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Arcade classics

Order by the year each game first hit arcades. You place all 48 cards on one timeline, one at a time. You start with three lives, and ten right in a row wins a lost one back.

Arcade classics
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Order by the year each game first hit arcades. Drag or tap it onto the line
Arcade game
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Arcade game
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48
Cards
3
Lives per run
release years and dates
Ordered by
Cards only
Card reveal

How to play the arcade classics timeline game

Every card is a coin-op cabinet that drew crowds, from the earliest experiments with a screen and a joystick to the fighting games and light-gun shooters of the late arcade boom. The company that made it is printed below the name, and you order them by the year each one first appeared in arcades. One game starts on the line with its year shown. Choose a gap for each new card. Get it right and its year is revealed; get it wrong and it still lands where it belongs, but you lose one of three lives.

The early golden age is dense, with famous names arriving in quick succession, so small differences matter there. Later stretches thin out and lean toward brawlers, racers and head-to-head fighters. Home versions cause mistakes, since many players met these games on a console years after the cabinet launched. Makers help a little: some companies had a clear hot streak, and spotting it can anchor a whole run.

Want a longer game? On the deck tree you can tick this deck alongside any other one measured in release years and dates, and they shuffle into a single timeline together.

What's in the deck

Here are 28 of the 48 cards you might be dealt, with 20 more in the deck. Their values stay hidden until you place them.

  • Computer Space Nutting Associates
  • Pong Atari
  • Space Invaders Taito
  • Galaxian Namco
  • Pac-Man Namco
  • Battlezone Atari
  • Donkey Kong Nintendo
  • Galaga Namco
  • Centipede Atari
  • Dig Dug Namco
  • Joust Williams Electronics
  • Tron Bally Midway
  • Star Wars Atari
  • Spy Hunter Bally Midway
  • Gauntlet Atari Games
  • Paperboy Atari Games
  • Out Run Sega
  • Rampage Bally Midway
  • Double Dragon Technōs Japan
  • Contra Konami
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Konami
  • Street Fighter II Capcom
  • The Simpsons Konami
  • NBA Jam Midway
  • Daytona USA Sega
  • Tekken Namco
  • Time Crisis Namco
  • The House of the Dead Sega

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