Blockade (arcade game)

Blockade
Developer(s)	Gremlin
Platform(s)	arcade game machine
Release	October 1976
Genre(s)	Maze
Mode(s)	2-player
Cabinet	Horizontal
CPU	Intel 8080 (@2.079 Mhz)
Sound	Samples, Discrete
Display	Raster, 256 x 224 pixels, 2 colors

Blockade is a black and white arcade maze game developed by Gremlin and released in October 1976. Using four directional buttons, each player moves their character around leaving a solid line behind them, turning at 90 degree angles. To win, a player must last longer than the opponent before hitting something, with the first person to hit something losing. The game ends after one player gains six wins.

Blockade is the first of what have become known as snake games.

Several Blockade-style games appeared soon after its release, such as the Bally Astrocade game Checkmate in 1977,Atari's Surround in 1978, and the 1978 TRS-80 computer game Worm.

Though Blockade did not reference snakes or worms, many variants were themed as such, including Nibbler and Snake Byte, both from 1982. The 1997 Nokia mobile phone version is simply called Snake.

Midway's Tron (1982) included a single-player variant of the Blockade concept based on the Light Cycle game from the film. The player battles against one computer-controlled line-drawing cycle, and three on subsequent levels. This led to Blockade-style games sometimes being called Tron or light cycles.

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