Artillery Game - The Emergence of Graphical Artillery

The Emergence of Graphical Artillery

The Tektronix 4051 BASIC language desktop computer of the mid-1970s had a demo program called Artillery which used a storage-CRT for graphics. A similar program appeared on the HP 2647 graphics terminal demo tape in the late 1970s.

An early graphical version of the artillery game for personal computers emerged on the Apple II computer platform in 1980. Written in Applesoft BASIC, this variant, also called Artillery, built upon the earlier concepts of the artillery games published in Creative Computing but allowed the players to actually see a simple graphical representation of the tanks, battlefield, and terrain. The Apple II variant also took wind speed into account when calculating the eventual result of the fired shot. Lines on the screen showed the players the paths that previous shots had taken toward their target, allowing players to use visual data when considering future strategy. Similar games were made for home computers such as the Commodore PET by 1981.

Video game console variants of the artillery game soon emerged after the first graphical home computer versions. A two-player game called Smithereens! was released in 1982 for the Magnavox Odyssey² console in which two catapults, each behind a castle fortress wall, launched rocks at each other. Although not turn-based, the game made use of the console's speech synthesis to emit sarcastic insults when one player fired at the other. The first widespread artillery-based video game was Artillery Duel. Artillery Duel was released in 1983 for the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision video game consoles as well as the Commodore 64 and VIC-20 home computer platforms. The game featured more elaborate background and terrain graphics as well as a simple graphical readout of wind speed and amount of munitions.