Adventure, a video game cartridge for the Atari 2600 video game console, was the first action-adventure video game. It was published by Atari Inc. in 1978, and sold 1 million copies. Adventure introduced the idea of movable objects (represented by visible icons) that could be picked up by the player (using a joystick) and moved from place to place in the game world. It was also one of the first video games to allow the player to explore a large multi-screen game world. As the first action-adventure game, it inspired the current genre of action-adventure video games, including Legend of Zelda, the Ultima series, and many others. Adventure also contained the first Easter Egg (hidden surprise) in a video game, which in this case was the author's signature hidden in a secret room. - abacab

Lecture slide deck on the technical aspects of both the game's development and the Atari hardware, too: http://www.warrenrobinett.com/adventu... - abacab