Insert Coin: The Arcade Era, Console Wars & Gaming Lore

The iconic yellow character created by Toru Iwatani in 1980, inspired by the sight of a whole pizza with a single slice removed:

Answer:Pac-Man

Note:Originally titled 'Puck Man' in Japan, Midway executives renamed it Pac-Man for North American arcades to prevent vandals from altering the 'P' to an 'F'.

Taito's 1978 fixed shooter with marching alien descending rows, so overwhelmingly popular it caused a nationwide shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan:

Answer:Space Invaders

Note:The accelerating four-note bassline was not an intentional musical choice; it sped up naturally because the hardware could process sound faster as aliens died!

Nintendo's 1981 smash hit arcade game that introduced the platforming genre and marked the debut of Mario, then known as 'Jumpman':

Answer:Donkey Kong

Note:Shigeru Miyamoto originally pitched a licensed Popeye game, but when the licensing deal collapsed, Popeye became Jumpman, Olive Oyl became Pauline, and Bluto became Donkey Kong.

Capcom's 1991 fighting game sensation that accidentally introduced combo moves due to a coding buffer bug left in by designer Noritaka Funamizu:

Answer:Street Fighter II: The World Warrior

Note:Funamizu discovered players could cancel recovery frames on special attacks, but decided to leave the timing bug in as a secret technique for skilled arcade players.

Atari's 1972 table tennis arcade game whose prototype cabinet at Andy Capp's Tavern in California famously jammed because its coin box overflowed:

Answer:Pong

Note:Engineer Allan Alcorn was hired by Nolan Bushnell as a training exercise, but the game proved so addictive patrons lined up outside the bar before opening hours.

The blue supersonic hedgehog designed by Naoto Ohshima in 1991 to showcase the Genesis hardware and combat Super Mario's supremacy:

Answer:Sonic the Hedgehog

Note:Sonic's cobalt blue hue matched SEGA's corporate logo, while his red sneakers with white straps and gold buckles were inspired by Michael Jackson's Bad tour boots.

The monochromatic 8-bit handheld console launched by Nintendo in 1989 that sold 118 million units bundled with the addictive puzzle game Tetris:

Answer:The Game Boy

Note:Entrepreneur Henk Rogers convinced Nintendo president Minoru Arakawa to pack-in Tetris by explaining: 'If you want little boys to buy it, bundle Mario; if you want everyone, bundle Tetris.'

The 1994 console born out of a bitter corporate betrayal after Nintendo publicly cancelled a joint CD-ROM add-on contract with Ken Kutaragi:

Answer:Sony PlayStation (PS1)

Note:Kutaragi famously convinced Sony's skeptical CEO Norio Ohga to proceed with a standalone console by challenging: 'Are you just going to sit back and accept what Nintendo did to us?'

The pioneering 128-bit SEGA console released on 9/9/99 that was the first system to include a built-in 56k dial-up internet modem as standard:

Answer:SEGA Dreamcast

Note:Despite critically adored titles like Shenmue and Phantasy Star Online, piracy and the impending launch of the PlayStation 2 led SEGA to exit console hardware.

The revolutionary custom coprocessor chip embedded directly into 1993 Super Nintendo cartridges to render 3D polygon graphics in Star Fox:

Answer:The Super FX Chip

Note:Developed in the UK by Argonaut Games, the Super FX chip was actually a dedicated RISC microprocessor that ran calculations faster than the SNES's main CPU.

Rockstar Games' 2013 open-world epic set in Los Santos that generated over $1 billion in revenue within its first three days of commercial release:

Answer:Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V)

Note:GTA V has sold over 190 million copies worldwide, ranking as the most profitable individual entertainment product in human history.

The sandbox survival building game created by Swedish coder Markus 'Notch' Persson in 2009, which became the best-selling video game of all time:

Answer:Minecraft

Note:With over 300 million copies sold across nearly every modern platform, Microsoft acquired Minecraft and its studio Mojang in 2014 for $2.5 billion in cash.

CD Projekt Red's sprawling 2015 fantasy RPG following the white-haired monster hunter Geralt of Rivia across Novigrad and Skellige:

Answer:The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Note:The game adapts the beloved Polish dark fantasy short stories and novels written by author Andrzej Sapkowski.

Nintendo's 2017 Switch launch title that revolutionized open-world gameplay by replacing map checklist towers with physics-based emergent climbing and gliding:

Answer:The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Note:Before creating the vast 3D landscape of Hyrule, developers coded a 2D 8-bit NES prototype to stress-test interactive physics reactions with wind and fire.

FromSoftware's brutally unforgiving 2011 action RPG directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, renowned for its interconnected level design and the iconic death screen 'YOU DIED':

Answer:Dark Souls

Note:Miyazaki stated that the steep difficulty curve was never intended to punish players, but rather to grant an authentic emotional rush of triumph when overcoming despair.

The globetrotting British archaeologist aristocrat armed with dual pistols and acrobatic flips, introduced by Core Design in 1996's Tomb Raider:

Answer:Lara Croft

Note:Early conceptual designs envisioned the protagonist as a South American mercenary named Laura Cruz before developers opted for an English aristocratic explorer.

The genetically enhanced orange marsupial developed by Naughty Dog in 1996 for the original PlayStation, codenamed 'Willy the Wombat' during production:

Answer:Crash Bandicoot

Note:Founders Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin had to reverse-engineer PlayStation RAM limits to allow Crash's textured polygon model to rotate smoothly at 30 frames per second.

The heavily armored Spartan-II commando in green Mjolnir armor who battles the Covenant and the Flood alongside AI companion Cortana in Halo:

Answer:Master Chief (John-117)

Note:Voice actor Steve Downes was working as a morning disc jockey for a classic rock station in Chicago when he recorded the stoic lines for Halo: Combat Evolved.

The hapless, insult-swordfighting pirate protagonist of LucasArts' beloved Monkey Island point-and-click graphical adventure series:

Answer:Guybrush Threepwood

Note:The name came from the raw file naming convention in Deluxe Paint ('guy.brush', meaning the guy character drawn with the brush tool), merged with the quirky surname Threepwood.

The secret room programmer Warren Robinett hid inside the 1979 Atari 2600 game Adventure displaying 'Created by Warren Robinett', widely recognized as:

Answer:The first documented video game Easter Egg

Note:Atari policy forbade crediting programmers on box packaging, so Robinett hid the secret room behind a gray dot pixel to ensure his authorship was forever remembered.

The iconic property-trading board game based on Lizzie Magie's 1903 'The Landlord's Game', which ironically was created to warn about the perils of monopolies:

Answer:Monopoly

Note:Charles Darrow patented a stolen, simplified version of the Quaker game in 1935 and sold it to Parker Brothers, making himself the first millionaire game designer.

The global strategy war game where players deploy colored armies onto 42 territories across six continents aiming for world domination:

Answer:Risk (originally La Conquête du Monde)

Note:The game was invented in 1957 by Oscar-winning French film director Albert Lamorisse, who also directed the famous 1956 short film The Red Balloon.

The world's first modern trading card game (TCG), designed by mathematician Richard Garfield in 1993 for publisher Wizards of the Coast:

Answer:Magic: The Gathering (MTG)

Note:The ultra-rare 'Black Lotus' card from the 1993 Alpha printing is part of the 'Power Nine'; mint gem-condition copies have sold for over $500,000 at auction.

Klaus Teuber's 1995 German masterpiece credited with igniting the modern board gaming renaissance, centering on trading sheep, wheat, ore, brick, and lumber:

Answer:Catan (The Settlers of Catan)

Note:Catan broke away from hostile American roll-and-move games by ensuring all players collected resource yields on every turn regardless of whose dice were rolled.

The genre-defining tabletop roleplaying game published in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson that popularized 20-sided dice (d20) and character sheets:

Answer:Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)

Note:Gygax and Arneson originally hand-assembled the first print run of 1,000 boxed sets in Gygax's Lake Geneva basement with wood-grain cardboard covers.