Introduction
In this assignment, the scenario given to me is that I’m a junior programmer employed by a software
company which develops a broad range of software including video games. The company set me the
job to write an article describing and evaluating the impacts that current and emerging technologies
have on the design and development of computer games.
How did go from this: To this:
Firstly, video games started never having any graphical interface since computers in the past never
used to have graphics cards or graphics allocated memory. The computers back then could only
perform basic calculations and output the data to a screen using the CPU (central processing unit).
Eventually, computer games were using a graphical user interface system which allowed low-
resolution 8-bit graphics. The image above is a good example of this (source of 1971: Star Trek: A
Text Adventure).
As graphics chips developed in the video game industry, they become progressively better and then
additionally started to offer colours
into 2d pixel art games (source of
1985: Super Mario Bros).
Graphics chips during the 1980s were
only competent in processing small
amounts of data. The highest screen
resolutions were 256 x 240 or
320x200 pixels but in the present day,
the highest monitor resolution is
7680px x 4320px making games have
higher quality graphics. 8-bit pixel art
games could only output between 25-
32 colours on a screen at once, out of
256 different colours and shades.
Retro game consoles like the
Nintendo Entertainment System use
mono audio for game effects which
usually are them legendary melodies
and sound effects we all know of.
Devices and game consoles had very
little storage, and that was used for
storing music, graphics, and storing
In this assignment, the scenario given to me is that I’m a junior programmer employed by a software
company which develops a broad range of software including video games. The company set me the
job to write an article describing and evaluating the impacts that current and emerging technologies
have on the design and development of computer games.
How did go from this: To this:
Firstly, video games started never having any graphical interface since computers in the past never
used to have graphics cards or graphics allocated memory. The computers back then could only
perform basic calculations and output the data to a screen using the CPU (central processing unit).
Eventually, computer games were using a graphical user interface system which allowed low-
resolution 8-bit graphics. The image above is a good example of this (source of 1971: Star Trek: A
Text Adventure).
As graphics chips developed in the video game industry, they become progressively better and then
additionally started to offer colours
into 2d pixel art games (source of
1985: Super Mario Bros).
Graphics chips during the 1980s were
only competent in processing small
amounts of data. The highest screen
resolutions were 256 x 240 or
320x200 pixels but in the present day,
the highest monitor resolution is
7680px x 4320px making games have
higher quality graphics. 8-bit pixel art
games could only output between 25-
32 colours on a screen at once, out of
256 different colours and shades.
Retro game consoles like the
Nintendo Entertainment System use
mono audio for game effects which
usually are them legendary melodies
and sound effects we all know of.
Devices and game consoles had very
little storage, and that was used for
storing music, graphics, and storing
