Editing PC game (section)

=== Mainframes and minicomputers ===
{{See also|Early mainframe games}}[[File:Spacewar1.svg|thumb|250px|right|''[[Spacewar!]]'', developed for the [[PDP-1]] in 1961, is often credited as being the second ever computer game. The game consisted of two player-controlled spaceships maneuvering around a central star, each attempting to destroy the other.]]

''[[Bertie the Brain]]'' was one of the first game playing machines developed. It was built in 1950 by [[Josef Kates]]. It measured more than four meters tall, and was displayed at the [[Canadian National Exhibition]] that year.<ref name="bertie">{{cite web|url=https://plarium.com/en/blog/the-first-video-game/|title=What was the first video game, who invented it and why|work=[[Plarium]]|date=2018-05-15|access-date=2018-06-22}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=January 2024}}

Although personal computers only became popular with the development of the [[microprocessor]] and [[microcomputer]], computer gaming on [[Mainframe computer|mainframes]] and [[minicomputer]]s had previously already existed. [[OXO (video game)|''OXO'']], an adaptation of [[tic-tac-toe]] for the [[EDSAC]], debuted in 1952. Another pioneer computer game was developed in 1961, when [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] students Martin Graetz and [[Alan Kotok]], with [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] student [[Steve Russell (computer scientist)|Steve Russell]], developed ''[[Spacewar!]]'' on a [[PDP-1]] [[mainframe computer]] used for statistical calculations.<ref name="spacewar">{{cite book | author=Levy, Steven | year = 1984 | title = [[Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution]] | publisher=Anchor Press/Doubleday | isbn = 0-385-19195-2}}</ref>

The first generation of computer games were often [[Text-based game|text-based]] [[adventure game|adventures]] or [[interactive fiction]], in which the player communicated with the computer by entering commands through a keyboard. An early text-adventure, ''[[Colossal Cave Adventure|Adventure]]'', was developed for the [[PDP-11]] [[minicomputer]] by Will Crowther in 1976, and expanded by Don Woods in 1977.<ref name="adventure">{{cite journal|url=http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009/000009.html |year=2007 | title=Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original 'Adventure' in Code and in Kentucky |access-date=September 29, 2007|author=Jerz, Dennis | journal=Digital Humanities Quarterly|volume=001 |issue=2 }}</ref> By the 1980s, personal computers had become powerful enough to run games like ''Adventure'', but by this time, graphics were beginning to become an important factor in games. Later games combined textual commands with basic graphics, as seen in the SSI [[Gold Box]] games such as ''[[Pool of Radiance]]'', or ''[[The Bard's Tale (1985 video game)|The Bard's Tale]]'', for example.