Game designers continually expand on what's possible in video games. From simple simulations to sprawling fantasy epics, innovation has pushed games in new directions. How much do you know about innovation in video game design? Take this quiz to see.
One of the earliest video games, which used an oscilloscope to display the graphics, modeled what sport?
golf
hockey
tennis
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
"Tennis for Two" was created in 1958 at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
"The Realm Online" is credited as the first multiplayer online game to load each combat encounter in a separate area from other players, a concept known as ...
tanking
Zerg rushing
instances
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
The term "instance" comes from computer programming languages, in which an instance is an object created during the running of a program.
Today, "Warcraft" is best known for the "World of Warcraft" massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), but the first "Warcraft" game was a landmark in what genre?
real-time strategy
4X
first-person shooter
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
"Warcraft: Orcs & Humans" was one of the earliest and most popular RTS, or real-time strategy games.
The first video game to become popular enough to run on multiple computers at universities around the U.S. was called …
"Lensman"
"Spacewar!"
"Shoot First"
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
"Spacewar!" was run on a PDP-1 computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961 and '62, and the code was used to run it at other universities with PDP-1 machines.
In 1978 "Space Invaders" brought many new ideas to arcade games, including the concept that a game ends when?
when the timer runs out
when the player runs out of lives
when the player reaches a certain score
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
"Space Invaders" continued until all three of the players' lives had been lost. (Gaining extra lives with high scores was another "Space Invaders" innovation.)
Video games like "Sweet Home" and "Alone in the Dark" that focus on evasion, mystery solving, frightening storylines and inventory management rather than combat belong to the genre known as …
Japanese role-playing games
survival horror
action-adventure
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
Survival horror games create tension and fear by making the player feel vulnerable.
"Minecraft" allows players to dig and explore tunnels, collect resources and items and build things in an innovative way. What game is its most direct inspiration?
"Q*Bert"
"Infiniminer"
"Dig Dug"
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
"Infiniminer" would look familiar to "Minecraft" fans, although it focused more on finding minerals than exploring and building.
The process of generating random environments in real time used by games like "Beneath Apple Manor," "Rogue," "River Raid" and "Elite: Dangerous" is known as …
hexadecimal editing
procedural generation
loot tables
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
Procedural generation makes games replayable and can create unpredictable, dynamic environments.
What was the first home-console game to use battery-powered RAM to allow the player to save the game?
"Super Mario Bros."
"The Legend of Zelda"
"Yars' Revenge"
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
"The Legend of Zelda" was a sprawling adventure role-playing game that allowed players to save it. Earlier console games required complicated passwords to save.
The first text-adventure game, also known as an interactive-fiction game, was "Colossal Cave Adventure" from 1976. What was the most famous text-adventure game?
"Zork"
"Ultima"
"DayZ"
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer
"Zork" was a highly influential game that featured a strange fantasy story and a sprawling area to explore and interact with.
