Older Than the NES - Television Tropes & Idioms

Here are The Oldest Ones in the Book for Video Games. The NES's US introduction in October 1985 marked the beginning of the end of The Great Video Game Crash of 1983, and we have chosen it as a cutoff date for The Oldest Ones in the Book of Video Game Tropes.

A good number of the RPG tropes can be found here, since these games trace their roots pretty much directly back to Tabletop RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons, which were among the first commercial games to be ported over to a video game system.

Examples:

Action Adventure: Adventure (Atari 2600), 1979
Adventure Game: Colossal Cave, 1975
Arbitrary Headcount Limit: RPG version, Wizardry 1, 1981
Arbitrary Maximum Range: Space War, 1962
Artificial Stupidity: Many, many many games; in particular, Pac-Man, 1980.
Ascended Glitch: Space Invaders, 1978
Asteroids Monster: Asteroids (obviously), 1979
Attack Its Weak Point: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, 1982
Attract Mode: Many, many arcade games; Sinistar's (1982) is particularly famous.
Balls Of Fire: Donkey Kong, 1981
Border Patrol: Saucers in shooting sections of I Robot
Boss Battle: Dnd, 1975
Bottomless Pits: Hunt The Wumpus, 1972
But Thou Must: Grannys Garden, 1983
Character Level: Dnd, 1975, or Dungeons & Dragons, 1974
Clairvoyant Security Force: Zork, 1979, for one.
Color-Coded Multiplayer: Some Pong systems, 1975.
Color-Coded Armies: Risk, 1957
Controllable Helplessness: Adventure, 1979
Cores and Turrets Boss: Bosconian, 1981
Corridor Cubbyhole Run: Spike's Peak, 1983
Cosmetic Award: Activision mailed out physical ones for achieving a preset score in their Atari 2600 games.
Cosmetically Different Sides: Space War, 1962
Critical Existence Failure: Dnd, 1975, or Dungeons & Dragons, 1974
Critical Hit: Avatar, 1979
Cutscene: Space Invaders Part II, 1979
Deadly Walls: Berzerk, 1980
Death Mountain: Alpiner, 1982
Death Throws: Crystal Castles, 1983
Demonic Spiders: Centipede, 1980
Difficulty Levels: The Atari 2600 had two built-in difficulty level switches in 1977.
Direct Continuous Levels: Scramble, 1981
Directionally Solid Platforms:: Jump Bug, 1981
Driving Game: Gran Trak 10, 1974
Dungeon Crawling: Dnd, 1975
Easter Egg: Adventure, 1979
Enemy Detecting Radar: Star Trek Text Game, 1971
Extra Lives: Space Invaders, 1978
Every Bullet is a Tracer: Space War, 1962
Every 10,000 Points: Many, many arcade games. Goes back to Pinball.
Excuse Plot: Space Invaders, 1978
Eyes Are Unbreakable: Pac-Man, 1980
Faux First Person 3D: Maze War, 1974
Final Boss: Dnd, 1975
First-Person Shooter: Maze War, 1974
Flip Screen Scrolling: Adventure, 1979
Game Over: Space Invaders, 1978
Game Over Man: The TI-99/4A port of Hunt The Wumpus, 1980.
Global Currency: Ultima, 1980
Goddamned Bats: Hunt The Wumpus, 1972
Goomba Stomp: Horace And The Spiders, 1983
Gravity Screw: Space War, 1962
The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 (Duh)
Grimy Water: Spike's Peak, 1983
Guide Dang It: Colossal Cave, 1975
Hit Points: Dnd, 1975, or Dungeons & Dragons, 1974.
Instant 180 Degree Turn: Basketball, 1978
Interactive Fiction: Colossal Cave, 1975
Interface Screw: Rogue, 1983
In-Vehicle Invulnerability: Gran Trak 10, 1974
Inventory Management Puzzle: Colossal Cave, 1975
Invisible Grid: Maze War, 1974
Job System: Avatar, 1979
Jump Physics: Donkey Kong, 1981
Karma Meter: Ultima IV, 1984
Last Lousy Point: Colossal Cave, 1975
Level Editor: Maze War, 1974
Level Goal: Donkey Kong, 1981
Level Grinding: Akalabeth, 1979
Level Scaling: Beneath Apple Manor, 1978
Light Gun Game: Ray-O-Lite, 1936
Match Three Game: OXO, 1952 — You do have to match three to win.
Mini-Boss: Dnd, 1975
Mini-Game: Escape From The Mindmaster, 1982
Mook Maker: The oil drum in Donkey Kong, 1981.
Multi User Dungeon: Multi-User Dungeon, 1979
Nintendo Hard: Of course — if you're ignorant of anything Nintendo preNES — the title may now break your mind.
Non-Standard Game Over: Star Trek Text Game, 1971, running out of fuel.
No Plot? No Problem!: Sports and board games in general are Older than Dirt.
Numbered Sequels: Space Invaders II, 1981; not to be confused with Space Invaders part II.
Obvious Beta: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982
Old Save Bonus: Wizardry 2, 1982
One-Hit Kill: Space War, 1962
One Hit Point Wonder: Space War, 1962
One Bullet at a Time: At least as early as Space Invaders, 1978
1-Up
Oxygen Meter: Jungle Hunt, 1982
Painfully Slow Projectile: Air-Sea Battle, 1977
Palette Swap: First color games, 1970s
Pause Scumming
Porting Disaster: Pac-Man on the Atari 2600, 1982
Press X to Die: Star Trek Text Game, 1971
Press X to Not Die: Dragon's Lair, 1983
The Problem with Licensed Games: Raiders Of The Lost Ark, May 1982, Ur Example; E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982, Trope Codifier
Puzzle Boss: Donkey Kong, 1981
Ragdoll Physics: Tennis For Two, 1958
Regenerating Health: Dragonstomper, 1982
Roguelike: Rogue, 1980
Save Scumming: Rogue, 1980
Scoring Points: Pong, 1972
Shielded Core Boss: Star Castle, 1980
Shoot 'Em Up: Space Invaders, 1978
Side View: Tennis For Two, 1958
Silliness Switch: The potion of hallucination in Rogue, 1980.
Simon Says Mini Game
Simulation Game: Utopia, 1982
Slippy Slidey Ice World: Indy 500, 1977
Smart Bomb: Defender, 1980
Space Filling Path: Donkey Kong, 1981
Stalked by the Bell: Evil Otto in Berzerk, 1980
Stealth-Based Game: Castle Wolfenstein, 1981
Strategy Game: Go, Older than Dirt
Subsystem Damage: Star Trek Text Game, 1971
Super Star: Pac-Man, 1980
Super Title 64 Advance: Commodore 64 games
Solve the Soup Cans: Colossal Cave, 1975
Status Line: Vector terminal port of Lunar Lander, 1973
Take Cover: Maze War, 1974
Text Parser: Colossal Cave, 1975; Zork, 1979
That One Level: Donkey Kong, 1981.
Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Zork, 1979
Turn Based Strategy: Crush, Crumble, and Chomp!, 1981
Violation of Common Sense: Killing the dragon, Colossal Cave, 1975
You Can't Get Ye Flask: Colossal Cave, 1975
Walkthrough: There were guides written for Colossal Cave.
Warp Whistle: Raiders Of The Lost Ark, 1982
Wide Open Sandbox: Space Travel, 1969
Wizard Needs Food Badly: Moria, 1975
Wrap Around: Space War, 1962

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