Gremlin Industries was arcade game

Arcade game

An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...

 manufacturer active from the 1970s to early 1980s, and based San Diego, California

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

, USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 .

Gremlin was founded in 1973 as a manufacturer of coin-operated wall games. Gremlin's first wall game, Play Ball, was fairly successful.

History

Gremlin joined the video game market in 1977 by releasing its first video arcade game entitled Blockade

Blockade (arcade game)

Blockade is an arcade maze game developed and published by Gremlin in 1976. Using four directional buttons, each player moves their character around leaving a solid line behind them, turning at 90 degree angles. To win, a player must last longer than the opponent before hitting something, with the...

. In 1979, Gremlin merged its operations with Sega

Sega

, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...

 and, from then on, all new video games by Gremlin were labelled either under the Gremlin/Sega or Sega/Gremlin brand names. Some of Gremlin's output, both before and after the marriage with Sega, were titles originally created by Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese companies. Among theses video games were Namco's

Namco

is a Japanese corporation best known as a former video game developer and publisher. Following a merger with Bandai in September 2005, the two companies' game production assets were spun off into Namco Bandai Games on March 31, 2006. Namco Ltd. was re-established to continue domestic operation of...

 Gee Bee and Konami's

Konami

is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...

 Frogger

Frogger

Frogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981. It was developed by Konami, and licensed for worldwide distribution by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of...

.

Gremlin became one of the many victims of the video game crash of 1983

Video game crash of 1983

The North American video game crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. Beginning in 1983, the crash almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing...

 and closed in 1984 after being acquired by Bally with all operations moved from San Diego to Chicago. Some of Gremlin's original wall games have since been re-released under different names.

Games

1976:

• Blockade
  Blockade (arcade game)
  Blockade is an arcade maze game developed and published by Gremlin in 1976. Using four directional buttons, each player moves their character around leaving a solid line behind them, turning at 90 degree angles. To win, a player must last longer than the opponent before hitting something, with the...
  
  (Gremlin's first released game)

1977:

• Safari
• Super Bowl
• Comotion
  CoMotion
  The CoMotion platform is a commercial product from General Dynamics C4 Systems that provides a synchronous and asynchronous collaborative workspace enabling data sharing, data visualization, and messaging. It allows potentially hundreds of users to collaborate live, sharing all or part of their...
  
  
• Depthcharge
• Hustle

1978:

• Gee Bee (licensed from Namco; the Gremlin version replaces the "N-A-M-C-O" letters on the bumpers with the company's distinctive "G" logo.)
• Blasto
  Blasto (arcade game)
  Blasto is a 1978 arcade game by Gremlin. The player controls a spaceship and must maneuver it through a mine field. The player tries to beat the clock to destroy all the mines...
  
  
• Frogs
  Frogs (video game)
  Frogs is a single-player action / platform arcade game released by Sega-Gremlin in 1978. It is the first video game with a jumping character , which by some definitions could make it the first platform game...
  
  

1979:

• Deep Scan
  Deep Scan
  Deep Scan is an arcade game released in 1979 by Sega. The game involves commanding a battleship which can drop mines from either the left or right in an attempt to destroy enemy submarines. The player must also avoid mines launched from these submarines, which will increase every time a target is...
  
  
• Fortress
  Fortress (video game)
  Fortress is a tower defense video game developed by Pipe Dream Interactive and published by Majesco Games for the Game Boy Advance handheld game console.-Reception:...
  
  
• Head On
  Head On (arcade game)
  Head On is an arcade game developed in by Sega. In this game, players control their cars through the maze, while simultaneously picking up dots and avoiding cars that chase the players...
  
  
• Head On 2
• Invinco
  Invinco
  Invinco is an arcade game from 1979 by Sega inspired by Space Invaders. It is the basis for the phrase "Invinco Fever."...
  
  

1980:

• Astro Fighter
  Astro Fighter
  Astro Fighter is a two-dimensional, space shoot 'em up arcade game released in 1980. It was developed and published by Data East in Japan and was published outside of Japan by Gremlin/Sega.-Plot:...
  
  
• Digger
• Monaco GP
  Monaco GP (arcade game)
  Monaco GP is an arcade game that was released by Sega in 1979. The game was released in three cabinet styles, a vertical upright cabinet, a cocktail table and sit-down 'deluxe' cabinet. A sequel, Pro Monaco GP, was released in 1980., and was later followed by Super Monaco GP and Ayrton Senna's...
  
  
• Moon Cresta
  Moon Cresta
  is an arcade game released in 1980 by Nichibutsu. Incentive Software published a version of this arcade game for many 8-bit home computers of the time. Dempa also released a port of both Moon Cresta and Terra Cresta for the X68000...
  
  (licensed from Nichibutsu)
• Space Firebird
  Space Firebird
  is a 1980 arcade game developed by Nintendo R&D1. It was published by Nintendo in Japan and in the North America. It was also published by Sega-Gremlin in the US as well...
  
  (licensed from Nintendo
  Nintendo
  is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
  
  )
• Super Moon Cresta (licensed from Nichibutsu)
• Carnival

1981:

• Astro Blaster
  Astro Blaster
  Astro Blaster is a shoot 'em up arcade game released by Sega in 1981.-Gameplay:The player controls a ship which can fire and move left or right...
  
  
• Eliminator
• Frogger
  Frogger
  Frogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981. It was developed by Konami, and licensed for worldwide distribution by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of...
  
  (licensed from Konami
  Konami
  is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
  
  )
• Pulsar
  Pulsar (video game)
  Pulsar is a 1981 arcade game created by Sega/Gremlin. In it, the player controls a tank in a top-down view maze to fetch keys used to unlock the next level....
  
  
• Space Fury
  Space Fury
  Space Fury a multi-directional shooter arcade game created by Sega released on June 17, 1981. The game was an early example of color vector graphics and it also featured speech synthesis.-Gameplay:...
  
  
• Space Odyssey

1982:

• Zaxxon
  Zaxxon
  Zaxxon is a 1982 arcade game developed and released by Sega. Some sources claim that Japanese electronics company Ikegami Tsushinki also worked on the development of Zaxxon...
  
  

Ports

Sega released emulated and playable versions of some of the early Sega/Gremlin arcade games as vault material for the Sega Genesis Collection

Sega Genesis Collection

The Sega Mega Drive Collection is a video game compilation for the PlayStation 2 and PSP, compiled and emulated by Digital Eclipse and released in the U.S. in 2006 and Europe and Australia in 2007...

for the PlayStation 2

PlayStation 2

The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

 and PlayStation Portable

PlayStation Portable

The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...

.