What game had the first ending?

[Vamino]

Most early games just loop endlessly, possibly starting on a harder loop after some end credits, and some abruptly ending at some sort of kill screen.

Anyone know what game had the first proper ending when the credit ended after some sort of completion?

Cheers.

 

[big10p]

Good question!

 

[chris2922]

Crystal Castles maybe?

 

[69er]

Probably ‘pong’ as in table tennis a win score is achieved or alternative similar games , only a limited number of balls were served or timed out on a game end clock.?

Similarly early driving games were once at the finish line was end of credit..win or 2nd 3rd place result?

Early 80s games I am sure had an end Hunchback rescues Esmeralda after several screens but other games introduced ‘add credit to continue’ so were made more endless to generate income especially like Ikari Warriors 2 player interactive add coin to join add coin to continue etc

Many do end and you register a high score but don’t recall which ones once so many were launched… I know back in the late 70s visiting game distributors showrooms was the best day out you could imagine assuming they believed you were interested in buying one of course … Associated Leisure in Warrington was brilliant as was Hazelgrove Music at Cheadle they both supplied brewery pub sites so had all the latest stuff in the showrooms … wow!

I may be wrong can’t recall that many that I could actually complete myself but the wife gets through ALL 30 levels of PuzzleBobble with ease and achieves about 16,500,000 points and a hall of fame roll up ‘names or initials’ as many high score recording games did too , but going back to the question , I think a lot of b/w 70s sport based games just ended ?

Coin spent score noted smiling face walk away either happy or ashamed with personal performance . Maybe return next day with a few more 10p s as the words GAME OVER burn immortally into the screen …

 

[Vamino]

Interesting, I overlooked those games with timers and the like.
I guess Pong does have an ending of sorts, but would that be considered a score based ending?

I was thinking more along the lines of completing 30 levels of Puzzle Bobble or finishing all the levels on Crystal Castles to get to the end. Any idea what the earliest race game that had a definite game ending goal?

Just checked on the tubes of You, it looks like Hunchback loops again after saving Esmarelda. I thought you had come up with a winner there mate!

 

[Lurch666]

For me a proper ending is something that's achieved by playing well.
Running out of time or reaching a score is inevitable so not something that's 'reached' by playing.
I would consider the early racing games that had a finish line to be the original completable game.
Been looking for one I remember from the late 70s but it's not in mame and I can't find it on the net.
It was a b/w racing game driving up the screen but the road zig zagd side to side. If you played well enough you reached a finish line and a fanfare played but I only ever saw it once in an arcade at the Golden sands holiday camp in Dawlish warren.

 

[big10p]

For me a proper ending is something that's achieved by playing well.
Running out of time or reaching a score is inevitable so not something that's 'reached' by playing.
I would consider the early racing games that had a finish line to be the original completable game.
Been looking for one I remember from the late 70s but it's not in mame and I can't find it on the net.
It was a b/w racing game driving up the screen but the road zig zagd side to side. If you played well enough you reached a finish line and a fanfare played but I only ever saw it once in an arcade at the Golden sands holiday camp in Dawlish warren.

Night Driver?

 

[Georgian2]

To be honest, eco fighters ist the only arcade game that i finished. It's got some nice ending. Not the first game with an ending for sure.

 

[Lurch666]

Night Driver?

Night driver didn't have an end and was more 3D.
The one I'm remembering was like laguna racer by taito but the road zigzagged instead of being straight all the time.

 

[big10p]

Night driver didn't have an end and was more 3D.
The one I'm remembering was like laguna racer by taito but the road zigzagged instead of being straight all the time.

Is it possible it was an EM game? Would explain why it's not in MAME.

 

[Lurch666]

Definitely a video game.

 

[John Bennett]

Home computer games might have had proper endings before arcade games - you can easily find stuff like Mystery House (1980) that has endings.
Maybe early arcade games tailored to a different audience to later stuff, and it was all about the high score. Saved on making/storing an ending too.

Edit -I shouldn’t have waited so long to click submit, as beaten to it above.🤪

 

[69er]

My later to be work partner in late 70s had what I thought was first time I saw a video with some colour crt (not overlay film) was a driver and big thing had 4 player steering and upward facing screen I think iirc it might have been called Indy4 or Indy racer? It got swapped in about 1979 for a 1930s Waltonian arm skill prize rotor also had 4 play sides and took loads more money think the driver thing just went on a bonfire you couldn’t sell huge games to anyone back then and often just gave them to other operators on Rhyl seafront on swaps it was in Lyon’s camp and it was too big to fit the doorway to our other camp Sunnyvale , I do know I hardly ever saw 4 players on that driver at once maybe 2 sometimes , that had a zigzag sort of track if I recall ? Sunnyvale was a secure tenure and always in our control for nearly 30 years till Dr Bob died and family sold the camp but Lyon’s was tendered every two years sometimes between our 4 terms in there the bigger payers only lasted a year or left after 2 so it was bit annoying to find storage for many machines but we took on some smaller sites by 1980 just for that reason and hired all sorts of hen sheds on farms to store pinballs and wall allwins and mills arm pull penny 2p bandits Lyon’s arcade closed for good when it amalgamated with Robin Hood camp who had there own operator and shut Lyon’s building … we got a longer season by loaning some games to the big arcades on shares if they had space…
However with forward thinking he had by the late 70s formed Clwyd Coin also supplying pooltables to pubs , clubs, transport cafes and sports centres a fairly new and untapped coin op venture back then and so began a life of install move and recloth business to last over 4 decades .. with lots of slots on the side and all year round,.and by 1980 had an operating depot and sales office

 

[Bods]

That is a good question, some of the endings suck big time on C64 with just "THE END"

The best ending on an older game I've seen was Barbarian 2 on the Amiga

 

[69er]

Just to follow on from Bods above I was just moving some old probably deduct boards and I came across a game we converted ourselves with a kit on a Galaxian not the Konami original called …

THE END like a Galaxian troop of aliens come to the defender to steal bricks which they carry up screen to build the words THE. … END You shoot them as they peel off until you run out of lives or till all the stock of bricks are stolen to build THEEND which it is

If I recall the brick stacks while there do like space invaders offer some shielding from attacking bombers

A shame I think the game died decades ago and to be fair it’s an awful butchering of a Galaxian to accommodate the JCM rom kit and added wire links necessary. Early 80s when galaxians were spent and not desired base boards could be bought for about a fiver working .