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Flip-screen Computer Games


Flip-screen Computer Games


Flip-screen computer games are computer games that do not update their drawspaces via interpolation or screen-scrolling. Instead, the drawspace switches to a new drawspace when the edges of the screen are reached. Often, the new screen is graphically contiguous with the one that came before, but such is not a requirement.

However, to be classified as flip-screen a computer game must feature contiguous exploration of an environment.


Early Flip-screen Games


Castle Wolfenstein 1981 Apple II


Silas Warner of Muse Software designed and coded Castle Wolfenstein in 1981 for the 48 kbyte Apple 2. Castle Wolfenstein features flip-screen exploration of a 60-room procedurally-generated castle. The object of Castle Wolfenstein is to find battle plans and escape the castle by means of stealth and violence. Castle Wolfenstein features 8-way movement and strafe-firing; that is, you can move in one direction while firing in another. Being (a seminal) stealth computer game, sound plays a part in CW. There are footstep, gun-fire and out-of-ammo sounds as well as "digitized" speech. Needless to say, CW was an amazing computer game in 1981.


Conceptually, "Wolfenstein 2D" is a 1984-level computer game. In terms of audio-visuals and gameplay, not so much. For example, the sprites flicker, the sound is harsh on the ears and chests take too long to open.

The movement, firing and viewport of Castle Wolfenstein was influenced by Stern Electronics' Berzerk shoot 'em up of 1980.

In turn, Castle Wolfenstein influenced id Software's Wolfenstein 3D.

Manic Miner 1983 ZX Spectrum


Matthew Smith's Manic Miner on the ZX Spectrum is not a flip-screen computer game because the next level or cavern is accessed via portal-exit rather than screen-edge exits. In Manic Miner a cavern is just a level, and passing through a portal simply switches to the next level. To be clear, this is not a criticism. Manic Miner was one of the most charming and fun-to-play computer games of the early 80s.


There are 20 separate screens or levels in Manic Miner.

Jet Set Willy 1984 ZX Spectrum


On the other hand, Matthew Smith's Jet Set Willy features contiguous horizontal and vertical edgescreen exploration of 60 separate screens. That is, one can take an exit to the north, south, east or west to explore the rooms of a mansion. In addition, rooms can be revisited. Thus Jet Set Willy is a flip-screen computer game because its exploration is contiguous, forming a map in the mind.


Technically, Manic Miner portal-transitions and Jet Set Willy edgescreen transitions are akin: they are simply updating to another screen; there is no seamless transition, no screen-scrolling. Only the transition-triggers are different, but Jet Set Willy is 4-way environmentally contiguous.

Impossible Mission 1984 Commodore 64


Dennis Caswell's Impossible Mission on the Commodore 64 also features contiguous screen-edge exploration via fancy wipe transitions. Featuring a rotoscoped avatar, automap, interactable pocket computer, interactable placeables, moveable platforms, digitized speech, vertically-scrolling elevator movement and Rogue-like procedural generation, Impossible Mission was an advanced platform-adventure game for 1984.


Knight Lore 1984 ZX Spectrum



Highway Encounter 1985 ZX Spectrum


Costa Panayi of Vortex Software coded Highway Encounter in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum. The best ZX Spectrum game ever made, Highway Encounter is an immaculately-presented isometric flip-screen computer game with excellent controls, mechanics and graphics. There are 30 separate screens in Highway Encounter.


Starquake ZX Spectrum 1985


Stephen Crow's Starquake of 1985 for the ZX Spectrum is a side-on flip-screen platformer that is practically perfect in terms of controls, playability and audio-visuals. There are 512 separate screens in Starquake.


Starquake was ported to the Atari ST in 1988.


Labyrinth Commodore 64 1986


LucasFilm Games released Labyrinth for the Commodore 64 in 1986. Precursor to the SCUMM-engine games (Maniac Mansion of 1987), Labyrinth is an adventure-maze game that features a combination of flip-screen exploration and horizontal scrolling. Labyrinth also features an inventory, a scrolling list of commands, sprite-animations, sprite-scaling, ladder climbing and a Defender-like radar bar. Labyrinth was designed and programmed by Charlie Kellner and David Fox.


The Last Ninja 1987 Commodore 64


System 3's The Last Ninja (1987-1991) is an isometric flip-screen series of arcade-adventures for the Commodore 64. Last Ninja employs fancy screenwipes and screen-draws for its edgescreen transitions. 


Last Ninja features 8-way movement on the playfield. In addition, you can punch, kick, stab, slash, block, throw, crouch, somersault and search.

You can find and wield several different weapons, such as ninjato, nunchaku, staff, shuriken and smoke bomb. Suffice it to say, Last Ninja was a technically-advanced computer-game for 1987. And it sold millions of copies from 1987 to 1991 as well.

Get Dexter Atari ST 1987


ERE Informatique released Get Dexter for the Atari ST in 1987. However, this is just a port of the original Amstrad CPC version of 1986 by Rémi Herbulot. The reason I add Get Dexter is because it is one of the first good flip-screen isometric adventure games to appear on 16-bit machines.


Lakers versus Celtics and the NBA Playoffs IBM PC 1989



Flip-screen Adventure Games (Point & Click)


King's Quest 1984 IBM PC


Sierra On-Line released King's Quest: Quest for the Crown for IBM PC MS-DOS in May of 1984. King's Quest is a flip-screen animated adventure game that employs solid-fill vector graphics displayed in 4-color CGA, 16-color CGA+ or 16-color EGA 320x200 resolution, but the actual fidelity of 160x200 is natively-scaled by the display (note the blockiness).

King's Quest employs the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI). King's Quest eschews a consistent isometric perspective in favor of a hotch-potch of crudely-drawn viewpoints. In addition, its movement and positioning are not accurate. Thus, it was distinctly unpleasant to play even in 1984. This is the 16-color EGA version of 1986:



Sierra On-Line's King Quest employed a hotch-potch of viewpoints instead of a consistent isometric perspective with accurate and responsive controls. A massively overrated "classic" that no one plays but just praises, King's Quest popularized soulless Sierra scribble-slop. Computer games would be a lot better off if Sierra never made one.

Maniac Mansion IBM PC 1988 LucasFilm Games


Flip-screen and screen-scrolling.

Secret of Monkey Island IBM PC 1990 LucasFilm


Flip-screen and screen-scrolling.


Point-&-click adventure games mostly employed contiguous flip-screen presentation, but some also combined (non-smooth) screen-scrolling routines.

The flip-screen presentation of Secret of Monkey Island employs perspective changes and sprite-scaling. This mixes the presentation up a bit and also adds depth to scenes. SoMI also features (non-smooth) screen-scrolling.

King's Quest 4 IBM PC 1988 Sierra On-Line


Sierra On-line released King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella for IBM PC MS-DOS in September of 1988. King's Quest 4 displays in CGA+, EGA or VGA 16-color 320x200, but only employs a 320x190 drawspace. In addition to PC Speaker King's Quest 4 audio supports Roland MT-32 Sound Module and AdLib Music Synthesizer Card. King's Quest 4 employs manual-reference copy protection.


King's Quest 4 was designed and written by Roberta Williams, composed by William Goldstein and programmed by Chane Fullmer and Ken Koch.

The best version of King's Quest 4 requires an i80286/386 CPU clocked 8MHz and 512K of free conventional RAM.

King's Quest 4 was distributed on 9x 5.25" 360kB DS DD floppy disks or 4x 3.5" 720kB DS DD diskettes and extracts and installs to hard disk via Sierra 3D Adventure Game Setup/Installation program. The install size is 3 megs.

King's Quest 5 IBM PC 1990 Sierra On-Line



Sierra On-Line released King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! for IBM PC MS-DOS in November of 1990. King's Quest 5 was the first Sierra On-Line adventure game to employ Sierra On-Line's icon-driven interface (as opposed to the menu-driven and text-input interface of King's Quest 4). King's Quest 5 was also the first Sierra On-Line adventure game to feature VGA graphics (as opposed to the EGA graphics of King's Quest 4). In King's Quest 5 right-clicking cycles the mouse-cursor through different commands such as walk to, talk to, look at and interact with object.

King's Quest 5 was designed by Roberta Williams, programmed by Chris Iden and drawn by Andy Hoyos.

King's Quest 5 music supports IBM PC Internal Speaker, Sound Blaster Card, AdLib Music Synthesizer Card, Creative Music System/Game Blaster, IBM PS/1 Audio/Joystick Card, Tandy 1000 Series, Tandy 1000 SL, TL, HL and RL Series and Roland MT-32, MT-100, LAPC-1, CM-32L and CM-64.

King's Quest 5 was distributed on 8x 3.5" 1.44MB HD diskettes and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Sierra On-Line Game Setup/Install Program. The install size is 9 megs and consists of 36 files.

Future Wars IBM PC 1990 Delphine



Operation Stealth IBM PC 1990 Delphine



Cruise for a Corpse IBM PC 1991 Delphine



King's Quest  6 IBM PC 1992


Sierra On-Line released King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow for IBM PC in October of 1992. 


King's Quest 6 requires an i80386SX CPU clocked at 16 MHz, along with 573,000 bytes of free conventional RAM.

King's Quest 6 was pogrammed by Robert W. Lindsley, drawn by Michael Hutchison and John Shroades, and designed and written by Jane Jensen and Roberta Williams.

King's Quest 6 displays in 256-color VGA 320x200, but still only employs a 320x190 drawspace.

King's Quest 6 was distributed on 9x 3.5" 1.4MB HD diskettes, 10x 3.5" 1.44 MB HD diskettes or 11x 5.25" 1.2MB HD floppy disks. King's Quest 6 extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Sierra On-Line Game Install/Setup Program v.3.465. Install size is 13 megs. To free up space, a stupid 6 meg opening cinematic by Kronos Digital Entertainment can be deleted.

Other Flip-screen Computer Games


Cybernoid and its sequel (1988) are rare examples of side-on flip-screen shoot 'em ups:


And Exolon of 1987 is a side-on flip-screen run and gun:


Rambo 3 is a top-down flip-screen run and gun (with a sprite-scaling level):


Flip-screen was common on some 8 bit microcomputers that lacked hardware scrolling, processing power and RAM, but I'd rather play flip-screen computer games than be assaulted by flickering slideshows in poorly-coded scrollers.

Those who can't code smooth scrolling routines should make their games flip-screen. As an aside, it is amusing to note that Morrowind's trashy engine evokes 3D flip-screen.

Some of the earliest isometric adventure and platform computer games were flip-screen, not scrollers.

However, Sandy White's Ant Attack of 1983 on the Speccy featured 4-way scrolling and verticality.


Flip-screen employment would persist in cinematic platformers many years after smooth scrolling routines were mastered.







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