The 10 Best TI-99 Games Before 1982: Early Era Classics 1979-1981

When the TI-99/4A released in 1981, the TI-99 already had a pretty nice game library on offer, which TI and Milton Bradley had been adding to since the debut of the 99/4 in 1979. This is my look at the best of the first TI-99 games, from that 99/4 era, up to the first holiday season of the 99/4A, when the system really started to take off.
In this video, I look at:
TI Invaders
Tombstone City
Hunt the Wumpus
Adventure
TI Trek
Hustle
Blasto
Car Wars
The Attack
Video Chess

[@ACKRobert]

Thank you for continuing your support of our old friend in 2023. I enjoy your videos and look forward to new ones. Take care!

[@greengun8340]

I was in 8th grade when the TI99/4A came out. I learned basic by hours and hours of manual input from books and magazines. Anything I could get my mitts on. Mr. Bojangles, etc. I used the cassette drive (oh that noise). Wore out Tunnels of Doom. Still have my system. I appreciate your channel and enthusiasm.

[@tomy.1846]

Mr. Bojangles!! LMAO! I remember that. Back then, I would lose my whole program when turning off my computer, until I finally got a cassette recorder! Great times! Remember Compute!? The hours I spent in 7th grade programing away!

[@greengun8340]

Compute of course! I too experienced the dread of turning off the computer after being on for 4-5 days straight and losing all that work. But we did it. Time and again. I wonder if the younger generation of today could handle that hehe..

[@mikeboorse]

@@greengun8340 You have both opened my eyes to a new level of commitment to typing in BASIC games on the TI. I got my system in June 1983 and had nothing but the console and a black-and-white TV for a long time. With one exception, which was I did get the cassette cable - probably the day after I got the computer, and was then able to hook it up right away to an existing compact tape recorder I already had sitting around (the Panasonic RQ-339D). I didn't get any cartridges for several months, so much of those early times was definitely all about typing in programs. But I guess I was spoiled, because I did have the ability to save them, and so I started quickly filling up tapes with programs nearly from the outset. I was delighted that you guys mentioned Mr. Bojangles - I remember that, too! It takes a special dedication to type in those programs line-by-line, but I had no idea that you folks were in the terrible position of having to turn off the computer and knowingly, purposely losing your work! I hobbled along with just the cassette player for two years before getting the PE box in 1985 - but apparently this modest approach was nothing, now that I have heard the stories of people who used the computer for BASIC and valiantly soldiered on while not having any tape recorder whatsoever - that's true sacrifice!

[@Miler97487]

Good thing our family has a cassette recorder. The big thing I loathed about cassette storage was the constant "Error detected in data" or "Error: No data found" messages because the computer was so fussy about the volume, so I had to constantly mess with it and 9 out of 10 times it was one of those two messages. Disk storage was superior but too expensive for us on the TI-99/4A.

[@metalheadmalta]

Star Trek is absolutely superb and I still play it... All the games you mentioned though are excellent...Blasto is one of my favourites...as well as Bigfoot. TI Invaders is insanely good... I still use my TI pretty much all the time... 🙂

[@trooperj9152]

I am a big fan of TI invaders. Just really well done.

[@Mr.T.MBA.]

I think TI invaders is the best remake of the game around. It was much better than any other Space Invader game I've played. It was also a favorite at home with the family playing trying to beat each other scores.

[@dgrissom007]

Speaking for my wife, I'm sure her favorite was TI-Invaders. She played it extensively and found all those neat aliens! Me, I didn't do so well! (Yes, it was my favorite as well 🙂!)

[@austinhealey2148]

My first computer was a TI 99/4A. One of the best games I had was Parsec. That game had great graphics for it's time, and it was fun to play. I have a TI 99/4A emulator on my PC and still play these old games.

[@kantonlevine8898]

The TI 99/4A was my favorite home computer of its age. I enjoy your videos!

[@fitfogey]

Still using my TI 99 4/A in 2023.

[@metalheadmalta]

you tell him! :-) Was pretty sure it is tongue-in-cheek....

[@shireoryx6153]

My favorite, or probably better said, the game that I remember most fondly is blackjack and poker. My mom's boss had a non -a TI-99/4 in her home and I was so lucky to check it out. This must have been I don't know 78 or 79. Oh and thank you very much for these videos!

[@mikeboorse]

Thanks, PixelPedant! I am so enthusiastically appreciative of your work, which is doing things to keep the TI-99/4A alive in ways I would not have thought possible. Sometimes when present-day life gets me down, I have found that these fond recollections of the 1980s reinvigorate and restore my optimism and energy. The TI computer in particular takes me back to being 13 years old and starting with just the console, and then over a six-year period slowly expanding it and savoring every aspect of the growth, both my own and that of my TI system. I still have everything, and get it out every so often, having made regular use of its graphic features and NTSC output to make video titles far into the 1990s and even early 2000s. In most cases, if I wanted to dip into the TI past to cheer myself up, I'd have to dig up some of the materials I saved from that time. But the fact that you are producing new and thoughtful material about this nostalgic subject is a real gift. It's a great mix of nostalgia combined with a new angle on the topic - evoking much of what it actually felt like in the 1980s when this very same system really was the subject of new information. Beyond my general appreciation of your channel and your efforts to keep the TI alive, I want to express a particular gratitude for this specific topic you selected in this video. I would never have thought to examine the TI software in terms of the phases it went through back when it was all first being published. But now that you have segmented the software into eras, I realize that there are indeed different types of nostalgia for different time periods of the TI. My introduction to the system took place exactly at the moment when the beige plastic console variant was starting to appear, which is consequently when the cartridges also turned beige (and stopped including the additional sliding plastic piece that hid the exposed portion of the cartridge's circuit board), and that's when the cartridge boxes switched from white paper boxes with a framed-out opening, to colorful plastic boxes that showed the whole cover of the manual, and the artwork for the manuals changed from a blocky, somewhat faithful representation of what the computer screen looked like, to a full-blown, hand-painted piece of art which looked much more like what we saw in our heads and very little like what we saw on the screen. Many of those classic, pre-1982 games which had the original blocky art cover illustrations received a new piece of artwork for the manual's cover at this time. This change in packaging proved to be another line of demarcation in TI software - as some of the newer stuff you mentioned (ex. Fathom), and the MBX games, only appeared after the beige phase had begun and never had a blocky style artwork cover. Watching this particular video, and noting how you focused only on those early games, was fascinating. As a kid who got my system when the TI was still popular, but right before the bottom fell out, I knew that among the hot cartridges were Parsec and TI Invaders, which I did manage to pick up about six months after getting the system. I got those first, in the fall of 1983, due to the buzz but also in case they suddenly disappeared. But there was a period around 1984 when I delved into these exact games that you depicted in this video. These older games were readily available and a tad cheaper and easier to get than some of the later games (such as how it took me months to obtain Fathom). So I had a particularly good summer that year, when I started out thinking it was over for the TI now that it had been discontinued, but then I discovered a host of pre-1982 games I could indulge in. Having already soaked in some of those more talked-about games, I was in a better position to notice the appeal of those earlier games and their stylistic elements, such as the innovative concepts and the title songs, which you captured so well. You really sold me on the dark version of Wumpus - how tremendous would that have been? Today when I reminisce about the TI, I often overlook these pre-1982 games. So seeing your video and rediscovering these gems very closely replicated my 1984 experience of discovering these same games for the first time. I really, really appreciate the angle you developed for this video. I think instead of having one general impression of all my TI software lumped together, which is what I've been carrying around in my head for the last 40 years, from now on I am going to be more discerning and think of these as separate layers, each to be appreciated in its own way - and that's all thanks to this video!

[@Mr.T.MBA.]

I was a little younger than you, my dad bought the TI in the early years. Ours was the nice stainless steel version and included the speech synthesizer, which made Parsec awesome to a really young kid. We also had all of the games listed as well as a ton of learning games. Then a friend of my Mom's a few years later decided to get rid of their TI and she gave my mom all of her cartridges, and she had a ton. While my friends had a Nintendo, we still had plenty of things to do on the TI. The TI is the first programming I learned. I know I was around 7, the good old photo album shows me at 7 trying to program something into the TI. For a programmer it wasn't much, but for a 7 year old I was making music, flashing squares, and dancing circles. What great times. I paid homage to the TI with a little program I made when I was teaching a programming class in Scratch, I found as many pictures of Parsec as I could and recreated it in Scratch. Of course that Scratch account got lost as it was tied to a School District I don't work at anymore and no matter how I search for the game, I can't find it.

[@PixelPedant]

Thank you for sharing your own reminiscences, Mike! It's always great to hear these videos are connecting with people's experiences with the computer back then in a meaningful way.

[@darrensmith3735]

TI Invaders definitely deserves to be top of the list. I probably spent more time playing Blasto though, which I remember playing 2 player against my big sister's boyfriend. He spent more time with me than with her! 😅

[@lylepetersen814]

I had Adventure, but I picked it up near the end of the 99/4A's life, so it came bundled with EVERY text Adventure game on a single cassette. You had to fast forward and listen for the silent gaps to find the begginings of each game. It also came with a hint guide for all the games.

[@dfortaeGameReviews]

Thanks PixelPedant, I really enjoyed this! Nice trip down memory lane for me... Your list is great, and I always appreciate your videos!

[@Tetlee]

Great vid, TI Invaders rightly taking the crown, I did a vid of that one just recently. Hunt the Wumpus looks amazing with black background, wow what a difference that makes! Such happy memories of all these. Was A-maze-ing an early one? My sister and I absolutely adored that game, exciting stuff back in the day.

[@PixelPedant]

Thanks. Yes, A-MAZE-ING was a pre-82 release, and one a lot of people have nostalgia for. Definitely one a child could get a lot out of, and it seems many did.

[@Miler97487]

My father bought a TI-99/4A at the end of 1981 so naturally the earliest games we got were no later than 1981. TI Invaders, Car Wars, A-Maze-Ing, The Attack, Blasto, Zero Zap, Tombstone City, Video Games 1, in other words no big surprises. We also had Video Graphs but that was obviously not a video game. Of course our family continued to buy games for the TI until 1984, but here I was mentioning the early games from 1979 to 1981 we owned.

[@joemorris9501]

I enjoyed as usual PixelPedant, thankyou. :)

[@bitwize]

ZeroZap! You gave it barely a mention, but I loved that game. Especially using the editor to create a level that maxed out how long the arrow would bounce around (until the random number gods eventually threw you a zero diamond). Those Munch Man conquering, BASIC programming teenage madlads, Khoa Ton and Quyen Ton, wrote a TI BASIC clone of ZeroZap called Arrow Zap which was available in the SAMS collection "Entertainment Games in TI BASIC and Extended BASIC". It was incredibly sluggish but played like pretty much a molasses-encumbered version of the original. Pretty impressive for TI BASIC!

[@flounder31]

Enjoyed pretty much all of these, except Hustle, Blasto, The Attack , Chess, and TI Trek? Considering I came in WAY late (1984?) to the party? Think I did ok... sure had fun!!

[@MK-lk7nc]

Man this was great, I never got to try these but it was cool to see them. I think it's hilarious you got your Hunt the Wumpus background in dark mode, it probably took 3 tables full of add-on peripherals to do it, but hey, totally worth it.

[@hespelf]

Nice review of 40+ years old software ! Given that TI invaders is the most popular and that its source code is available, it would be great to create a video giving insight on the technical ingenuity of developers with use of mixed character graphics and sprites, and the sophisticated collision detections and damage management of base buildings.

[@belstar1128]

These games look quite good for the time period. with in game music and other small details. i should have bought that ti 99 i saw at a flea market a few years ago.

[@PixelPedant]

And these are the least impressive TI-99 games, after all, given their early date. At any rate, still plenty of TI-99s out there to pick up. So lots of opportunity to join the party. We're fortunate that this "failed" computer produced more units than some computers considered runaway successes. So there's no shortage of them, really.

[@TehDrewsus]

I'm in agreement with 90% of this list. The only thing I would change is swap Hustle for A-maze-ing. Of course it's worth noting that I was never a TI power user, so it's very possible the technical prowess of the 99-4 was better showcased in Hustle than A-maze-ing. Solid video my friend!

[@PixelPedant]

You're in plenty of good company in that opinion, for sure. A-MAZE-ING has a lot of fans, for whom it's one of the favourites. So I could absolutely see it higher on this list.

[@BonesFPV]

Great video. Thank you.

[@tron3entertainment]

I know I managed to kill the Wumpus at least once. Takes me HOURS. But my mind is blown in BLASTO. I set the game for high density mines and reset it a few times because I am not happy with the density. Then a screen which is oddly dense displays. Without even thinking, I twitch and fire almost as if by instinct. It just happens. The TI slows down a lot as ALL the mines begin exploding in succession from a single shot. I was never able to repeat that feat of magic.

[@mattmyers9351]

Great video!

[@philstevenson1741]

Thanks for another excellent and entertaining video. Hunt The Wumpus was my favorite. Interestingly, per en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus it was programmed by an intern (Danny Hillis) working on the graphics chip, which gives it a parallel to my favorite 8-bit Atari game, Star Raiders. That one was also written by a graphics chip developer (Doug Neubauer). I continue to enjoy these nostalgic looks back.

[@RetroDawn]

Doug Neubauer was the logic designer of the POKEY chip, which, as I'm sure you know, was the sound chip, which also read the POtentiometers and KEYboard and controlled the cassette read/write along with the SIO proto-USB serial bus that the cassette recorder was but one of many devices that could simultaneously attach to it. Especially since Star Raiders is a fav of yours, I recommend checking out his later game, Solaris, for the VCS. It's essentially a spiritual sequel to Star Raiders, based off of a game he was originally creating for Atari to be a Last Starfighter game, and it's even more advanced than Star Raiders in many ways, even though it runs on the VCS.

[@philstevenson1741]

@@RetroDawn Thanks for the correction on which chip Mr. Neubeauer worked on and the excellent suggestion. I will definitely check out Solaris and his other games.

[@klf6992]

Thanks! Happy new year, if it's not too late to say that...

[@robertlock5501]

I really like that pallet at 20:21 - shame TI didn't use something like it. Now how would one with an F18A be able to tweak the pallet himself? (indeed a whole video on how to do that might be neat :))

[@PixelPedant]

I actually showed how to do this with the Force Command environment's COLOR command, in this video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p2nZqXh5fdeDesUm55s . Very easy, actually, with the help of Force Command.

[@PeBoVision]

It can be accomplished using the "Force Command" command line interface. If you find Pixel Pedant's video covering that subject, it will outline loading carts with altered palettes (among other cool tricks that only a CLI can provide).

[@robertlock5501]

@@PixelPedant Cool - thanks! I'll check that out

[@markae0]

Great voice.

[@used39]

Wasn’t the music from The Attack an existing tune? I know a lot of TI games used old royalty-free music (Hunt the Wumpus, Alpiner, Blasto) - I swear I heard the music from The Attack somewhere recently, like in a movie trailer or something.

[@PeBoVision]

I'd have to add Yahtzee, Othello and Connect Four to the list. They are certainly not arcade action, based as they are on existing analog games, but they include long playing sessions (preferable to dying quickly in an arcde shooter) and are highly satisfying to win (especially Othello, where the wins are hard-earned.). Yahtzee is the one I play most often - just wish it was Triple Yahtzee which adds a bit of strategy. And being MB titles, they all have music that makes them worth booting up just for that. As far as BASIC games, was there not a TI BASIC port of the board game Stratego written to great effect in TI-Basic ? (or is my geriatric brain playing tricks?). And the great selection of cassette games from MoonBeam Software (which, to be fair, used assembly language calls to make things feel far less like TI-BASIC/Exrended BASIC) And yes, it's nice to know we got the best of the original era Space Invaders ports. We didn't get the best port often, so it was a nice claim to fame (and chicks dug Space Invaders). Don't tell anyone, but the Pinball from Video Games 1 is one of my favourite early TI games. It cheats, has lousy hit detection, balls that launch directly into the gutter, a free ball that costs you a ball, magic invisible gutters that appear at random at the top of the screen, a break-out gameplay aesthetic, and the slowest ball movement of any pinball ever written. But if I'm playing with the TI at 2AM, it's likely Video Games 1 Pinball. I've always wished for a bug fix version, but I guess I'll just have to settle for Rasmus' Pinball instead😜.

[@PixelPedant]

I'm a sucker for Video Games 1's Pinball as well. Can't really justify it. But if this list was constructed based on just pure personal bias, I think I'd have had it in the top 10 for sure. As it was, I tried to be a little more reasonable ;)

[@PeBoVision]

@@PixelPedant 🤣😂🤣😂

[@RetroDawn]

The VIC-20 versions of the Scott Adams text adventures had speech synth support, via a speech synthesizer with TTS that connected via serial. It's too bad the TI99 versions didn't support speech synthesis--although, understandable, as it would have taken a lot more effort and expense to develop and include a TTS in the cartridge. I wonder if anyone has hacked speech synth support into the TI99 Scott Adams text adventure engine.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

If only the TMS9900 had an extra 8 bit /RAM_SEG bus that would operate as RAM_SEG and the other Address bits to access the memory locations of the selected memory block they could built a machine that would have been better than an IBM PC.