Imagine a world where Magnavox and Atari didn't throw fits at each other both in patents and publicity over who made the first game, when both were beaten to the punch by nearly a full decade at minimum. This, itself, is debatably not even first, and depends on your definition; but in the traditional sense this might as well be, and it's significantly more complex than Pong and absolutely more complex than Magnavox's "games".

What pains me is that this, and Tennis for Two even, were documented and cited as early as the 80s and 90s publications, yet hardly anyone knows about it or even references it specifically in the context of pioneering video games.

If Pong is your grandfather, Spacewar! is the weird prehistoric lizard thing that would probably beat your grandfather up in a fight.

I highly recommend anyone watch Ahoy's video if you have even a passing interest in video game history.

Um daqueles games que a influenciou tanta coisa (literalmente tudo) e a gente ouve falar tanto que, mesmo sem nunca ter jogado, parece que conhecemos de cabo à rabo devido a alta taxa de saturação da osmose cultural. Claro, esse sentimento é enganoso, e contato direto com as fontes é sempre uma experiência valiosa - algo que como pretenso historiador eu deveria estar cansado de saber. Sempre é possível descobrir coisas inesperadas quando vamos direto à fonte¹. Por exemplo, eu não tinha ideia de que Spacewar! tinha uma física tão detalhada, ou que a estrela no meio do campo possuía um centro de gravidade que te puxava constantemente para a morte. Coisas que eu morreria sem saber se não tivesse tomado vergonha na cara e ido atrás.

¹ Ou, no caso, o mais próximo disso dentro das limitações econômicas e logísticas, que seria essa versão que replica o código original e roda num emulador de PDP1 direto do browser.

One of the earliest video games, I like it mainly because of my fascination derived from what I read and watched regarding its development. Honestly, considering the year of its release I cannot help but feel a deep sense of wonder also on the gameplay side.

On one hand, it's just a game where two players pilot two ships that can be easily destroyed by a single well aimed shot (or colliding with the celestial body in the center of the screen). Well, I don't give a shit.

Being a big fan of Sci-Fi novels, Steve Russell decided that the PDP-1 would be the perfect machine to make a combination of a Sci-Fi B-movie and a $120000 toy in which two people could face off in an lethal space duel.

Spacewar! was a revolutionary game in many ways, starting from the simulation of a gravitational field that constantly attracts the two players towards the center and that forces you to plan and adopt strategies in anticipation of the actions that the opponent will implement because of gravity as an uncontrollable external variable. Simple yet wonderful the star map that serves as a background (made by Peter Samson, who wrote a program based on real star charts - Expensive Planetarium) and whose stars serve as spacemarks for the player; ingenious the implementation of certain mechanics, such as the wraparound, a limited amount of fuel and ammos (31 in total) or the provision of a cooldown system (so that players could not abuse too much of their weapons).
I want to pay particular attention to the hyperspace mechanic, which allows a player in trouble to avoid an enemy assault by rematerializing in a random point on the screen (yes, there's a chance that you could materialize on the celestial body): interesting also the fact that sometimes it may not activate at all and that it is better not to abuse it since an excessive use increases the probability that your ship will self-destruct. Fascinating that they were able to create an animation that mimicked a spatiotemporal distortion, so that when the ship jumped it left behind what was called a Minskytron signature (in reference to Marvin Minsky's Three Position Display).
In addition, this is also the first game for which a gamepad (albeit rudimentary, since it was more like a wooden control box) had been created.

The icing on the cake is the fact that the game was what we would now call open source: It was never patented since Russell and colleagues wanted to leave it up to anyone to edit or rewrite It as they saw fit.