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Curious Kids<\/a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you\u2019d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n What was the first \u201cfirst-person shooter\u201d video game? Before \u201cCall of Duty<\/a>,\u201d before \u201cCounter-Strike<\/a>\u201d and before \u201cDoom<\/a>,\u201d there was \u201cMaze War<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n Generally considered the earliest first-person shooter game, or FPS, \u201cMaze War\u201d was developed at a NASA research center beginning in 1973. A year later, another FPS, \u201cSpasim<\/a>,\u201d debuted. It was developed at the University of Illinois.<\/p>\n In first-person shooters, players experience the game through the eyes of a character, using a gun or other weapon to attack enemies. To pull off this first-person perspective, developers needed to create a 3D world for the players to move through \u2013 no easy feat in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n At the time, the computer hardware behind the most popular arcade game, \u201cPONG<\/a>,\u201d and the first home video game system, the Magnavox Odyssey<\/a>, wasn\u2019t powerful enough to render the kind of 3D depth that allowed players to move forward into a virtual space, with objects appearing in the distance.<\/p>\n \u2018Maze War\u2019 was developed on the Imlac PDS-1. That\u2019s why both games were developed on systems that had more processing power and speed. \u201cMaze War\u201d first appeared on an Imlac PDS-1 minicomputer<\/a>, while \u201cSpasim\u201d \u2013 short for \u201cspace simulator\u201d \u2013 launched on PLATO<\/a>, an early networked computer system. <\/p>\n Since everyday people couldn\u2019t easily access the Imlac PDS-1 minicomputer or PLATO, these two games have been largely forgotten. But they paved the way for one of today\u2019s most popular video game genres<\/a>.<\/p>\n Out of sight, but not out of mind<\/p>\n Both games allowed players to move through a 3D space and shoot enemy figures that appeared onscreen in the player\u2019s view. <\/p>\n In \u201cSpasim,\u201d movement and shooting didn\u2019t occur in real time. You moved by jumping from one position to another, with a short lag time needed to render the next view.<\/p>\n In \u201cMaze War,\u201d players could move relatively smoothly in a straight line down hallways. Turning, however, needed to be done in 90-degree increments, which created some potentially confusing graphics as entire scenes abruptly appeared. In the single-player mode, danger could lurk just around the corner: Robots would automatically shoot you if they were in line with you down a hallway.<\/p>\n \u201cMaze War\u201d and \u201cSpasim\u201d also had multiplayer modes that allowed networked players to shoot at each other. Before video games, popular shooting games<\/a> \u2013 the kind found at fairs and carnivals \u2013 generally involved friendly competition, with players competing to see who could hit targets most accurately. The kill-or-be-killed death matches of \u201cMaze War\u201d and \u201cSpasim\u201d completely upended the way guns were used in play and competition.<\/p>\n In \u2018Maze War,\u2019 players are required to turn in 90-degree increments.<\/p>\n \u2018Maze War\u2019 introduced another new twist: the possibility of getting shot at and killed from behind, without ever seeing your attacker. Instead of the fixed and unchanging point of view found in a shooting gallery, \u2018Maze War\u2019 required you to constantly look around to try to keep track of everything in your immediate area. <\/p>\n And unlike most video games up to this point, players didn\u2019t see the entirety of a game\u2019s world from a godlike perspective. Instead, there was a sense of offscreen space surrounding the player, with events occurring out of the player\u2019s sight.<\/p>\n Building a 3D world with lines<\/p>\n Both \u2018Maze War\u2019 and \u2018Spasim\u2019 used what are called vector graphics<\/a>, which are images made by drawing lines directly between points on the screen. <\/p>\n Compared with the other popular form of computer graphics, known as raster graphics<\/a>, vector graphics were particularly well suited<\/a> for creating a first-person perspective. They contain clean lines that converge at a vanishing point, making a flat screen appear to stretch into the distance. Raster graphics, on the other hand, create pictures by filling in a grid of tiny pixels, an approach that was less suited to drawing the crisp lines needed to create this kind of perspective.<\/p>\n Diagonal lines create vanishing points that make a flat surface appear to stretch into the distance. By 1977, video game fans could play Cinematronic\u2019s \u201cSpace Wars<\/a>,\u201d which used vector graphics, at arcades. In 1978, Vectorbeam\u2019s \u201cSpeed Freak<\/a>\u201d deployed vector graphics to render the first real-time, 3D computer animation in an arcade video game \u2013 an explosion of car parts when the player crashed<\/a>. Atari\u2019s 1980 arcade game \u201cBattlezone<\/a>\u201d was a huge hit that gave many players their first chance to try a first-person shooting game.<\/p>\n \u201cMaze War\u201d and \u201cSpasim\u201d didn\u2019t have the aiming capabilities that players are used to today. Shooting was done with a keystroke, with aiming limited to facing in the right direction. Nor did they have the speed, spectacle and realism of their modern descendants. But they introduced something more fundamental: a new way of seeing and experiencing a video game.<\/p>\n
\n\u2013 James, age 12, Batesville, Arkansas<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/file-20260918-50-cg7oj8.png\")
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