Hand held video game with simulated battle against aliens

• US 5,120,057 A
• Filed: 01/26/1990
• Issued: 06/09/1992
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/1990
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Konami Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Konami Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Kitaue, Kazumi
• Primary Examiner(s): Grieb, William H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Harrison, Jessica J.
• Application Number:
  US07/471,094
• Time in Patent Office: 865 Days
• Field of Search: 273/85 G, 273/433, 273/434
• US Class Current: 463/2
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/25 Output arrangements for video game devices
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/54 involving acoustic signals, e.g. for simulating revolutions per minute [RPM] dependent engine sounds in a driving game or reverberation against a virtual wall
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/837 Shooting of targets
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/92 Video game devices specially adapted to be hand-held while playing
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2009/246 Computer generated or synthesized image
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/204 the platform being a handheld device
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8076 Shooting

Abstract

A novel hand held electronic LCD video game with four individually displayable player controlled figures controlled by the player to defend against alien attackers and to attack a fortress. A game processor controls display of player and game controlled image segments to simulate movement of alien creatures attacking the player controlled soldier. Five alien fortress areas must be overcome by the player and limited time is available to overcome each area. The player must manipulate the player controlled image to one of the four positions to avoid destruction from pseudo-random attack by alien missiles while firing a weapon to destroy alien soldiers attacking in a pseudo-random pattern among four routes.

Claims

1. A hand-held electronic game comprising:

a plurality of manually operable control switches for permitting control of the play of the game by a player;

sound transducer means for generating sound responsive to sound signals;

control circuit means coupled to the control switches and the sound transducer means, and including a processor, a read-only memory, and a random access memory, for generating game control signals and sound signals;

display means having selectively activatable image segments corresponding to player-controlled figures which comprise a solder image, game-controlled figures which comprise alien soldier images and alien creature images and a sequence of missile images having a simulated flight path and fired in a pattern substantially unknown to the player, and a plurality of wall image segments which are sequentially displayed to simulate depth and movement of player-controlled figures, and alpha-numeric game information for selective display thereof, said display means for display of games images responsive to the game control signals such that the player-controlled figure is visually displayed at one of a plurality of pre-determined positions and the position at which the player-controlled figure is displayed is moveable to an adjacent position responsive to player activation of a control switch, and a plurality of game-controlled figures are sequentially visually displayed in pseudo-random sequences to give the appearance of a random pattern of attack by the game-controlled figures toward the player-controlled figure; and

the game-controlled figures including a plurality of targets and protective shutters, and the processor including means for controlling display of explosion image segments to simulate destruction of the targets and the protective shutters responsive to a plurality of simulated collisions of bullets into the targets and the protective shutters, and means for increasing the score in response to simulated destruction of a shutter and in response to simulated destruction of a target, and the processor includes means for displaying simulated firing of bullets by the player-controlled figure and for selective display of simulated hits of alien soldiers and creatures by the bullets responsive to activation by the player of a firing control switch, and for display explosion image segments responsive to a simulated hit, and for accumulating a score responsive to simulated hits.