Tank is an arcade game created by Kee Games, a company owned by Atari, and released in November 1974. Kee Games was formed to sell copies of Atari games to other companies before Atari and Kee joined together. Tank was one of the few original games made by Kee that was not based on an existing Atari game. In the game, two players control tanks that move through a maze shown from above. They try to shoot each other and avoid mines, marked by X symbols, in the center of the maze. Each player uses two joysticks to move their tank forward, backward, and turn, and a button to fire shells at the other tank. If a tank is destroyed by a mine or a shell, the other player earns a point. Destroyed tanks reappear after being hit. The player with the most points when time runs out wins, with each game lasting about one or two minutes.
Tank was designed by Steve Bristow, who had previously worked with Atari’s founders on Computer Space, the first arcade video game. The game was developed by Lyle Rains. Bristow wanted to help his company create original games instead of only copying Atari’s titles. The game’s cabinet was designed by Peter Takaichi. In September 1974, Atari and Kee merged. Tank was a commercial success, selling more than 10,000 units and helping Atari improve its financial situation. The game later appeared in a cocktail cabinet version and inspired three sequels: Tank II (1975), Tank 8 (1976), and Ultra Tank (1978). A dedicated console version of Tank II was planned in 1977 but canceled. The joysticks used in the game became the standard controllers for the Atari 2600 (1977). Variations of the game were included in the Atari 2600 game Combat and the Coleco Telstar game Telstar Combat!, both released in 1977.
Gameplay
Tank is a two-player maze game where each player controls a tank. The goal is to shoot the other player's tank. The maze is made of blocks arranged at right angles, with an open central area. The maze shape is not symmetrical and is the same in every game. One tank is shown as white, and the other as black. The central area has black X marks that represent land mines. Tanks can fire shells that destroy the other tank if they hit. Tanks are also destroyed if they hit a land mine. When a tank is destroyed, the opposing player earns a point. An explosion and sound occur, during which the other tank cannot shoot. After the explosion, the destroyed tank is restored to its original position. Destroyed land mines do not return. Points are shown above the play area and flash during the last twenty seconds of the round. The game ends when time runs out, and the player with the most points wins. Each game usually costs a quarter and lasts 60 seconds, but a switch can change it to two quarters and 120 seconds. Operators can also adjust the time.
The game is shown on a black-and-white television screen. Each player uses two joysticks to control their tank. Pushing both joysticks moves the tank forward, and pulling them back stops the tank. Pulling the joysticks in different directions or amounts makes the tank turn while moving or in place. A button on the top of the right joystick is used to fire a shell.
Development
The arcade game market is divided into three groups: manufacturers, distributors, and operators. Manufacturers, such as Atari, sell game machines to distributors, who manage several types of electronic machines. Distributors then sell these machines to operators, who run arcade locations. In the early 1970s, distributors bought games on an exclusive basis, meaning only one distributor in each region could carry products from a specific manufacturer. This limited the manufacturer to selling games only through the operators that the distributor worked with. Atari, which was about one year old in 1973 and known for its popular game Pong, believed this system limited its ability to sell games. It could only work with a few distributors, who purchased only a small number of games each year. To solve this, Atari created a secret subsidiary company called Kee Games in September 1973. Kee Games was meant to sell copies of Atari’s games, which would double the number of places Atari’s games could be sold. Kee Games had its own manufacturing tools and could create original games. After making several copies of Atari’s games, lead engineer Steve Bristow developed a new game idea. Bristow, who had previously worked on Computer Space—the first arcade video game—thought about ways to improve it. He decided to replace the hard-to-control rocket ships with easier-to-use tanks and change the game from single-player to two-player.
As the company’s only engineer, Bristow quickly built a prototype of the game. He then handed the project to a new employee, Lyle Rains, to complete. Rains added a maze and a central minefield to the game’s design and created the final hardware, including simple controls. Peter Takaichi designed a large custom cabinet to hold the game. The game, called Tank, was one of the first to use special memory chips called mask ROM (read-only memory) to store graphical data. Earlier games used diode arrays instead. Some sources claim Tank was the first game to use this technology, but it was not the first—Atari’s Gran Trak 10 (1974) used similar memory chips before Tank. After this, memory chips became standard in arcade and console games. Before the game was finished, Kee Games was merged into Atari in September 1974. Tank was released in November of that year.
Reception and legacy
Tank was a successful game that helped improve the financial situation of Atari after it merged with another company. Atari made a second version of the game, which had a special table where two players sat across from each other. Tank sold more than 10,000 units, which was considered a big success at the time. Ralph H. Baer said that 10,000 units were sold in 1974, with an additional 5,000 sold in 1975. This would make Tank the most popular arcade video game in the United States in 1974 and the second most popular in 1975, according to Baer.
A follow-up game, Tank II, was released in 1975 and sold about 1,000 units. The gameplay was the same as Tank, but players could change the maze design by adjusting the game’s circuitry, and more sound effects were added. In March 1976, RePlay magazine listed Tank and Tank II together as the top-earning arcade game in the United States the previous year. Tank II later ranked as the 15th highest-grossing arcade game in 1977 (or 14th if not counting a different type of game). Two more sequels followed: Tank 8 in 1976, which allowed eight tanks to play at once, and Ultra Tank in 1978, which returned to a two-player format with black-and-white visuals and the ability to choose different maze types or use invisible tanks.
Atari announced a dedicated console version of Tank II at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1977, but the project was canceled later that year. The joysticks designed for the game, created by Kevin McKinsey, became the standard controllers for the Atari 2600 (1977). The Atari 2600 game Combat, released in 1977, included several versions of Tank, such as ones with bouncing shots or invisible tanks. Combat was originally planned as a console version of the arcade game, like the canceled console version of Tank, but it added new game modes during development. Even though Atari canceled its console version of Tank, Coleco released a dedicated console game called Telstar Combat! in 1977, which included four variations of Tank. This game was released before the Atari 2600 and Combat.
The popularity of Tank, along with the 1975 game Western Gun (also called Gun Fight), helped make one-on-one dueling games more common. The 1980 arcade game Battlezone was largely inspired by Tank. Ed Rotberg, the designer of Battlezone, said his goal was to update Tank using new vector graphics technology available in arcades at the time.