Wraparound, in

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

s, is a

gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and pla ...

variation on the single-screen in which space is finite but unbounded; objects leaving one side of the screen immediately reappear on the opposite side, maintaining speed and trajectory. This is referred to as "

wraparound Wraparound, wrap around, or wrap-around is anything that wraps around something. It may more specifically refer to: Apparel * Wraparound sunglasses or goggles * Wraparound baby sling, or wrap, a piece of cloth that supports a baby * Wraparound ...

", since the top and bottom of the screen wrap around to meet, as do the left and right sides (this is topologically equivalent to a Euclidean 2-torus).''The medium of the video game''
Mark J. P. Wolf,

University of Texas Press The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books and journals in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texan ...

, 2001, 203 pp, p. 56, at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

Some games wrap around in some directions but not others, such as games of the ''Civilization'' series that wrap around left to right, or east and west but the top and bottom remain edges representing the North and South Pole (topologically equivalent to a

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infi ...

). In some games such as ''

Asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

'' there is no boundary and objects can travel over any part of the screen edge and reappear on the other side. Others such as ''

Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game, maze action game, action video game developed and released by Namco for Arcade game, arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its l ...

'', '' Wizard of Wor'', and some games in the ''

Bomberman is a video game franchise originally developed by Hudson Soft and currently owned by Konami. The original game, also known as ''Bakudan Otoko'' (''爆弾男''), was released in Japan in July 1983 and has since spawned multiple sequels and ...

'' series, have a boundary surrounding most of the playing area but have few paths connecting the left side to the right, or the top to the bottom, that characters can travel on.

History

1962's ''

Spacewar! ''Spacewar!'' is a space combat video game developed in 1962 by Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. It was written for the newly installed DEC PDP-1 minicomputer at the Mas ...

'' had a wraparound playfield, as did the first commercial arcade video game, ''

Computer Space ''Computer Space'' is a space combat simulation, space combat arcade game developed in 1971. Created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering, it was the first arcade video game as well as the first commercially avail ...

'' (1971). Wraparound was common in games throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including ''

Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the ...

'' (1973), ''

Combat Combat (French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed ( not using weapons). Combat is sometimes resorted to as a method of self-defense, o ...

'' (1977), ''

'' (1979), and ''

Star Castle ''Star Castle'' is a vector graphics Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associat ...

'' (1980). '' Surround'' (1977) for the Atari 2600 has a gameplay option called "wraparound" in the manual.

References

External links

Wraparound world
at

Giant Bomb ''Giant Bomb'' is an American video game website and wiki that includes personality-driven gaming videos, commentary, news, and reviews, created by former ''GameSpot'' editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis. The website was voted by ''Time'' ma ...

, video games that use wraparound Video game gameplay Video game graphics {{Videogame-gameplay-stub

History

See also

References

External links