Gaming Alexandria's Video Game Hall of Fame - 2023 Notables
Beginning in 2022, the game history & preservation project Gaming Alexandria runs a yearly vote on which video games have exerted the most notable influence & inspiration on the industry.
For 2023, members of the GA Discord server submitted ranked choice ballots to induct 6 games and one non-game influence (read further below). These are the results. I'll be including each game's commemorative summaries in details. You can also find the lists from other years below.
2022 Notables
Non-game influence of 2023: Dungeons & Dragons, 1974
"Stating the influence of Dungeons & Dragons is like saying that the telegraph helped changed the way people communicate. Few creations in the history of Western culture match the magnitude of how D&D has changed the way we look at society and folklore. Literature, religion, technology, and more have all been touched by TSR's seminal work. Most of all though, games. Creating the systems of roleplaying advancement and its very own category of games is one thing, but the reliance on the cultural understandings codified in Dungeons & Dragons ripple through games even well outside of the fantasy genre. It was a game that birthed sub-genres like mad and continues to be the groundwork for anything even partially derivative. Called by some "a game for
game designers", it opened the world to what game design truly meant."
Official article
For 2023, members of the GA Discord server submitted ranked choice ballots to induct 6 games and one non-game influence (read further below). These are the results. I'll be including each game's commemorative summaries in details. You can also find the lists from other years below.
2022 Notables
Non-game influence of 2023: Dungeons & Dragons, 1974
"Stating the influence of Dungeons & Dragons is like saying that the telegraph helped changed the way people communicate. Few creations in the history of Western culture match the magnitude of how D&D has changed the way we look at society and folklore. Literature, religion, technology, and more have all been touched by TSR's seminal work. Most of all though, games. Creating the systems of roleplaying advancement and its very own category of games is one thing, but the reliance on the cultural understandings codified in Dungeons & Dragons ripple through games even well outside of the fantasy genre. It was a game that birthed sub-genres like mad and continues to be the groundwork for anything even partially derivative. Called by some "a game for
game designers", it opened the world to what game design truly meant."
Official article
6 Games
AKA Moonlander
"McDonald's or no McDonald's, Moonlander is as important for its visible features as its secrets. Bringing the gravity game genre to a visual medium, the game's novel use of a light pen control presages
the era of touchscreen gaming. The concept of a larger overworld and close-ups was pioneered by the
scaled views of the lunar surface. Attention to physical realism and the importance of terrain made Moonlander not just a gamey adaptation of a recent
news story. Jack Burness' personality shone through with his creation, interjecting small bits of text and the addition of a humanoid figure to create the first step of representation in video games. Its impossible to sum up Moonlander as a simple adaptation of the text-based lunar landing games. Truly new, truly grand, and truly exciting would be more accurate."
"McDonald's or no McDonald's, Moonlander is as important for its visible features as its secrets. Bringing the gravity game genre to a visual medium, the game's novel use of a light pen control presages
the era of touchscreen gaming. The concept of a larger overworld and close-ups was pioneered by the
scaled views of the lunar surface. Attention to physical realism and the importance of terrain made Moonlander not just a gamey adaptation of a recent
news story. Jack Burness' personality shone through with his creation, interjecting small bits of text and the addition of a humanoid figure to create the first step of representation in video games. Its impossible to sum up Moonlander as a simple adaptation of the text-based lunar landing games. Truly new, truly grand, and truly exciting would be more accurate."
"What do you do with 8K of RAM? As a designer part of the team creating the Atari 8-bit computer hardware, Doug Neubauer found himself pushing against this question in the creation of Star Raiders. His adaptation of the Star Trek mainframe classic into an action-based shooter was an effort of pure genius which made personal computer games - for the first time - something on the level of their arcade and console counterparts. Presented with an active world of activity which occurred whether or not the player was nearby, Star Raiders breathed with life in a way more commonly seen in roleplaying games than action games. The freedom and additional spice of optional interactions planted seeds of possibility for what could be done in games even as expansive as this. Star Raiders was the first glimpse into a gaming future far beyond the technology limits of the late 1970s."
"Enigmatic in it origin, Scramble is difficult to deny as a game with a defining legacy. The concept of an endlessly scrolling world had existed prior to Konami's creation, but the idea of a world that truly moved into advancing realms was startlingly new. Scramble took full advantage of that concept, creating a space which challenged the player's nevigation skill and positioning through a wide array of hazards. A true sense of depth was created through ground targets, including an evolved fuel resource - seen in other space shooters but never integral until Scramble. Shoot-em-ups as a genre begin here. The idea of video game progression in its modern form begins here. Other arcade games scrambled to catch up with its innovations, and content began taking on an increasing prominence next to gameplay. Game worlds were never the same again."
"To jump is the question. The answer? Donkey Kong. Single-handedly defining a new expression for video game characters, Nintendo brought to life what Pac- Man had begun with a radical interpretation of the iconic video game character. In a simple tale of peril played out in four ascending acts, Mario, Donkey Kong, and Pauline play out a cartoon narrative of love and loss in a way never before seen in an interactive form. With nearly perfect construction, Donkey Kong provides meaning to this concept with tight platforming stages all based around going higher. It is one of the most perfect examples of working within limitations to create something almost wholly original in both style and form. Donkey Kong's legacy and popularity rose well above its origins as a first design project on a failed game hardware and reigns as one of the kings of the early arcade."
"Changing the arcade in more ways than one, Double Dragon accomplished many things upon its release in 1987. It calicified the cooperative and competitive drop-in-drop-out multiplayer experience. It rectified the looseness of precessors like Spartan X and Renegade with tightly laced encounter design wrapped inside a point-to-point structure. It successfully melded the Asian martial arts aesthetic and Western gang culture to create a game with appeal on both sides of the Pacific. More than anything, Double Dragon made melee combat truly work for the first time. With a combination of context sensitive attacks, combos, and enemies designed to work against the player, the beat-em-up finally felt as natural as the shoot-em-up. Double Dragon brought The Streets to street locations and spurred a revival of interest in arcade games which helped birth a new era in quarter-munching design."
"Computer games were a world of possibilities before Ultima Underworld. Then, they were a world of promises. Blue Sky's seminal work took games "off the grid" by creating a roleplaying game which truly embodied players into a character. Physics, inventory, and combat were given a treatment of authenticity that no prior game from the perspective had yet done. Ultima Underworld set a standard for fidelity which had less to do with the graphics or audio than with interaction. Stepping through the portal of a computer screen, the game defined "virtual reality" in a way that few had considered possible. Reactivity and consequence became the new defining element of the RPG experience after its release and continues to this day. A new bar for PC games was set by Ultima Underworld. A new future revealed. The gaming space of today continues to owe it a huge debt."