Most games won’t keep track of your High Score anymore, but the desire to climb the local leaderboard was once a huge draw to arcade players the world over.
This edition of Bite-Sized Game History looks back at one of those competitors and their complete mastery of Space Invaders, as well as the sinister shenanigans that were almost included in The Sims, and Shigeru Miyamoto’s influence on the original SimCity.
You can find a lot of dedicated video game historians on Twitter, and in 280 characters or less, they always manage to unearth some amazing artifacts. Bite-Sized Game History aims to collect some of the best stuff I find on the social media platform.
Historian Catherine DeSpira regularly chronicles the early days of the arcade era, and she recently discovered an article from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin about Howard Yee, a teenage Space Invaders prodigy who once held the Guinness World Record for the longest game on a single quarter:
Back in 1980 I remember an L.A. morning show talked about a kid who marathoned Space Invaders for 6 hours on one quarter. He was the 1st in USA to do so.Been looking for him for years, thinking he was from Cali. Finally found something on him. He was from HAWAII. #ArcadeHistory pic.twitter.com/h2dfkD5hSL
— Catherine DeSpira (@CatDeSpira) December 30, 2018
Playing any game for six hours straight has to be tough on the thumbs, but a sadistic streak is actually a pretty common trait among many players of The Sims. While the game gives players all the tools they need to live out their suburban dreams, it also includes several inventive ways to torture your housemates. But one such method was left on the cutting room floor.
While perusing The Strong Museum of Play’s Will Wright Collection, curator Andrew Borman found a hastily scribbled note for “Serial Killer?” under a list of possible jobs for your Sim:
Planning out the rest of our Magfest panel, looking at some of Will Wrights notebooks at @museumofplay for the Sims. Apparently, Serial Killer was a possible vocation that was considered, at least briefly. pic.twitter.com/qtySRQvatv
— Andrew Borman (@Borman18) December 10, 2018
Serial killers never made it into The Sims, but did you know that the franchise’s whimsical tone was partially shaped by Shigeru Miyamoto? Frank Cifaldi, the Director of the Video Game History Foundation found this photo of the famed developer and Will Wright. They were most likely discussing the SNES/NES port of SimCity, Maxis’s original city builder:
The more I examined the Nintendo version of SimCity, the more interesting it got. Did you know that Will Wright flew to Kyoto and spent a week with Shigeru Miyamoto to "Nintendo-ize" the game? pic.twitter.com/ld07gIOSK6
— Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi) December 25, 2018
I wonder if they also had a nice chat about serial killers?
I’m closing the lid on this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, but you can follow me on Twitter for more bite-sized history lessons throughout the months ahead.