up to him and kill him, but the hostage will be killed before you reach him. You can try to bide your time and come back to this screen later that day, but then another guy armed with a crossbow has arrived and will shoot you if you try something. Or you can just walk away and keep moving, not bothering with seeing what happens to the woman. In either case, either Robin Hood himself or (if he died) his band will comment on his actions, acting as a sort of moral compass in the game's world as well as some comic relief in the latter case. Later on there is even a quest with a total of 9 different solutions. The game will also keep going until the end regardless of your actions, unless Robin (or his love interest Marian) dies that is, which can happen in many different ways. The entire adventure spans thirteen days, and it's up to you if you want to make the most out of them, or just do what's required of you to progress the game, as well as the order in which you take on the possible missions for each day.

System Shock 2 (1999): This critically praised but commercially underperforming game combines survival horror with RPG elements in a sci-fi setting, experienced from a first-person perspective. Players choose from three classes (Marine, Navy or OSA Agent which are basically a Fighter, Technician and Magician) before beginning and by using gained items called cyber modules can enhance their character's abilities freely at certain terminals. As for alternative solutions, Navy players can hack into systems to gain access to more goodies, turn off alarms or even take over defensive turrets and use them against the enemies. OSA Agents can use psi powers (spells) to move objects towards them, become invisible, use a teleporter beacon to get away from sudden danger and/or make non-robot enemies fight for them. All classes can also boost their movement speed to take a few alternate paths, as well as grab every item to recycle it for money using a certain item or psi power. Getting creative with all of these abilities and carefully managing your stats and resources is pretty much required on default or higher difficulties to survive the nightmarish journey through a space station overtaken by rogue AI and collectivist, brainwashing aliens. Of course, the combat itself also allows for different playstyles through a variety of weapons with alternate firing modes and modding options, and an assortment of attack spells.

What are your favorite retro games that implemented alternative solutions, and what made them memorable? Do you appreciate the freedom to take on challenges in different ways, or do you prefer a more straightforward, linear path where you repeat parts until you can execute on that one correct pattern? Let's discuss and reminisce!

Today I want to show some appreciation for an interesting aspect of games that often goes unnoticed but plays a crucial role in enhancing immersion and emotional impact: Adaptive/Dynamic/Interactive Music. This innovation combines the fact that non-redbook CD audio hardware plays back the game music and sound effects in real-time with the interactivity and non-linearity of games, to have the music respond either to where the player moves, some action they're performing, or an event occurring near them. This can make the game world come alive in a more subtle way, help the audio part of a game's worldbuilding resonate with what is currently happening, and make players feel like their actions have consequences.

Most early instances of dynamic music is pretty clunky in execution, abruptly switching out music tracks depending on where the player is in the game, such as triggering a boss theme or end of level fanfare. However, the first example of a smooth transition within an in-game music track based on player action does go all the way back to Space Invaders (ARC, 1978), also one of the first games to even feature continuous in-game music. In this game, as the player destroys the alien ships, the descending four note bassline that makes up the music will gradually speed up while the movement of the enemies does as well. This contributes to an added sense of urgency and some would say is key to making the game an experience that people still remember to this day. The game uses discrete analog circuitry for its audio hardware.

Some Other Notable Retro Game Examples (sound chips/modules are mentioned last in parenthesis for each entry):

Dig Dug (ARC, 1982, Namco 3-channel WSG) and Dragon Slayer (PC-88, 1984, Internal Speaker) - These games introduced music interactivity in a different and playful way, by playing the in-game music only while the player is moving their avatar. Dig Dug might also be the first game to make the music suddenly play faster after a certain point in each level, following a warning jingle. On a side note, Dig Dug was probably the first chip generated video game OST composed by a woman (Yuriko Keino).

Lazy Jones (C64, 1984, SID) - This game features seamless transitions between music tracks as the player moves between rooms, made easier by the tracks all being in the same tempo and having a similar structure. The variety of tracks is quite large for the time, and it's also one of the soundtracks that introduced the signature C64 chorused basslines. In general, by pairing up two channels playing the same notes at the same time and detuning each slightly, it gives the instrument a richer sound. However the SID chip has something called a pulse width modulation effect, generally used for changing the timbre over time, which can be applied to a single channel for the same result if the settings and/or note lengths are right.

Otocky (FDS, 1987, R2A03 & Ricoh 2C33) - In this early shoot 'em up/rhythm hybrid, the music becomes partially user generated by letting the player have basic control over the main lead melody while playing. The background music is set and played by the NES sound chip, while the player controls the wavetable channel provided by the Famicom Disk System addon when they fire their weapon. 8th notes can be played and there are 5-6 notes available, in scale with the music. By picking up different power ups, the instrument can also be changed, and which one you've equipped is displayed in the GUI.

​Extase (AMI, 1990, Paula) - Tribal beats, hypnotic chants, culturally ambiguous soundscapes and general weirdness are elements that make up this soundtrack, which sometimes brings to mind bands like Art of Noise or Cabaret Voltaire. There is also an interactive aspect in-game: Notes or musical patterns are added for each player interaction, and the patterns evolve as the player completes a level. The game itself is harder to explain, being a sort of electrical engineering sim mixed with Sleeping Beauty, played like a race between two players or player vs AI to wake up a female android. Each level has you waking a different area of the android's brain (such as sight, imagination, sanity, etc.).

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (PC, 1991, MT-32/OPL2 (Adlib)) - This game uses a relatively advanced dynamic music system called iMUSE, an evolution of previously used systems. The in-game music changes on the fly based on your actions and the transition is more or less seamless and on beat with the previous music track. Additionally, the "outside" theme in the town of Woodtick also has 7 starting points that are chosen randomly each time it is started. As for transitions based on player actions within a room/sub area, Zaarin explains an example on their site mixnmojo.com:

"When you enter Mad Marty's boat there is a melody line playing in the right speaker. This can be called Mad Marty's melody. On the left side of the screen are the men of low moral fibre snoring away. When you wake them, the melody line in the right speaker fades down partially and a new one in the left speaker fades up. A bass and snare drum also kick in, changing the tune completely. This is the men of low moral fibre's tune. Because of iMUSE the game can change between these two dynamically whenever the player awakes the men. After they fall asleep, the music changes back to how it was initially."

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 1998, RCP) - The game's soundtrack tends to seamlessly transition between area theme and combat theme when moving close to an enemy, creating a cohesive and dynamically changing atmosphere. The combat theme fades in on one channel first, while the prior theme fades out and is replaced fully as you move closer. In some cases, an abrupt transition with a bombastic combat music intro happens such as when facing Stalfos warriors. Of course, the game is also well known for its five note system (d, f, a, b, d; a d minor 6th chord if played together), which is used for playing simple melodies using the ocarina and which have various gameplay effects - a mechanic that seems to have first appeared in the games Loom and Wonder Boy in Monster World. No attention to rhythm and note length is needed, nor knowledge of what the notes are called.

Have you come across any retro games that implemented adaptive/dynamic music in a particularly memorable way? What are your thoughts on this innovation and its impact on your gaming experience? Share your thoughts and experiences!

Today, let's discuss the roots of a gameplay mechanic that has been beloved by strategists and stealth players for decades: Trap-laying. This innovation adds an extra layer of strategy to gameplay and can create intense, suspenseful moments where you carefully set up a plan and hope that it executes properly based on what the enemy or another player does. While some games center around this mechanic, it hasn't quite hit the mainstream as far as genre names go.

The first example seems to be from Heiankyo Alien (1979), an arcade game which challenges players to dig holes to trap pursuing aliens in single screen, maze-like levels similar to those found in Pac-Man (1980). The year after, what is sometimes seen as the first platformer, Space Panic (1980) seemingly followed in Heiyankyo Alien's footsteps while introducing verticality and playing out in a 2D side view. This latter game became a direct inspiration to the more well known and successful Lode Runner, which added more complex levels, smarter enemies and a collectathon element to the formula.

Some More Notable Retro Game Examples:

Qix (1981) - This creative action puzzle game introduced the zoning/lassoing mechanic where the player draws a box using their player avatar around enemies to take them out of play, trying to color in as much of the playfield as possible while not getting hit in the process. Several clones followed!

Dig Dug (1982) and Boulder Dash (1984): In Dig Dug, players dig through the ground to eliminate enemies by either crushing them with falling rocks or strategically inflating them until they burst. Boulder Dash later took some inspiration from Dig Dug while adding a lot more rocks as well as unique physics to them, which the player needs to learn in order to progress. Some other interesting features were also included such as the virus that keeps replicating until you've completely surrounded it.

Ghostbusters (1984) - This ambitious game, originally released for the C64, blended trapping mechanics with action adventure while adding a strategic element to the trapping in that players could now shop for traps among other gadgets. This can be done either before or during gameplay, with money earned over the course of the game. The trapping element itself is fairly basic, gameplay-wise, consisting of moving your car into ghosts flying around the streets during autoscrolling segments, or once you've arrived to a haunted building, trying to align your ghostbusters so as to trap one or more ghosts in-between their lasers. In the US this game seems infamous for its poor NES port, which is a shame.

Spy vs. Spy (1984) - The game based on the classic comic strip has two agents come up with inventive ways to trick and kill each other, generally involving trap-laying. There's a single player vs the CPU mode, as well as a vs mode. Each player starts somewhere in a foreign embassy, and their main objective is to steal five randomly placed items, then board a plane at the nearby airport. To prevent the other player from beating you to it, you can fight them directly and steal their items, but you can also set five different traps in the rooms' furniture and doorways (you start with one of each and can easily find more) - bombs and time bombs, springs, acid buckets and spring guns can be used. Players can see as well as hear when traps are placed but eventually it becomes more and more challenging to remember both your own and your opponents' placements. However for each trap besides the time bomb there is also a specific protection item that can be used. The experience is also pretty customizable for the time: Level size, number of traps to find and AI difficulty, whether or not the airport is hidden and the time limit can be set before gameplay begins.

Home Alone (PC/AMI, 1991) & Home Alone (MD/GEN, 1992) - In the MD game you are tasked with defending the houses of your neighborhood until police show up, hurting the two thieves from the movie with traps until they give up and before they loot and flood every house. Entering a house before the thieves lets you lay 7 different traps in it via a side view map screen, and these include torches (can be placed in door jams), ice (placed on the floor sections), tar (slows a thief down giving you more time to escape or shoot him with a weapon). The weapons are crafted out of up to three different items found in the houses, a rarely seen featured at the time. Most traps also harm your avatar if you walk into them and there's a neutral enemy in each house which attacks both the player and the thieves. The PC game is different, taking place in Kevin's house only, and starts off with you having an hour (closer to 9 mins IRL) to search for objects to use as traps. Once the thieves arrive, it's best to try and manually lure them into the traps to ensure that they don't disarm them, and like in the MD game the traps can hurt you too. What does it have over the MD game? Well, what suburban fantasy is complete without a tree house?

Tecmo's Deception (1996) - In this game the unique and surprisingly dark premise is that you were set up by your brother, who is now king, and are seeking help from none other than the devil after being summoned by him, to regain your power and get your revenge. To do this, you take over a small castle which you then lure adventurers and monsters into using various traps (and later on monster summons as well) to capture or kill them. This means each level takes place in the castle, starting with a planning phase where traps are selected and consisting of a wave of enemies invading the castle while the player generally moves in close to manually trigger the traps. This game provides one of the more fleshed out trapping experiences up until this point, mixing the mechanic with a 3D, FP view dungeon crawler RPG with light horror elements. There's even a construction element in that you can add to the castle with new rooms and hallways. Going back to the traps, there's a pretty large variety of them, sorted into three categories called "Capture", "Destroy", and "Confuse". You gain more of them as you level up until level 6, then from level 13 onwards you can upgrade these traps with gold. Traps can be placed on floors, walls or ceilings, and include bear traps, pits, spikes, magnet walls, spring floors, cages and cranes.

Dungeon Keeper (1997) - In this great genre hybrid game (RTS, FPS, God Sim, Trapping, more?) which lets players be the bad guy, each level takes place underground and has the player explore for gold, items and heroes while building a lair to attract monsters with via one or more portals. This is done using worker imps that they can summon, pick up and drop, or slap if they don't work hard enough. One of the monsters is the troll, and once researched in the library one can build workshop rooms to attract them. Trolls will happily move into the workshops on their own and start inventing doors as well as 6 different kinds of traps that once finished, your imps will place where you choose to. Among these are poison gas, lava (removes the floor beneath to reveal a lava tile), alarms and the extra deadly boulders, which after triggering keep rolling back and forth for a while before finally crumbling.

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What are your favorite retro games that feature trap-laying mechanics? Did any specific title stand out to you for its innovative use of them? Share your thoughts and memories!

Happy holidays! Today I want to shine a spotlight on a couple of gaming innovations that let us feel powerful and in control, that can add to immersion and realism, and that allow us to let off some steam without hurting others or their property: Destructible Environments and Multiple Destructible Parts. Destructible environments potentially bring more interaction and stimulation of player creativity in games, allowing players to find new ways past obstacles and to conquer challenges. Whether it's blasting through walls, digging past a dangerous part of a level, toppling a building on top of an enemy, or creating cover on the fly, the ability to shape the game world through destruction opens up many new possibilities for the player.

Multiple destructible parts take the concept and apply it to the characters populating game worlds, breaking down larger objects into smaller, individually destructible components. While more realistic this also introduces a tactical element, as players can now target specific weak points that might be more or less beneficial given the situation at hand - for example you might want to cripple a fast enemy's movement by hitting its legs or a sniper's ability to aim by hitting its eyes. When applied to the player avatar it can instead provide another layer of challenge or induce additional stress.

The first example of the former innovation seems to be from the 1975 arcade game Gun Fight (aka Western Gun) by Taito, which longtime readers will recognize from a previous post. In case you forgot, two players are pitted against each other in a gunfight set in the Old West. As a tactical option, players can hide behind objects: one of them is the rock formation which bullets ricochet off of. The other is the cactus, however these are destructible objects removed completely in one hit, producing a short little beep and no animation. Such was the humble beginning of destructible environments in games!

Star Raiders (1979 or 1980) is a 2.5D Space Combat Sim which inspired later games such as Star Voyager, Star Luster, Elite and Wing Commander. It includes some neat features for the time such as an enemy radar with two ranges, a rearview camera toggle, particle explosions and more. More relevant to the topic, however, is that so-called subsystem damage is included. This means parts of your ship can be damaged individually, making it the first game with multiple destructible parts. Your ship's shields, engines, weapons, targeting computer, and scanners can be damaged or completely destroyed.

As time went on, these features became a lot more detailed and advanced with some more recent landmark titles being Red Faction (2001), The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (2005), Red Faction: Guerrilla (2009) and Minecraft (2011). Let's keep it classic though and check out Some Other Notable Retro Game Examples:

Tank Battalion (1980) - In this prequel to Battle City, players are tasked with defending an objective protected by a thin layer of brick wall, by navigating a tank through a single screen maze full of thicker, rectangle shaped walls and taking out every enemy that appears. Unlike most tank-based games, it doesn't actually have tank controls. Walls are destructible at the tile level and both the player and the enemies can do it.

Phoenix (1980) - This early shoot 'em up seems to have introduced the idea of shooting the core to win. However, to shoot the core in Phoenix one must first shoot the protective shell, or two of them to be specific. In a sort of reverse Space Invaders-style boss fight where the player ship is slowly moving closer to the boss, players first chip away at what might be an asteroid, then what looks like a conveyor belt platform on top of it to be able to attack the alien leader inside its base and end the level.

Aztec (1982) - What's this, the platform adventure/metroidvania subgenre has western roots? It's true, and you can read more about that aspect here. In this game, players start in a randomized temple labyrinth equipped with 3 sticks of dynamite. They have to explore to find new weapons, ammo and health (and eventually an idol, the retrieval of which being the goal of the game), but they also have to create new paths to progress using the aforementioned dynamite sticks. This mechanic is similar to Castle Wolfenstein's from the previous year, but fleshed out to an impressive degree - one can destroy walls, floors, drop the dynamite to a floor below them, and even destroy stairs. Stairs that might be important for progression, so players have to be real careful about placement (one can also use it for optional shortcuts if a room has too many enemies to deal with at the moment), but luckily the bottom floor of the maze is indestructible.

Rampage (1986) - A King Kong/Godzilla simulator of sorts, this game lets up to three people play as a human transformed into a giant monster through a failed experiment, whose sole purpose is to demolish entire city blocks, one room/tile at a time. Like in King Kong, buildings can be climbed and friendly NPCs can be grabbed and let go on the ground (note that each monster prefers a certain type of NPC). Once enough of one is destroyed, the rest starts cracking up and the whole thing soon comes tumbling down, a pretty impressive visual effect at the time. A human army tries to deal with you using grenadiers, tanks, flamethrowers and choppers, but fitting the theme, the game is not about skillfully dodging shots or hits; instead players try to destroy the whole block and eat all the soldiers (and/or food if they find it) before enough damage is dealt to them, reverting their monster into a nude human who leaves the screen in shame while covering themselves. At this point, they can even be eaten by another player!

Contra (1987/1988) - Contra seems to be one of the first games in which taking out parts of a boss or enemy in a certain order has a clear tactical advantage. For example, the "defense wall" boss in level 1 has an enemy soldier sitting on top of it and alternating between taking cover and aiming shots directly at the player, so it's generally best to take him out first. Then, to safely take out the core near the bottom, it's probably best to take out the turrets around the middle first since they are constantly bombarding the platform in front of the core. At the same time, a skilled player with the right weapon can go for a quick kill instead.

MechWarrior (1989) - The first 3D mech sim introduced multiple destructible parts to the genre, while also letting you take advantage of it in a new way: Destroying the legs of enemy mechs makes them topple over, disabling them without destroying them completely, and leading to more salvage which in turn leads to more money. Money that you'll need to repair your own mech's parts, so that you can keep doing this to other mechs until you can find a better one to do it with. It's the circle of mech life.

Lemmings (1991) - This seminal puzzle game in which you guide a bunch of lemmings towards the level exit allowed for environment destruction at the pixel level. First off, you have three different digging jobs that you can hand out to your lemmings, making them dig through most terrain vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Second, you can give them the "blow yourself up" job (that escalated quickly), which they'll happily do, leaving a circular crater where that lemming was. This is actually needed to get through some levels. Now if you're feeling really sadistic, or you give up on a level, you can press the nuke button to set a time bomb on every single lemming still in the level and they'll all be wiped in 5 seconds, sending debris flying all over the place.

Star Fighter 3000 (1994) - This flight combat game, originally for the Acorn Archimedes, impressed at the time with large, highly destructible 3D environments, a long draw distance and a pretty good framerate. Not only can skyscrapers and large ships and pipes be completely destroyed, but if you keep shooting a mountain you will eventually level it to the ground (a feature that might've been added in the 3DO and later versions, haven't been able to try the original yet)! A bit odd for a 3D game, the environments are visually divided into large tiles (or I guess quads) affected by shots and explosions, so if you shoot the ground for example there will be 5 tiles of burnt ground there, giving the game a kind of retro throwback feel.

Warcraft II and Command & Conquer (1995): These games added partially destructible environments to real-time strategy games. In C&C, blasting through walls or destroying bridges strategically can give you the upper hand during a mission, in some cases being part of a larger puzzle that needs to be solved to progress (at least unless you're up for some huge difficulty spikes). In Warcraft II, mountain and forest tiles can be blown away using kamikaze units, creating a more direct path to the enemy base. Zug-zug.

Blast Corps (1997): This is a pretty unique N64 game that has players controlling one of a variety of demolition vehicles at a time to clear the way for a runaway nuclear missile carrier, combining destruction with escorting. A variety of buildings and other objects can be destroyed, usually by running into them in different ways, moving an explosive block into them or using a direct attack. Alternate vehicles and routes can be found through exploration, and you sometimes have to interact with the environment on foot to move vehicles to where you need them, turning various levels into large puzzles that need to be solved for that 100% completion.

BattleTanx (1998): This N64 vehicle combat game brings Battle City to mind, except in 3D and with some new features. Buildings and walls are fully destructible, there are explosive barrels that damage stuff around them, and if you get the nuke weapon, all buildings in the level can be hit at the same time.

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What are some of your favorite retro games that incorporated destructible environments or multiple destructible parts? How did these features make those games better? Share your thoughts and memories!

This week, let's dive into a more technical aspect of video game design that has significantly shaped the medium: Procedurally & Randomly Generated Content (PGC/RGC). Procedural Generation involves the creation of data using an algorithm as opposed to manual input, and the data is generated while the game is running. This approach to content creation has been a game-changer in the industry, shaping popular modern games like Minecraft, Spelunky, The Binding of Isaac and Dwarf Fortress, and it once again dates all the way back to the 1970s. The memory constraints of early gaming hardware encouraged some developers to use procedural generation to their advantage to compress data and reduce file sizes through the reuse of chunks of data, as well as to save development time and achieve greater scalability in games. For the players, PGC or RGC's benefit is enhanced replay value through changed level layouts and difficulty curves with each playthrough.

The first recognized examples of PGC come from the 1978 games Beneath Apple Manor for computers and Maze Craze for the Atari 2600/VCS console. The procedural generation system in the former, the first commercial Rogue-like Dungeon Crawler would create tile-based dungeons and define rooms, corridors, doors, monsters and treasure, and magic item placement, all listed by the game before it starts as it is being generated. Players can also pick between 4 and 20 rooms per level. Maze Craze, a simple maze chase game where the player is chased by 2-3 enemies, used an algorithm to generate random mazes for each game.

However, there is one earlier example in the proto Rogue-like, turn-based strategy game Star Trek (Sigma 7, 1971)! Navigating an ASCII-based and grid-like game world/map, the player is put in command of the USS Enterprise (represented by "*") and tasked with hunting down an invading Klingon fleet (each ship represented by "+++"). It had procedurally generated maps as well as perma-death.

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Some Other Notable Examples:

Adventure (1980) - At Skill Level 3, the layout is similar to Level 2 but the location of items and enemies is randomized for a greater challenge. The behavior of the bat enemy is also randomized at either level (IIRC) - it can steal items from where they were placed or while carried; it can carry the player, the dragons or an item around; and it can even accidentally kill the dragon by carrying the sword into it, which can be considered an early systemic element.

River Raid (1982) - This early vertically scrolling shoot 'em up made use of a pseudorandom number sequence generated by something called a linear feedback shift register to generate scrolling levels full of obstacles.

Elite (1984) - The Elite universe is made up of eight galaxies, and each has 256 planets to explore. A single starting number (seed number) goes through a set way of doing things, making a list of numbers that decides everything about each planet – like where it is in the galaxy, prices of goods, and even details like names and other local characteristics. Words are chosen from a list and put together to make each planet unique, like one with "carnivorous arts graduates". A very useful aspect is that no extra memory is needed to remember what each planet is like. Each galaxy is made in the same way from the first one. At first, the developers Braben and Bell wanted 2^48 galaxies, but publisher Acornsoft convinced them to go for fewer to keep the galaxies' secret math origins hidden.

Rescue on Fractalus (1985) - This game utilized fractals to procedurally generate craggy mountains on an alien planet in real-time. The silhouette of the fractal mountain range is displayed against the sky while a black grid is overlaid on the mountain range for perspective. The gameplay consists of players piloting a spacecraft around this landscape in the attempt to rescue downed pilots.

The Sentinel (1986) - Some classic games showcase the use of pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs). These were typically used with predefined seed numbers to generate large game worlds that appeared premade to the untrained eye. 3D Puzzle game The Sentinel is one example and it supposedly has 10,000 different levels stored in only 48 or 64 kilobytes.

Damocles/Mercenary 2 (1990) - This Open World Action Adventure game featured a procedurally generated world with a static seed. Players are initially stranded on the planet Eris with a non-functional spacecraft. A comet named Damocles is moving towards Eris, adding a time limit to each playthrough - players must both escape Eris and prevent Damocles from destroying it. The game expands its scope compared to the prequel, offering exploration of an entire solar system called the Gamma system, and there are multiple distinct ways to beat the game besides a destructive one. The game is also complex in terms of its physics engine, incorporating orbital mechanics and special relativity, with time dilation during interstellar travel.

Frontier: Elite II (1993) - The sequel makes use of a bigger and more detailed star map and a more advanced game engine, allowing players to seamlessly land on planets. While in the first game each star system had a single star, a single planet, and a single station, this game can have up 35+ "major bodies" (planets and moons) per system. Star systems are procedurally generated by the game combining the mass of material within an early solar system into planets and moons that also obey the laws of physics. The material distribution is also slightly randomized in order to ensure each system is unique.

Diablo (1996) - Perhaps the most well known example besides Rogue (1980) and Civilization (1991), Diablo was a revolutionary isometric view ARPG which featured procedurally generated dungeon floor layouts, loot, shop inventories, shrine effects, optional sub quests and monsters including mini-boss monsters. General layout themes and monster pools were designed for each set of levels making up a separate part of the dungeon, such as the catacombs tending to have long corridors and closed rooms and making you face skeletons and scavengers, while the later caves are more non-linear and open and make you face gargoyles and horned demons. For the shop inventories, each vendor had a separate requirement for when theirs would update, such as Griswold the blacksmith only adding new items when you go up a level or buy an item. The game also popularized the color coding of items in three categories: White-colored items are normal items, blue-colored items are magic items and gold-colored items are unique items. What perhaps not everyone knows about Diablo is that months into development, the game was still turn-based with mandatory perma-death, single player, and one of its main inspirations was 1980s Rogue-like games such as Telengard (1982).

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What's your favorite retro game that uses procedural generation, and how did it enhance your gaming experience? Share your thoughts and memories below!

This week, I'd like to show some appreciation for a gaming innovation that has kept evolving over the years and continues to fascinate players: Object Interaction & Manipulation. It's an important one as it homes in on a core aspect of games - interacting with what's on screen, plus it opens up many possibilites beyond simply defeating enemies. It allows players to engage with the game environment in a more natural and dynamic way, solving puzzles, uncovering secrets, influencing the narrative or just screwing around for fun. Object interaction has become a cornerstone of some genres and series (the recent Zeldas for example), adding depth, immersion, sometimes realism to our favorite games.

Probably the first notable example can be found in Superman (A2600, 1979), an early (perhaps the first) action adventure game in which players can pick up and carry as well as drop both NPCs and some objects. Starting out, the villain, Lex Luthor, breaks a bridge near the beginning screen into three pieces in what might be the first scripted event in a game. It's then up to the player to explore and find the parts, then bring them back together on that screen to repair the bridge. Besides that, they are tasked with capturing all criminals and putting them in jail, and the game keeps track of how many are left in the GUI. What's also interesting is that one of the enemies, the invincible chopper, can also pick up objects and characters and place them on a random screen.

Some Later Notable Examples:

Sokoban (1982) - This game introduced block pushing and puzzles around it, an influential and now taken for granted feature. The tile-based mechanics and block movement seamlessly integrated with early video game graphics, with their backgrounds and objects more obviously locked to a grid pattern, and they can be found again in various later games like the Lolo series, Bomberman series, early Zelda games, Sonic the Hedgehog and Soul Reaver.

Hard Hat Mack (1983) - This early puzzle platformer, probably inspired by Donkey Kong, is surprisingly rich in interaction. Player goals involve replacing holes in the floor, catching a moving jackhammer to secure plates, and picking up, carrying and dropping wares into a processor. There are also interesting level design gimmicks such as conveyor belts, springs, revolving escalator platforms and the player avatar can attach to a giant magnet to be carried to a higher platform

The Staff of Karnath and Below the Root (1984) - These games introduced telekinesis to video games, the supernatural power to move objects with your mind. While a subject of ridicule and wishful thinking in the real world (the closest we have come is controlling robots attached to our heads with brain signals), and something we could only watch being pretended in movies, in games we can push some buttons or keys and see a simulation of the results in real-time. In the latter game, the power is called kiniporting and once upgraded, it can also be used for teleporting yourself somewhere on the same screen.

Knight Lore (1984) and Starquake (1985) - These are two of the games that introduced stacking objects on top of each other to reach higher and/or further. They also featured some other interesting and relevant mechanics: In Starquake, there are persistent and manually controlled flight platforms, meaning a player can pick one up at a pad on one screen, use and then place it on a pad somewhere else and it will still be there when/if they return, leaving a sense of lasting impact to one's actions. In Knight Lore, players can instead push objects placed on top of other objects, as well as do a neat little trick where they stand on top of an item, then put it into their inventory while jumping to carry it with them while also reaching higher. This trick allows for one item to be used as a traversal tool over and over again.

Thrust (1986) - In this momentum-based shooter/puzzle hybrid inspired by Gravitar, players pick up and carry a ball towards the atmosphere to beat each level, which is easier said than done. What's impressive about this aspect is the "ball attached to rope" physics when carrying the ball. Its weight actually pulls your ship when it gains speed and it rotates around your ship when doing turns at high speeds pretty much as you'd expect it to. The other points of interest are shooting switches to temporarily open doors, and shooting a reactor to disable turrets placed in the levels.

Dungeon Master (1987) - This influential "blobber" (real-time party-based dungeon crawler RPG in FP view) lets players pick up items and place them in either hand or in the inventory, using the mouse. This is also how you interact with stuff like switches or torches placed on walls. Weapons such as clubs can be picked up and thrown and they'll land on the ground so you can pick them up and use them again repeatedly. Finally it also introduced the paper doll interface used for placing gear on different parts of a character.

Exile (Superior Software/Audiogenic)(1988) - This momentum-based shooter/platform adventure hybrid featured advanced for the time physics (gravity, inertia, mass, shockwaves, and elemental (water/earth/wind/fire) effects are simulated and puzzles designed around them). Players can pick up and drop or throw items, and can accelerate a thrown object using their jetpack before throwing. The game also interacted with the player avatar in interesting ways - mushroom spores can clog up your jetpack for example and there are creatures that can either suck you in or repell you. As an alternative to direct combat, you can grab some creatures to stop them from hurting you. Finally, there's a bit of a twist to the item inventory - your pockets are actually stasis fields meaning an object is completely suspended in time and space. This means a live grenade won't explode while in there for example.

SimCity and Populous (1989) - In the first proper city builder, players interact with objects and the environment in various ways and in real-time. Besides creating roads, powerlines and zones for building (which happens automatically if conditions are right), players can bulldoze plant life tiles and buildings. More entertaining however, is the ability to trigger one of ten disasters at will: fire, flood, plane crash, tornado, earthquake, monster attack, shipwreck, nuclear meltdown, UFO attack, and bomb drop (MAC ver.).

In Populous, the first god sim, a terraforming spell lets you manipulate the terrain by raising and lowering land at a certain distance from your leader or city, a feature which later appeared in SimCity 2000 in a slightly different form. Similar to SimCity, there are also some disaster style spells: armageddon - makes everyone leave their homes and go fight including the enemy population, swamp, earthquake - reduces and randomizes on screen land height, volcano, and flood - raises the water level by one for the whole map.

Ultima VI (1990) - An RPG that features a very interactive game world with added commands like poke, prod, push, pick up and take. Players can move and destroy chairs, play an instrument, bash down and lock doors, rob stores and banks, throw a wine bottle across a room and have it shatter on the floor, use a telescope to have a look around, start or douse a fire, kill NPCs and talk to party member NPCs. Besides being able to interact with what would be doodads in most other contemporary games, as well as examine paintings and books found around the world. One of the more complex series of actions made possible is milking a cow and then churning the milk into butter, which can then be eaten.

Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991) - Besides expanding on the interactivity of the first game with actions like enemy freezing and object throwing, this game is an early example of added context sensitivity to an action (a concept first introduced in Ultima I I believe) in that the interact button's usage will change depending on what you are moving Link up against and what tools you currently have. Stand next to and face an NPC and they will talk to him, a pot, bush, placed bomb, frozen enemy or the side of a sign and he will lift it, hold it and push away from certain objects and he will lift or pull them, etc. Beyond that, there are switches that raise and lower water levels, and you can move between a light and dark world to reach some new areas and solve some puzzles in either world.

Soul Reaver (1999) - This game's world is divided into two dimensions, similar to A Link to the Past's. The level design morphs a bit in some places when moving between planes which can allow you to reach new areas, a pretty impressive accomplishment for a fifth gen 3D game. You can also pull blocks sideways and flip them, which is used in various dungeon puzzles. Finally you can use a telekinetic force projectile to destroy windows and wooden barriers, push blocks from afar and push enemies backwards into hazards or stun them. You can also carry and throw stunned enemies (this had been a thing since Typhoon Gal and Renegade in 2D games).

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What are your favorite moments of object interaction and/or manipulation in gaming? Share your thoughts!

This week, let's dive into something that has excited, frustrated and intimidated many players over the years – the boss. From the early days of video games to the more recent classics, bosses and kicking their butts have become an integral part of gaming culture. They add a layer of anticipation, challenge but also narrative depth to video games as they present a clear antagonist to the player. They are often the climax of a level, sometimes the entire game, providing players with a higher challenge to overcome and (usually) set things right in the game's world. The sense of accomplishment after defeating a well designed boss is for some unparalleled, making it a memorable and rewarding experience.

Facing off against one AI controlled on-screen enemy character at a time has been a thing since 1970 I believe, but for this post I'm defining a boss as a tougher than average opponent that is generally faced at the end of a level or enemy lair/headquarters. Even so, the concept still dates back to the 1970s, or 1975 to be specific. The first turn-based game to feature one seems to be dnd, a dungeon crawler RPG that has come up several times already in this series. At the lowest level, players will meet The Dragon that guards the magic orb, the object players are sent to retrieve to beat the game. Perhaps this is the first game to really put players on edge towards the end as it is also a game with perma-death - if you fail here then you have to start over from the beginning of the game.

The first real-time examples are found in the 1979 shoot 'em ups Astro Fighter and Ozma Wars, with the former being a bit older. The bosses aren't that interesting to fight, behaving much like the enemies in Space Invaders with more hit points. However, the first one gets its own screen and is noticeably larger than the other enemies, while the second makes an unusual entrance in the form of a meteoroid that the player shoots to reveal a very aggressive space ship.

Some Later Notable Examples:

Samurai (1980) - In this arena action/hack 'n slash game, players face a single swordsman after fighting off his underlings in each level. These are quick duels as each character dies in one hit to the body. Players can lock blades with the boss, then mash the button to try and knock him back and stun him, leaving him open for attack (which is what's happening in the pic). Or they can try to strafe and hit the guy's body.

The commanders from Sasuke vs Commander (1980) - In what is essentially a Space Invaders variation with a different setting, players can face off against four different bosses throughout the game, all introduced by an ominous lightning strike and the background going mostly black. A ninja shooting firebeams, a komuso (?) throwing shuriken and tricking the player with holograms of itself, a second ninja that throws swords which become obstacles for the player as they hit the ground, and a second komuso which transforms into a giant frog thing that teleports around and shoots firebeams. Later on there are also variants on previous versions, such as a ninja with more HP or a komuso that spawns multiple shuriken throwing frogs. Pretty awesome for 1980!

Donkey Kong (1981) - For the last level of the first platformer, players take on Donkey Kong in a basic puzzle style fight - removing the screws holding up the platform (while avoiding or taking out the enemies) that the monkey is standing on causes it to fall, knocking him out in the process and letting Mar-I mean Jumpman reunite with Pauline. This style of boss fight would later be expanded on in Zelda games, as well as imitated by Startropics and Quake.

The chopper from 005 (1981) - In this early stealth action game, boss fights take place on a separate screen and force the player to move and shoot past what looks like a mass of parachute bombs, forming both a defensive layer between the player chopper and the boss chopper at the top as well as moving walls on either side. This while the boss is dropping more bombs at the player AND balloon bombs are frequently lifting from the ground below, making the fight pretty intense. If they survive for long enough, there is an opening in the upper layer and the boss also eventually moves down and leaves itself exposed to attack.

Sinistar (1982) - This free-roaming shooter is perhaps best known for its intimidating boss, how it goes after the player instead of waiting for them and the build-up towards facing it. It tends to be considered an early horror game just for how this boss was designed. As the player is flying around and taking out small enemies the size of their own ship, the boss suddenly proclaims "Beware! I Live!" through a creepy, loud and somewhat scratchy voice sample. It then starts quickly chasing the player from somewhere off screen and as it gets close, a larger blip is displayed on the GUI's radar while it tells you that Sinistar is now in scanner range. The threats continue with the words "I hunger, coward!" before Sinistar enters the screen and lets out a psychotic shriek while heading straight for the player at a faster speed than they can get away. At this point, the player hopefully has the mine weapon and should use a defensive approach to survive.

Punch-Out! (1984) - In this arcade-style boxing game, players face six unique opponents in one on one matches. While not proper bosses by my definition above, I think they are worth mentioning for a few reasons: They're visually impressive, behaviorally distinct and the knockback and stun with each hit the player or their opponent lands adds a lot of impact. Each fight also has a satisfying ending in the well made knockout animations. Adding to these aspects is the anticipation of the KO potential meter, which rewards skillful and restrained play.

The three Shadowlords from Ultima V (1985) - In an RPG series that continued to evolve and surprise players since its first couple of games, a non-traditional approach to boss fights is I suppose expected. To get rid of these guys, the player must find a certain item and use it in a certain way that relates to one of the virtues that are central to the game's mechanics and narrative. To say more would be to spoil the solution. Furthermore, the Shadowlords are active in the game world and can randomly attack one of eight cities, signaled to the player as they enter one with the words "an air of cowardice/hatred/falsehood surrounds thee", with a different noun depending on which of them is present.

Bowser/King Koopa from Super Mario Bros. (1985) - This one's interesting in that there are multiple ways to beat him (either run past him and hit a switch or if you have the fireflower, take him out directly) and that the same fight is repeated but tweaked somewhat in later levels, with added obstacles, rate of fire and Bowser being able to throw hammers at Mario.

Fantasy Zone (1986) - One of the first so-called cute 'em ups is also known for its unique, large and detailed boss fights. The moon and snowman bosses are particularly interesting in that they have more than one phase during their fights, possibly the first example of it. The moon initially moves up and down while firing a row of laser cannons covering its front, but if the player takes too long then it will start chasing Opa Opa around. The snowman slowly moves onto the screen while letting its gun drones work, but after taking them out it will get more aggressive and start spraying a bunch of larger bullets while moving up and down around the middle of the screen. Bosses 6 and 7, while having simpler behaviors are also cool in that they make use of sprite rotation and scaling respectively.

Mega Man (1987) - The first in this long running action platformer series also introduced its unique mechanic related to its bosses - they each have a weakness to a particular weapon and to gain these weapons the player must defeat the bosses themselves. This leads to a strategic and experimental element where the player (if they want an easier time that is) can eventually plan the best route throughout the game's first 6 levels, freely accessible via a level select menu, so that after the first boss they'll always have the best weapon to use on each boss. After the first 6 levels, the game continues to impress with the large yellow devil boss which repeatedly picks itself apart and builds itself back together to launch pieces of its own body towards Mega Man, an evil clone fight, a continuously escalating fight where part of the environment can be used as a weapon, and finally main antagonist Dr. Wily's aircraft which also has two phases.

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What boss(es) stands out to you as the most memorable, and why? Have you encountered any games recently that introduced innovative boss mechanics? Share your thoughts below!

This week, let's have a look at a classic mechanic that has stood the test of time and continues to shape popular titles: ability gating/tool gating. This concept is about overcoming obstacles by acquiring persistent abilities or tools, essential for progression. Usually these are gained through item pickups or completing specific objectives. More than a metaphorical key, using these involves testing player skills at positioning, movement, timing and sometimes puzzle solving.

This mechanic serves a crucial role in encouraging exploration but also provides a sense of accomplishment and progression as you unlock new areas or overcome challenges. It adds a layer of strategy and planning, forcing players to think about the order in which they tackle tasks or areas and how a new ability or tool interacts with the level design. When well implemented, the abilities or tools can also recontextualize what has already been explored, opening up new shortcuts and methods for the player to backtrack. Furthermore, some games also allow for something called sequence breaking through their abilities or tools, which is when a player takes on areas or objectives in an order either not intended by the developer or not recommended for a first time playthrough with a smooth difficulty curve. All in all, it's a mechanic that is fundamental to the beloved Zelda-like and Metroidvania/Platform Adventure subgenres, action adventure games with interconnected worlds.

Let's go back to where it all began – Adventure. Released in 1980 for the Atari 2600, this revolutionary, best-seller title introduced players to the concept of tool gating as described above. From the moment you obtain the bridge, new parts of the game world open up through it letting players pass over water/pit tiles. You can also find a magnet, allowing for reaching otherwise unreachable items like keys or a sword. While the first game mode (aka the easy mode) is pretty straightforward and more key gating oriented, other modes test players skill at using these tools in new ways. Adventure was a revolutionary title that set the stage for various action adventure games to come, laying the foundation for the exploration-driven gameplay we love.

Some Later Notable Examples:

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982) - The grenade adds explosive capability, aiding in breaking through certain barriers, while the grappling hook lets players swing over holes that would otherwise drop the player into the valley of poison

Dragon Slayer (1984) - This game features three spells that relate to the concept. Break which lets you breaks blocks, Kick which moves blocks and this also lets you kill enemies similar to the arcade game Pengo, and Fly which temporarily transforms you into a bird to move over obstacles

Below the Root (1984) - In this early genre hybrid, the shuba item allows for glide jumping which in turn allows for a sequence break at one point. Ropes and the grunspreking magic allow for creating bridges across gaps between trees, and kiniporting (telekinesis) allows for moving objects or even NPCs across the screen

Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu (1985) - The mattock lets you break brick blocks diagonally below or straight below you, the mantle lets you pass through most walls, and the winged boots allow for time limited flight. These are ammo-based however so you eventually need to find or buy more

The Legend of Zelda (1986) - In the first Zelda, the stepladder lets you cross water tiles (small gaps) much like in Adventure, the candle lets you burn down bushes and the bombs, besides being a good weapon lets you break weak walls. While the game also introduced the bracelet, which in later games lets you lift and throw heavy rocks, it is optional here.

Metroid (1986) - This and Zelda seem to have been the main popularizers of ability gating in action adventure games on a more global scale. The morph ball lets you reach into tighter spaces, the high jump boots and ice beam let you reach higher/further by using enemies as platforms, and bombs let you break weak blocks. It also introduced bomb jumping, which is when bomb laying is repeatedly timed to let you reach higher, although it is more useful in later games and doing it for extended periods is much harder than in later games

The Goonies II (1987) - In this video game sequel to the movie, the scuba gear allows for swimming, bombs let you blow up a few weak walls, the hyper shoes let you jump further and move faster while the spring shoes let you jump even higher

Blaster Master (1988) - Here there are tank upgrades that allow for temporary flight, wall climbing and a dive engine for letting the tank move around underwater like a submarine

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap/Monster World II: Dragon no Wana (1989) - A game focused on gaining abilities by transforming into different creatures at certain points. Climb wall and ceilings made up of checkerboard blocks as mouse man, swim as piranha man, break blocks above and below you as lion man or fly around as hawk man

Gargoyle's Quest (1990) - This one features flight and jump height upgrades, as well as a projectile (called Claw) that sticks to spiked walls, letting the player cling to that wall

Super Metroid (1994) - The game brilliantly utilized this mechanic to create a sense of discovery in new ways and was a step forward for multi-purpose upgrades. Acquiring the speed booster not only let the player get past weak floors, certain special material tiles/blocks, or easily dispose of smaller enemies and jump past vast pits. It also allowed access to the shinespark ability, through which players could trigger an aimed dash through the air while in a boosted state signaled by Samus flashing white.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997) - Alucard's progression through the game depends on finding key relics and abilities such as the wolf form, the mist form, the bat form and the super jump. The success of Symphony of the Night paved the way for the term "Metroidvania" and solidified the genre as a staple in retro gaming, initially describing Castlevania games structured like Metroid and making use of RPG elements like experience point leveling and a loot focus.

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What's your favorite ability/tool in a retro game, or moment where you gained a new one? Share your thoughts and experiences!