If you owned or worked on a computer in the late 1990’s chances are you played one of Microsoft’s pre-installed games: Freecell, Hearts, Minesweeper or Solitaire. Solitaire was developed by intern Wes Cherry in 1989 and renowned for its ‘solitaire effect’ of cascading cards that appeared at the end of the game.
Not only was it the first graphical adventure video game but Atari’s ‘Adventure‘ was also the first to feature an ‘Easter egg’ (a purposely hidden secret in a game) that could be discovered by players. The back story is that Atari wouldn’t give game designers public credit for their work.
DID YOU KNOW A wash aka the Corgi shuffle or a scramble is often made at the beginning of a card game when the deck is still in the order it was packaged in. Washing is done so everyone (players and dealer alike) are satisfied that they’re about to play in a fair game.
The Robinett/Atari Easter Egg was first found by a 15-year-old from Salt Lake City called Adam Clayton. He discovered the secret room, found Robinett’s signature and wrote the letter in the pic to Atari.
How do you control the characters in your video games? In the beginning it was Gunpei Yokoi who imaginated how LCD technology in a calculator might be used to create a miniature game.
