Gaming

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Pokémon Red and Blue

Catch 151 creatures on a Game Boy, trade the rest through a link cable. The 1998 Western release, with a cartoon, a card game and a hundred-million-dollar marketing push, produced the playground craze of 1999: card bans in schools, a Time magazine cover, a film, and the rumour about a truck outside the S.S. Anne. The record files the rumour below.

▸ 1996peak 1999†2001

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Quake

id Software's true-3D follow-up to Doom, with a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack and, from December 1996, internet play that worked over a modem. It made the deathmatch a sport: QuakeCon started in 1996 as a LAN party in a hotel, and in 1997 a player called Thresh won John Carmack's Ferrari in a tournament, which the record files as the first esports prize anyone remembers.

▸ 1996peak 1997†2000

● Aliven.✎ 4

Resident Evil

A mansion, fixed camera angles, tank controls, zombie dogs through a window, and voice acting so bad it is loved. The 1996 game coined 'survival horror', sold millions on the PlayStation and built a franchise that never left: remakes in 2002 and 2019 to 2024, six films, and a 2023 remake of the fourth game. The record files the dogs.

▸ 1996peak 1998still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Super Mario 64

The first 3D platformer that worked, with an analogue stick built for it and a castle full of paintings. It sold the Nintendo 64 in 1996 and then, twenty years later, became the most-studied game in speedrunning, with its A-button challenge, parallel universes and a sealed copy that sold for $1.56 million in 2021. The record files both lives.

▸ 1996peak 1997still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

3D Pinball: Space Cadet

The one pinball table bundled with Windows from the mid-1990s to XP, played by everyone with a work computer and no internet. It was a cut-down version of a Maxis game, and it vanished from Vista in 2007 because, according to the Microsoft engineer who tried to port it, the ball fell through the table on 64-bit systems.

▸ 1995peak 2001†2007

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Command & Conquer

A real-time strategy game with live-action cutscenes, a bald cult leader called Kane, and a mineral called tiberium that everyone harvested and nobody understood. Westwood's 1995 game and Blizzard's Warcraft II split the genre between them for the rest of the decade. The 2020 remaster brought back the original with its source code released.

▸ 1995peak 1997†2010

● Aliveabbr.✎ 3

GG

Good game, typed at the end whether it was or not. The one piece of sportsmanship the internet kept, and it is two letters.

▸ 1995peak 2005still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Worms

Cartoon worms in trenches lobbing bazookas, exploding sheep and a holy hand grenade at each other, turn by turn, with a shared keyboard. A teenager's Amiga project, published by Team17 in 1995, became Britain's favourite same-sofa multiplayer game, and Worms Armageddon (1999) still receives patches from the studio.

▸ 1995peak 1999still up

● Aliven.✎ 1

Speedrun

Finishing a game as fast as possible, timed and ruled. The one form of play that turned into a science, with journals, referees and scandals.

▸ 1994peak 2016still up

↺ Undeadn.✎ 4

Doom

The first-person shooter that defined the phrase, uploaded as shareware to a university FTP server in December 1993 while so many people waited that the server had to be cleared. It ran on office networks against company policy, was blamed for Columbine in 1999, and now runs on anything with a screen. The 2016 reboot brought it back at speed.

▸ 1993peak 1994†2004

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Myst

A silent island of pre-rendered stills and puzzles, made by two brothers in Washington state, that became the best-selling PC game of the 1990s and the reason people bought CD-ROM drives. Its trend moment was the arrival of the multimedia PC in living rooms, and its critics said it was not really a game. Millions bought it anyway.

▸ 1993peak 1995†2000

● Aliven.✎ 3

Roguelike

A game like Rogue (1980): procedurally generated, turn-based, and finished by dying and starting again, a genre named on Usenet in 1993 and argued over ever since, particularly whether the real-time 'roguelites' of the 2010s count. The record notes the argument has a name (the Berlin Interpretation) and no winner.

▸ 1993peak 2018still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 3

Blast Processing

Sega's 1992 marketing term for a feature of the Genesis that made it, according to the adverts, faster than the Super Nintendo; nobody at Sega could satisfactorily say what it was, and the record notes the phrase has outlived every engineer who was asked. The first console-war buzzword, and the template for all the rest.

▸ 1992peak 1993†1995

↺ Undeadn.✎ 4

Mortal Kombat

Digitised actors, a spine-ripping fatality and a moral panic. The 1992 arcade game's home release was marketed as 'Mortal Monday' in September 1993, and by December senators were holding hearings about it. The result was the ESRB ratings system in 1994. The record notes the 2011 reboot revived the series and the 2023 one is still going.

▸ 1992peak 1993†2008

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Wolfenstein 3D

A first-person run through a Nazi castle, released as shareware in May 1992, that made the first-person shooter a genre and id Software a name. Its trend moment was short because the same five people released Doom the following year, but for eighteen months it was the game on every office PC.

▸ 1992peak 1992†1993

● Aliven.✎ 4

Civilization

Take a tribe from 4000 BC to the space race, one turn at a time, for longer than intended. The 1991 original invented 'just one more turn' as a diagnosis, and every sequel since has been accused of ruining someone's exams. The record files the whole series and notes that the Gandhi nuclear legend is dealt with below.

▸ 1991peak 2016still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Lemmings

Green-haired creatures walk mindlessly towards cliffs and the player assigns them jobs to survive. The Dundee studio's 1991 puzzle game sold across every platform of the decade, made 'lemming' a household verb for a while, and is the reason the company that later made Grand Theft Auto existed at all.

▸ 1991peak 1992†1996

↺ Undeadn.✎ 4

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sega's answer to Mario: a blue hedgehog with attitude, speed instead of precision, and a marketing line about 'blast processing'. The 1991 game made the Mega Drive a real rival to Nintendo and started the console war of the decade. The record files the 2006 collapse and the 2020 film, whose trailer redesign is its own chapter.

▸ 1991peak 1992†2006

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Street Fighter II

The fighting game that filled arcades with queues of coins on the cabinet glass. Capcom's 1991 sequel invented the competitive fighting game as a social event, sold the SNES, and was re-released as Champion Edition, Turbo, Super and Super Turbo until players lost count. Every fighting game tournament descends from the crowd around its cabinet.

▸ 1991peak 1992†1996

↺ Undeadn.✎ 4

Solitaire (Windows)

Klondike solitaire, written by a Microsoft intern who was never paid for it and shipped with Windows 3.0 in 1990 to teach people to drag with a mouse. It became the most-played game on the planet by accident, a byword for office time-wasting, and was cut from Windows 8 in 2012 and restored to Windows 10 in 2015 after complaints.

▸ 1990peak 1998†2012

● Aliven.✎ 2

Console War

The recurring argument over which company's box is better, waged by children in playgrounds since Sega picked a fight with Nintendo in 1989 and by adults on forums ever since, with the same intensity and roughly the same evidence. The record notes the wars are now fought mainly by people who own both consoles and one opinion.

▸ 1989peak 1994still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Prince of Persia

A one-hour dungeon escape whose running, jumping prince moved like a real person because his creator rotoscoped film of his younger brother in a car park. Ported to everything, it was the game that made computer characters look like they had weight, and the 2003 reboot and the 2010 film came from the same source.

▸ 1989peak 1992†1995

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

SimCity

The city-building game that made zoning a hobby and 'Sim' a prefix. Its trend moment ran from 1989 through SimCity 2000 in 1993, when it was used in classrooms and urban planning courses. The 2013 reboot required an internet connection, its servers failed at launch, and the series ended there; a Finnish studio's Cities: Skylines inherited the audience in 2015.

▸ 1989peak 1994†2013

● Aliven.✎ 4

Dragon Quest

Japan's founding console role-playing game, with art by the creator of Dragon Ball. Its trend moment was 1988, when Dragon Quest III sold out on a school day and the queues outside Tokyo shops made the news, producing the durable legend that Japan passed a law banning weekday releases. The record files the legend below and notes the series is still a national event.

▸ 1986peak 1988still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

The Legend of Zelda

An overhead adventure in a gold cartridge with a battery so it could remember where you were. Nintendo's 1986 original was the first console game many players got stuck in and had to ask friends about, and the hotline and the fold-out map in the box were as much a part of the craze as the game.

▸ 1986peak 1988†1992

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Super Mario Bros.

The side-scrolling plumber game that rebuilt the games industry after the 1983 crash. Packed in with the NES, it sold tens of millions of copies, taught a generation the phrase 'the princess is in another castle', and in 2021 a sealed copy sold at auction for two million dollars, which the record files under 'the craze never entirely ended'.

▸ 1985peak 1987†1991

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

An educational detective game in which a thief in a red coat steals landmarks and children look her up in the almanac that came in the box. It became a franchise: a PBS quiz show with a house band, a cartoon, a theme song by an a cappella group, and a Netflix series in 2019 for the children of the original players.

▸ 1985peak 1991†1998

● Aliven.✎ 4

Tetris

Falling tetrominoes, cleared by completing lines, written by a Soviet programmer in 1984 and packed in with every Game Boy from 1989. The record files it as the game that sold a handheld to adults, produced its own named psychological effect, and in 2023 was finally beaten by a thirteen-year-old.

▸ 1984peak 1989still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Donkey Kong

A carpenter called Jumpman climbs girders to rescue a woman from an ape throwing barrels. Nintendo's 1981 arcade hit saved the company's American arm, introduced Mario, and decades later became the subject of a documentary, a disputed world record and a formal removal of scores from the record books.

▸ 1981peak 1982†1985

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Pac-Man

A yellow circle eating dots in a maze while four ghosts chase it. Namco's 1980 arcade game became 'Pac-Man Fever' in the United States by 1982: a top-ten novelty single of that name, a Saturday-morning cartoon, lunchboxes, and the first video game character to be recognised by people who had never played one.

▸ 1980peak 1982†1984

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Space Invaders

Rows of pixel aliens descending in lockstep, faster as you thinned them, to a four-note heartbeat. Taito's 1978 arcade game was Japan's first video game craze and then the world's: dedicated Invader houses in Japan, the Atari 2600 port that sold the console in 1980, and a legend about coins that the record examines below.

▸ 1978peak 1979†1982

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Pong

Two paddles, one square ball, and the first video game most people ever touched. Atari's 1972 arcade cabinet started a coin-op industry, and the 1975 home version sold through Sears put a games console next to the television for the first time. The record files it as the trend that made the medium.

▸ 1972peak 1975†1978

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

The Oregon Trail

A text-and-pixel simulation of the 1848 wagon route, written by three student teachers in Minnesota in 1971 and shipped to nearly every American school computer by the late 1980s. Its trend moment lasted a generation of classrooms; its afterlife is the phrase 'you have died of dysentery' and the term 'Oregon Trail generation' for people born around 1980.

▸ 1971peak 1990†2000