Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy manual

Trigger Happy

refining them. They are exactly those skills exercised by modern target videogames such as Time Crisis 2.

Games of chance, meanwhile, seem to have originated from a belief that divine will could be glimpsed through seemingly random machinations; the I Ching, for example, is a book of wisdom in which hexagrams are consulted according to a random sequence of twig manipulations. But most “games of chance” are not totally aleatory: a player in an ancient game such as backgammon or dominoes must still use skill to decide which piece to play next, or where to put the counter. Over time, these simple forms of game seem to have evolved gradually so as to make more long-term cognitive demands of the player. Skill is transmuted into strategy.

“In the history of civilization,” writes game historian Brian Sutton-Smith, “games of strategy seem to have emerged when societies increased in complexity to such an extent that there was a need for diplomacy and strategic warfare.” He describes one of the earliest examples: mancala, or wari, which was an ancient Egyptian strategy game. Each player controls a number of counters on the board, and the game involves using numerical and strategic judgment to capture the opponent’s pieces. Mancala is clearly a

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