Artillery game

The core mechanics of the gameplay is almost always to aim at the opponent(s) following a ballistic trajectory (in its simplest form, a parabolic curve).

One of the earliest known games in the genre is War 3 for two or three players, written in FOCAL Mod V by Mike Forman (date unknown).

The Tektronix 4051 BASIC language desktop computer of the mid-1970s had a demo program called Artillery which used a storage-CRT for graphics.

It replaces the military theme with a player attempting to launch a performer into a container of water by adjusting the angle and force of the cannon.

was released in 1982 for the Magnavox Odyssey² console in which two catapults, each behind a castle fortress wall, launched rocks at each other.

Although not turn-based, the game made use of the console's speech synthesis to emit sarcastic insults when one player fired at the other.

[1] Circa 1984, a game called Siege also appeared by publisher Melbourne House, this was released for the VIC-20, Commodore 16 and other home computers.

With the increased presence of IBM PC compatibles came the arrival of artillery games to the platform.

Scorched Earth, with numerous weapon types and power-ups, is considered the modern archetype of its format.

An example artillery game, one player firing upon another. The landscape is marked with craters from missed shots.
Artillery Simulator for the Apple II was among the earliest graphical versions of the turn-based artillery video game.
Scorched Earth increased the popularity of the artillery game with its wide variety of weapons, numerous multi-player options, and flexible configuration options.
Scorched 3D is a 3D polygonal artillery game.