Kill Screen. That’s pretty foreboding, eh? The name, a term that was coined in arcades in the 80′s, is actually a little misleading. This screen doesn’t necessarily ‘kill’ the player. In some cases, like Donkey Kong, that is a side effect, but the “kill” in Kill Screen better describes some unavoidable obstacle in gameplay, one that stops progress completely, one that commits the ultimate arcade sin — it “kills” your quarter.