Timeline | 1982: Pitfall! for Atari 2600

Pitall! was a major hit on the Atari 2600

Activision was a third party video developer formed by several former Atari game programmers that split from the company over disputes involving royalties, creative credit and liberty. Pitfall! was one of their first and most successful games for the Atari 2600.

The gameplay of Pitfall! is simple but the beauty lies in its execution. The game is a platformer where the player moves from left to right and the camera follows (this would become the norm in later platformers but was relatively new here, other platformers like the popular 'Donkey Kong' went up not to the right). The main mechanic of the game was that the player could jump, grab a rope and swing across holes, quicksand, or other pitfalls (hence the name).

A screenshot of Pitfall for the Atari 2600

Pitfall! became very popular on the Atari 2600 for a combination of several reasons. First it launched at almost the exact right time, the Atari was at the height of its popularity in 1982 and Pitfall! was advertised and marketed very well. Second (and unfortunately probably not as importantly) it was, for the time, very well made with relatively good graphics, great gameplay, good music, etc. Pitfall! would go on to sell around 4 million copies, an incredible feat for the time and second only to Pac-Man as far as number of sales for a game on the Atari 2600.


Further Reading:

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitfall!