Video game theory and history
What is a bit anyway? And how does it relate to sound in these machines? A bit (short for binary digit) is the small unit of information a computer understands. A bit is often represented as either a 1 or 0, where one means “ON” and zero means “OFF.” When a manufacturer writes about bits … Continue Reading
DISCLOSURE: AS AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE I EARN FROM QUALIFYING PURCHASES. READ THE FULL DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO. ALL AFFILIATE LINKS ARE MARKED #ad A term commonly thrown around when talking about video games is gameplay. I’ve already done it multiple times myself on this site. But what exactly is the definition of gameplay? Gameplay in … Continue Reading
DISCLOSURE: AS AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE I EARN FROM QUALIFYING PURCHASES. READ THE FULL DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO. ALL AFFILIATE LINKS ARE MARKED #ad In the last article, I covered how sound and melodies became important in arcade video games in the 1980s. In this article, I’ll cover the simultaneous evolution of sound and music in … Continue Reading
I briefly explained the first computer sound effects and melodies in part III of this series. Now we’ve reached the 1980s when video game sound really took off in arcade machines, home consoles, and personal computers such as the Commodore 64. This article is about arcade machines. One major technological change that led to video … Continue Reading
This is part III of my article series on video game sound. Part II is found here. In 1952 computer scientist Alexander Shafto Douglas created a virtual tic-tac-toe game called OXO for demonstration purposes for his thesis about Human-Computer Interaction. As far as I know, this is the first game a human could play against … Continue Reading
DISCLOSURE: AS AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE I EARN FROM QUALIFYING PURCHASES. READ THE FULL DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO. ALL AFFILIATE LINKS ARE MARKED #ad This is part II of my article series on video game sound. If you haven’t already, I recommend you start with Part I: Video Game Audio 101. Fiction or Interface. An Introduction. … Continue Reading
In a series of articles, I’ll explore the history of video game audio, its functions as both video game fiction and game interface, and what tools we can use to understand this better. This is part one of those articles. These articles are inspired by a thesis I wrote since I’ve had a lifelong fascination … Continue Reading