Flip-screen

Sabre Wulf on the ZX Spectrum, released in 1984, is an example of a flip screen game.

In video games, flip-screen is a principle where the playing environment is divided into single-screen portions (viewed from above or the side, or, more seldom, via an isometric view). Players see only one such screen at a time, and move to the next screen by having the player avatar exit the current screen via one of the display's edges. At the point when the screen-to-next-screen move is performed, the picture abruptly "flips" to the next screen, hence the technique's name.^[1][2]

Examples

Some examples of flip-screen games are Adventure (Atari 2600, 1979), Space Dungeon (arcade, 1981), Castle Wolfenstein (Apple II, 1981), Galahad and the Holy Grail (Atari 8-bit family, 1982), Pitfall! (Atari 2600, 1982), Jet Set Willy (ZX Spectrum, 1984), and Prince of Persia (Apple II, 1989).

The Legend of Zelda resembles flip-screen games in that action takes place within discrete areas the size of the screen, but it uses a scrolling transition from each area to the next.

See also

• Scrolling
• Wraparound (video games)

References