Snake

Snake game is a arcades video game originated in the late 1970s. The popularity of the snake game is perhaps maintaining until today. The snake game was founding its highest popularity when Nokia mobile phone made Snake game to be their standard pre-loaded game in 1988. That time, Snake audience and player became massively increased.

Snake game on Nokia mobile phone

Interactive
Snake is game is really really simple. A player controls the head of the snake which is represented in long thin creature emulating a real life snake, and he/she controls the direction of the snake head (left, right, up, and down) to avoid of hitting its own tail or walls as the snake will be moving and cannot be stopped while the game is in progress. The snake eats a piece of food which will make its tail grows longer and longer.

Setting
This game is originated during the late 1970s which confront the fact the the graphics at that time was still very simple and not good compared today. The setting of the game is there are walls that surround the playing area. The playing area's background is simply black. There is a hole in the wall which will allow the snake will go from one to another side of screen (like a portal). However, this is not necessary. There are a lot of customisation of the snake game. Some don't have wall, and some have walls.

Snake game on Nokia has different levels and play areas.

Concept
The game concept of Snake game is there is a snake and there is a piece of food appearing somewhere in the play area. The player needs to control the direction of the head of the snake (up, down, left, and right) and its body will follows to get the food and to avoid of hitting its own tail or walls. The snake will move and cannot be stop, and the snake also cannot go in reverse. After the snake ate the food, its tail will grows longer. Whenever the snake has eaten the food, another piece of food will appear somewhere in the play area.

Goal
The goal of the game is to get more points by eating the pieces of food.

Challenge
The challenge of this game is to avoid hitting the walls and its own tail. The more food the snake eats, the longer its tail, and the faster it slithers. The longer the snake, it will increase the difficulty of the game. It is also a strategy and requires the player to think the way to avoid the snake hitting its own tail as the tail will grow longer and longer.

Strategy thinking are needed to complete the snake

Russian guy shows how to complete the Snake

All images are derived from: Google Image
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Asteroids

Asteroids is an Atari video arcade game released in 1979. This game was one of the most popular and influential games of the Golden Age of Arcade Games. This games has been being sold 70,000 arcade cabinets. This game is a two-dimensional view and uses vector display.

Interactive

The spaceship is shooting the asteroids

In this game the player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which periodically traversed by flying saucers. The spaceship can be rotated as well as be moved. The spaceship is also able to shoot and destroy the asteroids.

Setting

The space-like environment is really felt in this game

The setting of this game is space-like environment where there are asteroids flying around the playing area.

Concept

The concept is to avoid the spaceship touches the asteroids, or else the spaceship will get destroyed. The spaceship is able to destroy the asteroids into small parts. However, the spaceship needs to destroy the small parts of the asteroids as well to get them disappear from the screen.

Goal

To shoot and destroy asteroids and saucers while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire.

Challenge

The advance the level, the difficulty of this game is higher. The higher the level, the more asteroids appear on the screen makes the game more challenging. The challenge also felt from the beginning of the game where the player has to control the spaceship (rotate and move) to avoid the collision with the asteroids, as well as they have to shoot the asteroids. For me personally, I definitely need time to get my self familiar with the control and the game itself.

The spaceship destroying the asteroid

All images are derived from: Google Image
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Duck Hunt

Duck Hunt is a Japanese original light gun shooter console game. Duck Hunt (ダックハント Dakku Hanto in Japanese) was developed and published by Nintendo and released in 1984. This game is playable in both single and multi-player with up to 2 players only. The story behind this game is simple. There is a gentleman whom is going duck hunting with his dog. After the gentleman successfully shot the duck, his dog will get the duck. This game has two options which are to shoot the duck, or to a clay pigeons.

Interactive
This game has an additional equipment which is NES Zapper. NES Zapper is used to shoot ducks that appear on the screen. The player can freely move the gun around the screen to point and shoot the ducks. In all modes, the player only has three attempts to shoot the on-screen targets when they appear. This game is played from a first-person perspective.

Setting
The settings are different from one mode to another. However, the similarity between the settings are large yard with trees, emulating the real environment of duck hunts and clay pigeons fight.

The setting of game mode which focuses on shooting ducks

The setting of game mode which focuses on shooting clay pigeons (white circle in pictures)

Concept
The concept of the game is pretty similar to the duck hunt in real life, as the player is required to shoot the moving targets (ducks) on the screen in the mid-flight before they disappear. There are a total of ten targets to shoot in each round. In single mode there will be one target and two target in two-player mode will appear on the screen. The player only has three attempts to shoot the targets before they disappear. There is also a minimum number of target shot in order to advance to the next round. Sadly, a failure will end up to the game over. The higher the rounds, the difficult the game will be. The targets will move faster, and the minimum number of target successfully shot will also increase.

The other mode which is to break the clay pigeon has a similar concept with the one to shoot a duck.

Goal
The goal of this game is to hit/shoot a moving target with three attempts shoot before the target disappear.

Challenge

The higher the rounds, the more difficult the game

This game is comparatively hard to play. Personally, the first round is already somewhat difficult to shoot the duck. Perhaps, the reason is because I use mouse over NEZ Zapper to shoot the target. I believe, using NES Zapper itself will be much easier to point, focus, and shoot the target. The challenge of this game also the only-three-attempts challenge. A player only has three attempts to shoot the moving target before it disappears. The minimum number of target to be shot also increases as the player advances to higher round/level.

I think that the game emulates the duck hunt in real life successfully. Duck hunt in real life is somewhat a challenge on some people, why should the developer make this game easier?

All images are derived from: Duck Hunt - Wikipedia
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