Early playable female characters/protagonists in video games (1972-1982)

[DefaultGen | 5,400]

I'm looking into very early playable female characters in games. Many lists are missing information because they intentionally discount various aspects (unnamed characters, not human, etc.) so I'd like to find as much information as possible to make my own determination of what matters or is interesting. 1983 and on playable female characters become much more common as either real characters, selectable characters, or just porn. I don't know how many of later games have any real historical relevance so I'm focusing on earlier ones.

This is certainly far from the first such list, but please let me know if you know of other games. I have to start digging through more old computer games to see what I can find.

1972-1982 video games:

2 [Simon Says] (1972)
Magnavox Odyssey, Magnavox
Player 1 controls a boy on the overlay and player 2 controls a girl
This is the first video game period where you can consider a player to be controlling a female character, even if it is just represented on the overlay

Spoiler

 

Score (1977)
Arcade, Exidy
Sprite swap of Death Race where men chase women and vice versa.
The first ever playable or depicted female human in a commercial game
The game is "lost" right now with no ROMs or screenshots, although a cabinet at least exists somewhere

Spoiler

 

Kid-Venture #1: Little Red Riding Hood (1980)
Apple II, TRS-80, Adventure Interactive
Non-interactive storybook software that includes a quiz mode where you can't actually lose. Probably the barest qualifier of being a video game, if it counts at all.
Little Red Riding Hood is technically the protagonist, named, and depicted in-game, although you don't control her or make any choices for/as her.
She isn't an original video game character, but a literary one

Spoiler

 

Galactic Saga IV: Tawala's Last Redoubt (1981)
Apple II, Broderbund
Strategy game with the possible first named, off-screen female protagonist.
Presumably you "play" as Benthi controlling her forces, although you don't actually control her.
She is depicted in the manual

Spoiler

 

Lady Bug (1981, December)
Arcade, Universal
The art for the game depicts you as a humanoid, although in-game you're just a regular ladybug
The home port manuals refer to you as she and her. At least once it refers you as "Lady Bug" with no article or possessive (i.e. the Lady Bug, your Lady Bug), which could imply her name is Lady Bug, although this is a stretch and likely just an oversight.
I would not personally consider this a human(oid) character, however I don't necessarily think discounting art and advertising as "not part of the game" is the correct approach either, especially for early, more abstract games.

Spoiler

 

Ms. Pac-Man (1982, February)
Arcade, Midway
The first playable, named, female protagonist: Ms. Pac-Man
Some sources (i.e. Polygon) don't consider her "named". I think she is clearly named Ms. Pac-Man.
Also Ms. Pac-Man Plus in 1982, which was an official conversion kit might technically count as its own game.

Spoiler

Pooyan (1982)
Arcade, Konami/Stern
You play as a mother pig named Mama

Spoiler

 

Kangaroo (1982)
Arcade, Atari
You play as a mother kangaroo rescuing her joey

Spoiler

 

Pac-Gal (1982, May)
DOS, Al J. Jiménez
Bad, early Pac-Man clone where you play as an IBM smiley face character, but due to the title she is technically female.
Re-released as "Pac-Girl"

Spoiler

 

Wabbit (1982, likely October)
Atari 2600, Apollo
First playable, named, human, female protagonist: Billie Sue
Likely what you could plainly call the "first woman player character" of a video game.
Despite being human... Ms. Pac-Man has more personality. Just sayin'!

Spoiler

 

Beat'em and Eat'Em (1982, likely November)
Atari 2600, Mystique
Very early playable female characters: women... eating 'em.
The first game where you can play as two female characters!
Self-describes itself as having the world's first computer generated fart. More research may be needed.

Spoiler

 

Honorable Mentions:

• Talking Eliza (1979, TRS-80). Ancient chat bot AI thing. Not really a game, and not really a playable female character, but maybe of interest. This is an implementation of ELIZA, researched and created between 1964-1966.
• Alien (1982, Atari 2600). You play as nameless, genderless humans, although you would imagine yourself playing as Ripley.
• Black Widow (1982, Arcade). The arcade manual depicts a black widow with an hourglass, which females usually have. While it sure feels like in a game named Black Widow, you'd be playing as the scary, dangerous, partner-eating sex rather than the harmless male, it isn't specified in any explicit way in the game or other surrounding materials.
• Games where the main character is "you". For example Santa Paravia and Fiumaccio (1978, TRS-80), a strategy game that predates most other games on this list. "You" are the ruler of Santa Paravia and the game asks your gender to provide gender-appropriate titles (e.g. Sir, Lady, King, Queen). A very early game that asks the player's sex is the HP2000 game Trek73 (1973). These would largely be hard to classify as the vast majority don't ask your gender, but could obviously be played by women.
• Mrs. Dynamite (1982, Arcade). An unreleased Universal game exhibited in 1982. It looked pretty neat.
• Chess... in general. The queen represents a female, so there's that. There is a long history of computer chess I am not bothering to go deep into. MicroChess (1976) and Video Chess (1979) are perhaps two important early video games. The Turochamp algorithm (1948), the first computer game to ever enter development, would be a hard one to go earlier than if you count chess. There are also old computer games that are not explicitly chess, such as the BASIC game 1QUEEN (1970). If you really consider chess and its variants to be the first appearance of playable female characters, this is it's own rabbit hole.

Other games, 1983 and beyond:

There are many, many more past 1982 I came across while researching. Here are some pre-1986 games are below, some years are approximate, and this is far from complete. Once games get more complex, you get things like Alien on Commodore 64, a game where you control all the members of the Nostromo including Ripley, so I guess that counts? There are likely many mid-80s RPGs or strategy games where you control a female character in a party that are not easy to find. Something like Ultima III has classes that are clearly represented by females in the art, but nothing in the game or manual mentions gender, so it can be hard to classify these too.

• 1983, Lady in Wading (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Bachelorette Party (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Jungle Fever (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Gigolo (Atari 2600)
• 1983, General Re-Treat (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Dishaster (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Halloween (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Dolphin (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Alices Abenteuer (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Ghost Manor (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Strawberry Shortcake (Atari 2600)
• 1983, Snowball (Many computers)
• 1983, Murder on the Zinderneuf (Apple II and others)
• 1983, Fay: That Math Woman! (Apple II, C64)
• 1983, Tropical Angel (Arcade) - First Japanese-developed human female protagonist. Also a notably realistic human compared to earlier Atari stuff.
• 1983, Joshi Volleyball (Arcade)
• 1983, Bristles (Atari 8-Bit)
• 1983, Granny and the Gators (Bally)
• 1983, Otenba Becky no Daibouken (MSX)
• 1984, 40-0 (Arcade)
• 1984, Field Day (Arcade)
• 1984, Jenny of the Prairie (Apple II)
• 1984, Through the Looking Glass (Macintosh)
• 1984, Return to Eden (Many computers)
• 1984, Nausicaä's Close Call (PC-6001)
• 1984, Nausicaä's Forgotten Game (MSX)
• 1984, Nausicaä Adventure Game (PC-8801)
• 1984, Flicky (Arcade)
• 1984, Girl's Garden (SG-1000)
• 1984, Queen's Golf (MSX)
• 1984, Hole in One (MSX)
• 1984, Bionic Granny (C64)
• 1984, Alien (ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64)
• 1984, Tinka's Mazes (Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64)
• 1984, Beaky and the Egg Snatchers (ZX Spectrum, C64)
• 1984, Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in the Park (Colecovision)
• 1984, Chelsea of the South Sea Islands (Apple II) - Very rare, possibly unreleased or limited release? Disk image exists.
• 1984, Lauren of the 25th Century (Apple II) - Very rare, possibly unreleased or limited release?
• 1984, Bird Mother (Commodore 64)
• 1984, Airbase Invader (ZX Spectrum)
• 1984, Cave Girl Clair (Apple II)
• 1984, Barbie (Commodore 64)
• 1984, Aerobics (Atari 8-bit)
• 1984, The Black Onyx (PC-88)
• 1985, Onyanko Town (Famicom)
• 1985, Twinbee (Arcade)
• 1985, Ninja Princess (Arcade, SG-1000)
• 1985, City Connection (Arcade)
• 1985, Baraduke (Arcade)
• 1985, Time Gal (Arcade)
• 1985, Flash Gal (Arcade)
• 1985, Onna Sansirou: Typhoon Gal (Arcade)
• 1985, Gauntlet (Arcade)
• 1985, Amelie Minuit (Amstrad CPC)
• 1985, Lode Runner's Rescue (Commodore 64)
• 1985, Lady Master of Kung-Fu (Arcade)
• 1985, Shadowfire (Commodore 64)
• 1985, Cauldron (Commodore 64)
• 1985, Doppleganger (Amstrad CPC)
• 1985, Mama Llama (Commodore 64)
• 1985, The Wizard of Oz (Apple II)
• 1985, Al*berthe (Matra Alice)
• 1985, Alice in Wonderland (Apple II)
• 1985, Alien Sector (Arcade, X68000)
• 1985, Elidon (Commodore 64)
• 1985, The Fairyland Story (Arcade)
• 1985, Night Nurse (Sinclair QL)
• 1985, Amelie Minuit (Amstrad CPC)
• 1985, The Secret of St. Brides (ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64)

And also a couple games I've seen described as having a female protagonist but at a cursory glance don't appear to actually have them:

• 1984, Lords of Time (Commodore 64)
• 1984, Hustle! Chumy (MSX)
• 1985, Mach Rider (Arcade)

Good Sources:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/inventories/80sheroines.htm This HG101 article has information on many of the obscure Japanese games

https://www.mobygames.com/game-group/protagonist-female/offset,0/so,1a/ This is the Mobygames list of female protagonists, although it is a little lacking and at least a few seem to be incorrect

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/253620-girls-power-games-with-female-heros/ Lots of Atari games mentioned in this thread

https://www.polygon.com/2021/2/11/22273073/ban-tran-atari-2600-wabbit-first-female-character-video-games-playable-history-apollo Polygon article about Score, Wabbit, and the search for information on female protagonists

https://www.acriticalhit.com/video-dames-the-history-of-playable-female-protagonists/ A start to a planned 50-part series on female protagonists in games, however it only covers Exidy Score so far. Will likely be a very high quality, originally researched source in the future

https://www.randomterrain.com/rt-atari-2600-game-index.html Random Terrain, the absolute best-researched source for Atari release dates

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by DefaultGen

[DefaultGen | 5,400]

All this because @hyrulevyse kept trying to hype Wabbit to me... and I wanted to find something even earlier. While there are some earlier borderline cases I don't think I found anything amazing besides Exidy Score which is pretty neat. The important games are still perhaps Ms. Pac-Man, Wabbit, and Metroid with a bunch of nonsense filling in the gaps.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

Cool post, but I'm wondering why you have Ms. Pac-Man as having been released in 1981 in Japan before the US release?  You also have it listed as being developed by Namco.  Are you aware that the game was not released in Japan, and not only did Namco have nothing to do with it's development, they didn't even know it was happening?  It was entirely the work of GCC (as a hack of Namco's Pac-Man, obviously) and published exclusively in North America by Midway.  Namco's official sequel to Pac-Man is Super Pac-Man...

[DefaultGen | 5,400]

2 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Cool post, but I'm wondering why you have Ms. Pac-Man as having been released in 1981 in Japan before the US release?  You also have it listed as being developed by Namco.  Are you aware that the game was not released in Japan, and not only did Namco have nothing to do with it's development, they didn't even know it was happening?  It was entirely the work of GCC (as a hack of Namco's Pac-Man, obviously) and published exclusively in North America by Midway.  Namco's official sequel to Pac-Man is Super Pac-Man...

Yep, mixed in Pac-Man info and nonexistent info. That’s why I try to source as much as possible  Thanks for the catch. 

Edited April 22, 2021 by DefaultGen

[DaddyMulk | 64]

On 4/21/2021 at 10:38 PM, Dr. Morbis said:

You also have it listed as being developed by Namco.  Are you aware that the game was not released in Japan, and not only did Namco have nothing to do with it's development, they didn't even know it was happening?

The myth about Namco being unaware/uninvolved was actually debunked several years ago in an interview with the creators conducted by Benj Edwards (“The MIT Dropouts Who Created Ms. Pac-Man: A 35th-Anniversary Oral History”).

Here’s part of it:

 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

1 hour ago, DaddyMulk said:

The myth about Namco being unaware/uninvolved was actually debunked several years ago in an interview with the creators conducted by Benj Edwards (“The MIT Dropouts Who Created Ms. Pac-Man: A 35th-Anniversary Oral History”).

Here’s part of it:

 

I'd say having nothing to do with the development of a game other than to say that the main character has to "get rid of the hair" would be considered by most to be pretty uninvolved...

I actually went to a seminar conducted by Steve Golson at Replay FX in Pittsburgh  in 2015 that was a one hour power-point presentation about Ms. Pac-Man from the start of GCC to the release of the arcade game in Feb 82, and he never once mentioned Namco of Japan having anything to do with it, or the comment about the hair, but hey, maybe it just slipped his mind at the time

Edited July 20, 2021 by Dr. Morbis

[DaddyMulk | 64]

5 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I'd say having nothing to do with the development of a game other than to say that the main character has to "get rid of the hair" would be considered by most to be pretty uninvolved...

I actually went to a seminar conducted by Steve Golson at Replay FX in Pittsburgh  in 2015 that was a one hour lecture about Ms. Pac-Man from the start of GCC to the release of the arcade game in Feb 82, and he never once mentioned Namco of Japan having anything to do with it, or the comment about the hair, but hey, maybe it just slipped his mind at the time

Right, the development was 95% handled by GCC. But up until this interview, it was a fairly commonly-held belief that Midway released Ms. Pac-Man without Namco’s knowledge.

[croagunk | 798]

Awesome list! 

[Estil | 1,261]

You know how I've gone on record as saying I love JRPGs where you get to have cute girls on your team/party?  Well Sega took one look at Metroid (being the first console video game to have a true distinctive female protagonist) and said, I see your reveal at the end Samus is female...and raise you an epic RPG (Phantasy Star) where you get to have a cute chick as your quarterback!   I don't reckon that's exactly the accepted/proper term but in RPGs where there's only one leader of your party that you're not allowed to ever swap out I like to call him/her your "quarterback".  Same goes in FF1 where unless you're going for some really weird/strange party/challenge you should of course have the Warrior as your QB, for obvious reasons.

You might say even the Master System (sometimes) Does what Nintendon't!  

Edited August 3, 2021 by Estil

[RH | 4,895]

It came out in 1987, but I have to bring up The Great Giana Sisters because they are a blatant rip off of Super Mario Bros.

Maybe the first female protagonist duo in a game?