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I love thinking about the lineage of modern games. Take the rhythm action games of today. Games like Crypt of the Necrodancer, Parappa the Rapper, Space Channel 5 - and even Rockband, Guitar Hero, etc. You can trace them all the way back to Simon Says. [A thread]
Simon says has been a playground game since the before times. In it, one person is "Simon" and every has to do what "Simon says." But if "Simon" doesn't say "Simon says..." before his or her command, and someone does it, they're out, because "Simon didn't say."
This game doesn't directly relate to Parappa, but it did lead to the electronic game Simon in 1978 (Touch Me before that, etc. but Simon was the breakout). Simon was made by Ralpha Baer and Milton Bradley. If you recognize that former name, it's because Ralph is the creator of...
...the modern concept of "video games." Simon stood out because it used musical notes as well as color and light to present a pattern that then required the player to repeat it accurately back. Starting with one note, and adding a note every round. What made it compulsive was
the ability to hear a song in the random notes - not just the color or pattern. Collectively, we used more of our senses to repeat the pattern. It was a hit, and made Milton Bradley millions. Now fast forward to 1984. The small budget movie Breakin' hits the scene just as
hip-hop and breakdancing starts to explode aroudn the world. It's a major hit, and soon everyone wants in on the "breakdancing" genre. The Commodore 64 is the number one home computer at the time, and leading developer Epyx commisions Beck-Tech to make a breakdancing game.
Beck-Tech worked on some clever ports of Congo Bongo, did the excellent Spike's Peak on 2600, great ports of Tapper - and then later 9 to 5 Typing, but I digress. They had to answer the question of how to translate the rhythmic action of the movie to the computer screen.
In the movie, the concept of a dance off sees group try to out dance one another, often repeating and augmenting the dance of their opponent. Based on this simple concept, the team ressurected the now ancient (in tech years) gameplay of Electronic Simon. The basic mode sees the
player watching and dance set to music, and then must repeat that sequence. It gets more and more complex over time. But Beck-Tech wasn't the only developer. The theory of twos proves out as Creative Software was ALSO working on a C64 break dancing game, Break Street.
It was more of a traditional game, ironically playing more like Epyx' Summer Games. Anyway, Break Dance created a digital version of the Breakin' Dance Battles and created a mold based on Simon. Observe and listen -> Mimic -> repeat. I'm gonna skip a bunch of games I'm sure...
But this is just my mental barf this morning and I'm too tired to research more things. Let's jump to 1996 - Parappa the Rappa. I loved this game! It, too, evolves the Simon style gameplay and moves it to a more beat-driven system. The characters and story also do so much to
push the genre. But at its heart, it's still Observe and listen -> mimic -> repeat. Four years later, it would be refined a but more and become extra stylish with Space Channel 5. This asynchronous play was challenged a year earlier by Konami with Drum Mania and Guitar Freaks.
Which, of course, led to Guitar Hero, etc. Amplitude and Frequency also came onto the scene and the genre evolved with them, from the Observe and Listen -> Mimic -> repeat to the immediate Anticipate -> Match -> repeat, which required you to match notes as they happen, instead of
turn based. Anyway, I was just thinking about this and decided to think out loud. OBVIOUSLY there is a much deeper story here, lots of games missed, but having grown up with these games, it's fun to think about their lineage.
