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Vector Game - TV Tropes

  • ️Mon Sep 29 2008

Vector game refers to any video game that uses a vector graphics display. This means, instead of drawing the image by pixels, the image is projected by an electron beam, drawing lines like a laser show. The term is also used to refer to games that simulate the look of vector graphics, nevertheless using raster technology, usually for stylistic purposes.

Many early arcade games used such displays, as they were capable of displaying more detailed images than raster displays on the hardware available at that time. Many vector-based arcade games used full-color overlays to complement the otherwise monochrome vector images. Other uses of these overlays were very detailed drawings of the static gaming environment, while the moving objects were drawn by the vector beam.

Games of this type were produced mainly by Atari, Cinematronics (which had a short-lived spinoff company called Vectorbeam), and Sega (through their old U.S. subsidiary Gremlin Industries/Sega Electronics).

The Vectrex home console also used a vector display; among its games were vector-graphics conversions of Berzerk, Pole Position and Scramble.

And no, Vectorman wasn't made this way. Neither was the iOS/Android game Vector.

List of vector-based video games:

  • While Donkey Kong 3 is primarily a raster game, the arcade versionnote  uses vector lines to convey the idea that the game is set in a greenhouse.note 
  • Eliminator (no, not that one)