''Video Checkers'' is a video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. in 1980 for the Atari VCS, renamed to

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridg ...

Gameplay

The game is based on the traditional game of

checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), is a group of Abstract strategy game, strategy board games for two players which involve forward movements of uniform game ...

, called draughts outside North America. It has 19 variations of play.

Development

The game was developed by

Carol Shaw Carol Shaw (born 1955) is one of the first female Video game design, game designers and Programmer, programmers in the video game industry. She is best known for creating the Atari 2600 vertically scrolling shooter game ''River Raid'' (1982) for ...

at Atari. She was one of Atari's earliest female programmers, and ''Video Checkers'' and ''3D Tic-Tac-Toe'' are two of the first commercially-released video games written by a woman. She accepted the project because

Bob Whitehead Robert A. Whitehead (born November 1, 1953) is an American video game designer and programmer. While working for Atari, Inc. he wrote two of the nine Atari Video Computer System launch titles: ''Blackjack'' and '' Star Ship''. After leaving Atari ...

was working on '' Video Chess'' at the time. Working with 4

kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for Computer data storage, digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix ''kilo-, kilo'' as a multiplication factor of 1000 (103); therefore, one kilobyte is 1000&nbs ...

s of

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

and the system's 128

byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

s of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

, her algorithm uses

alpha–beta pruning Alpha–beta pruning is a search algorithm that seeks to decrease the number of nodes that are evaluated by the Minimax#Minimax algorithm with alternate moves, minimax algorithm in its game tree, search tree. It is an adversarial search algorith ...

. This is more sophisticated than the algorithm developed at the same time by

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

co-founder Alan Miller for his version of ''Checkers'', which uses 2 kilobytes of ROM. Miller later called Shaw to offer her a job at Activision, impressed with her work on ''Video Checkers''. The artwork for the game was done by Steve Hendricks. The game's release was announced at

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

in June 1980.

Reception

Writing in ''The Player's Strategy Guide to Atari VCS Home Video Games'' in 1982, ''

Electronic Games ''Electronic Games'' was the first dedicated video game magazine published in the United States and ran from October 15, 1981, to 1997 under different titles. It was co-founded by Bill Kunkel, Joyce Worley, and Arnie Katz. History The h ...

'' editors Arnie Katz and Bill Kunkel called the game "moderately challenging", remarking that the

computer player In video games, artificial intelligence (AI) is used to generate responsive, adaptive or intelligent behaviors primarily in non-playable characters (NPCs) similar to human-like intelligence. Artificial intelligence has been an integral part o ...

"is usually capable of matching the skill level of just about any player". In a June 1983 review of ''Video Checkers'', the game was described as "rather limited in its interest ..unless you are an addict of the game". In the 1984 German book, ''Das grosse Handbuch der Video Spiele'', Harmut Huff gave the game a middling score. In the 2011 book ''Classic Home Video Games, 1972-1984 A Complete Reference Guide'', Brett Weiss praised the computer player, saying it did "a reasonably good job", but criticized the way the screen blanks while planning its turn. In the 2018 book ''The A-Z of Atari 2600 Games: Volume 2'', Kieren Hawken gave a negative review, criticizing the "sluggish" controls, the slow speed at which the computer takes its turns, and the basic graphics, giving the game a score of 3/10 overall.

Legacy

''Video Checkers'' was re-released in 2003 for Windows in the collection ''Atari: 80 Classic Games in One!'' and in 2017 on the

Atari Flashback series The Atari Flashback is a line of dedicated video game consoles produced since 2004, currently designed, produced, published and marketed by AtGames under license from Atari SA. The Flashback consoles are "plug-and-play" versions of the 1970s At ...

of consoles.

References

{{Reflist 1980 video games Atari 2600 games Atari 2600-only games Draughts Turn-based strategy video games Video games based on board games Video games developed in the United States Multiplayer and single-player video games

Gameplay

Development

Reception

Legacy

See also

References