Videocart-1: Tic-Tac-Toe, Shooting Gallery, Doodle, Quadra-Doodle

The Good
This must have been the best selling game cartridge of the day. Who could resist getting 4 totally new games for your TV for $20? It's got a puzzle game, a shooter, and even doodling, so there's plenty of variety. And unlike the built-in games, these were actually all single-player games, hinting at the coming shift in games marketing - from the whole family experience that is Pong, to the lonely and nerdy video-gamer in the basement that would predominate the market for the next three decades or so...

Jokes aside, first up we have Tic-Tac-Toe, the first traditional game to ever have been put on a computer (see OXO for the EDSAC), now available for the first time on a home system. And back in 1976, this was actually a nice thing to have. Because even if it is an extremely simple game, it is the first time that you could play it without a friend. Microprocessor technology made it possible: the Channel F will play against you, and it doesn't make any mistakes. There's not much to excel at when creating a Tic-Tac-Toe game, but the lack of alternatives keeps this one from falling into obscurity, and the funny text messages even add a little personality.

Let me now mention the last two games first: Doodle for doodling, and Quadra-Doodle for watching the Channel F doodle for you, while giving you some options to influence the patterns. Big whoop you say? Aha, remember that this is the very first programmable console that was available to the public. Two white paddles and a ball moving around on the screen to play virtual ping-pong? Been there, done that. But giving you a method to directly influence the picture on your boob tube? Pretty much unheard of! You could draw your own cute, funny, or obscene pictures, as if they were broadcast by a station. And you could leave funny messages on the TV for other family members. It's simply a way of playing around with your TV in a way that was not possible before, and the programs don't claim to be more than that.

You've got three colours and five line strengths to draw with, as well as the possibility to switch between "draw" and "erase" modes. Also really neat is how the two Doodle games are interconnected: Let Quadra-Doodle start some geometric pattern on the screen, influenced by your controller input. Then instantly flick over Doodle, regaining complete control over the drawing tools. Improve or destroy the computer's pattern in any way you want, and then just switch back to Quadra-Doodle to continue drawing patterns over it.

The Bad
Shooting Gallery on the other hand, I found to be a bit too simple for its own good. While the gun has variable positions and angles, it is actually fixed per round. The only challenge is to push the fire button at the right time, so your bullet will hit the moving target. There is no way of directly influencing from where or in which angle you shoot. To make matters worse, the situations are not random, but chosen from about 15 predefined setups, making for very bad replayability.

The Bottom Line
It is pretty clear that these games worked back in the day because what they did was something new and exciting. It was before you could put pictures on a TV set with your home computer. And it was before every teenager could write their own Tic-Tac-Toe game in BASIC. Before more exciting games for the Channel F would be released in the following years, this Videocart was what you would show off your console with.

Although the two creativity programs do not really qualify as games, they're the most interesting ones on this Videocart, and probably were what kept people occupied. They worked because of the fascinating freedom they gave players.

However, none of the games on this cartridge retain more than historical value, even beyond only a few years after release. It's a first for the sake of being the first. So unless you want to relive 1976, look for your retro fun elsewhere.