Afleveringen
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I was on a panel about shareware games at PAX Australia in October, with Halloween Harry / Alien Carnage co-creator John Passfield, indie developer and bookshop owner Terry Burdak, and ACMI games curator Arieh Offman. This is the full audio from that panel.
You can find a PDF of my slides from the panel at this Dropbox link. I've also got John's slides in PowerPoint format (so you can play the videos yourself) and Terry's in another PDF.
As for where to find us and the things we talked about:
My new book, Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the Internet, has a website hereYou can find out more about John's past work at the Play It Again website and his personal site. Terry's games studio and shop are located in Melbourne's inner north. You can check out their games and buy some things at https://www.paperhousegames.com/If you live in or are ever visiting Melbourne, be sure to visit ACMI and stop by the free Story of the Moving Image exhibition. And you can find us all on social media. I'm @MossRC on Twitter and @[email protected] on the Fediverse (Mastodon et al); John is @JohnPassfield on Twitter and @[email protected] on the Fediverse; Terry is @PaperHouseGames on Twitter and Instagram; and Arieh is @OffmanArieh.Special thanks to Helen Stuckey for conceiving and organising the panelAnd here's the original panel description:
Remembering a time when the shareware demo ruled PC gaming, this panel discusses the impact and legacy of shareware on the local gaming landscape. Featuring author of "Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the Internet" Richard Moss, game designer John Passfield, whose Apogee-published game Halloween Harry / Alien Carnage (1993) topped the charts just before shareware legends id Software made it irrelevant with Doom, and shareware devotee in their youth, indie developer Terry Burdak (Paper House). Panel chaired by Arieh Offman, ACMI's Curator of Videogames for Play it Again: Preserving Australian videogame history of the 1990s project. -
I'm still a ways off of finishing the next full episode, but here's something to fill the void in the meantime.
When I spoke to Home of the Underdogs founder Sarinee Achavanuntakul, we had a long segue into the broken world of copyright and its connections to the abandonware scene in games. I'm not sure how much of it will make it into the main story, but I thought a solid chunk of what she said could stand well on its own — especially in light of recent industry discussions around preservation and digital sales (or re-sales) of games.
So here it is, with a fairly substantial intro from me that felt almost like a dress rehearsal for the abandonware discussion I'll have to include in the full episode.
If you'd like to contribute your thoughts/memories/insights on the Home of the Underdogs, please record a voice clip (in any audio format) and send it to me at [email protected], DM me @MossRC on Twitter, or upload directly to this drop folder.
You can support The Life & Times of Video Games in any of the following ways:
subscribe to my Patreonmake a one-time or recurring donation via paypal.me/mossrcbuy my book The Secret History of Mac Gamingpreorder my second book Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internetor just by sharing your favourite episodes and telling other people about the show
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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To wrap up the year I wanted to revisit one of my old favourites: a story I made for my other (currently-inactive) podcast about one of the strangest and most thought-provoking programs ever created. This is the story of If Monks Had Macs.
Original description
It all started with a Macintosh ad: 'You too can be a knowledge worker.' This is the story of Brian Thomas' 15-year odyssey at the helm of one of the strangest pieces of multimedia software ever created — If Monks Had Macs.
Links
You can learn more about Brian, and about Monks, at his website: http://www.rivertext.com/monks.htmlThe original HyperCard stack is downloadable from http://www.rivertext.com/classic.html and also playable at the Internet Archive Ludiphilia Episode 10, Life After If Monks Had MacsAll music and sound effects from If Monks Had Macs (with some touch-up by me), except:
I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor by Chris ZabriskieOneiri by Kai EngelComatose by Kai EngelAnd some bits I composed myself
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To celebrate the 25th birthday of my favourite game franchise, I thought I'd pull out the old Tomb Raider grid episodes from Season 1 and merge them into one. I also put some time into cleaning up the audio, though it'll still sound rough compared to newer episodes — given the lower-fidelity recordings I was using then. Here's the original episode description:
Every aspect of the original Core Design Tomb Raider series (and by extension the franchise's success post-Core) comes back to the grid that lies beneath it — the majority of the puzzles; the platforming; the cavernous chambers and ruins and outdoor areas that provide a sense of isolation, of solitude and discovery; and Lara Croft's iconic acrobatic movement style. And yet it never would have happened if not for one pragmatic choice made by a programmer early in the game's development.
This is the story of how that came to be, and how it made Tomb Raider…well, Tomb Raider, based on interviews with Heather Stevens (née Gibson) and Gavin Rummery as well as my past work covering Tomb Raider's history as a freelancer. The second part, which was originally a separate release, also includes discussion of the place that such a grid system has — or might have — in game design today.
Thank you to my Patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Carey Clanton, Wade Tregaskis, Seth Robinson, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Scott Grant, Vivek Mohan, and Joel Webber.
To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon.
My first book, The Secret History of Mac Gaming, is getting republished in October 2021 (this month!) by Bitmap Books in an "Expanded Edition", featuring a revised layout and design, more images, additional written content, and new sections including a timeline and icon gallery. Head to Bitmap's product page for more details.
My second book, meanwhile, Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet, has just been copyedited and will soon be going through design and typesetting phases. It'll be out around Q2 2022, but you can preorder from Unbound.
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There was no encyclopaedia nor fleshed-out database of video games in 1999. There were barely even any reliable or comprehensive lists of video games. Not until Jim Leonard decided he needed to build one.
He called it MobyGames, and 22 years later it's the de facto source for credits, screenshots, and other general information about video games. It is the "IMDB of video games". This is its story.
My thanks to the people who contributed to this story:
Jim Leonard blogs at Oldskooler Ramblings and tweets @MobyGamer.John Szczepaniak's Untold History of Japanese Game Developers trilogy is on Amazon. There's also re-edited, prettified version called Japansoft available from Read-Only Memory.Clint Basinger runs the excellent Lazy Game Reviews YouTube channel, where he explores and discusses retro games and technology.Matej Jan blogs about pixel art and retro games at Retronator. He's also developing Pixel Art Academy, an adventure game for learning how to draw.These days John Romero is COO at Romero Games, a triple-A game studio he co-founded with his wife (and company CEO) Brenda. Their most recent title is Empire of Sin.Tomer Gabel is now a software architect and consultant. You can find out more about him and his work via his LinkedIn and Twitter profiles.Thank you to my Patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Carey Clanton, Wade Tregaskis, Seth Robinson, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Scott Grant, Vivek Mohan, and Joel Webber.
To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific or just don't want to deal through those platforms.)
My first book, The Secret History of Mac Gaming, is getting republished in October 2021 (this month!) by Bitmap Books in an "Expanded Edition", featuring a revised layout and design, more images, additional written content, and new sections including a timeline and icon gallery. Head to Bitmap's product page for more details.
My second book, meanwhile, Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet, has just been copyedited and will soon be going through design and typesetting phases. It'll be out around Q2 2022, but you can...
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I speak to games historian and graphic designer Kate Willaert about her research and current projects, as well as her efforts to turn this work into a job.
We also voice our complaints about Google's Usenet archives, discuss the horrible world of YouTube publishing, the struggles of getting your work seen/read/heard as a content creator today, the value of a good hook for getting people interested in history, how to structure a historical narrative, our font choices for writing draft scripts, and much, much more.
Interview conducted 1 May 2021
Links:
Kate has talked lots about her Carmen Sandiego research, both on Twitter and her blog. Here's one example.Tetris: The Games People Play, a graphic novel about the history of TetrisThe intro to Kate's (eventually) 50-part video series on playable female protagonistsMobyGames tag for female protagonists (excludes games with multiple playable characters)Hardcore Gaming 101 feature on 1980s video game heroinesThe rules governing her 50-part playable female protagonists series are laid out in the intro video and this articleAtari Compendium's collection of scanned magazinesThe Internet Archive's Magazine RackThe Usenet archives on Google Groups are now mixed in with the other groups and not easily browsable, but search still worksThe UTZOO-Wiseman archives on archive.org are a great resource for Usenet postsAmerican Radio Historynewspapers.comnewspaperarchive.comKate's Moonlander articleKate's YouTube channelI didn't go into specifics on the many significant games made in 1973, so here are several off the top of my head:Maze, arguably the first first-person shooterSpasim, one of the earliest 3D gamesAirfight/Airace, the first computer flight combat sim (covered on this show in ep2)MoonlanderEmpire (the PLATO one)David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games... -
How a game designed in a week helped to change everything — for the company that made it, for a local industry in turmoil, and for a global industry in transition.
Features interviews with Defiant Development co-founder Morgan Jaffit and Firemint founder / Flight Control creator Rob Murray, along with a clip of former Touch Arcade editor Eli Hodapp.
LINKS
You can't get Flight Control on iOS or Android anymore, but the HD Mac and Windows port is still available on Steam — if your computer is old enough to run it.The clip of Eli Hodapp speaking on The Touch Arcade Show is from episode 222, published in September 2015 — shortly after Flight Control (along with many other EA-owned games) was delisted from the App StoreFor more from me on the early mobile games business, be sure to check out episode 1 - Race to the bottom as well as the extended interview I posted with Pocket Gamer co-founder Jon Jordan after that episode came out. I also briefly touched on early iPhone hit Trism in episode 6 - ROM Hack — which featured Trism creator Steve Demeter talking about his stint in the ROM hacking and translations community.If you're curious what these guys are up to nowadays, you'll find Eli at GameClub carving out deals to pull more old iOS and Android games out of purgatory and into their subscription catalogue. Rob is a stay-at-home dad, years deep in a bigger-than-he'd-expected project to design his family's new house. And Morgan is also enjoying the home life after winding down Defiant in 2019, happy that it had served its purpose and was no longer needed. He says he's also writing a script for a new game some ex-Defiant people are building, consulting on various upcoming game projects, and writing short stories (which he describes as a "very nice" change of pace, as he can get a story done in days rather than the years most games he's worked on took to complete).
Thank you to my Patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Joel Webber, Vivek Mohan, Seth Robinson, Simon Moss, Carey Clanton, Scott Grant, Wade Tregaskis, and Rob Eberhardt.
To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific or just don't want to deal through those platforms.)
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The Strong Museum of Play's digital games curator Andrew Borman describes his deep passion for uncovering and preserving cancelled, unreleased, and prototype games. This is so much more than a vocation for him, and here you get to hear all the stories and insights he shared with me when I interviewed him for the season 4 finale, The Ghosts of Games That Never Were.
Highlights include the stories behind cancelled Halo and Elder Scrolls games, an unreleased version of Until Dawn, an early version of Resident Evil 2, and some in-depth discussion about the significance of finding and sharing these stories. We also talk a bit about Andrew's work at The Strong and the amazing power and value of institutional backing in games preservation.
Interview conducted January 14th, 2021.
Links (many of these go to YouTube):
I can't find a surviving archive of Andrew's Resident Evil 1.5 post, but here's a great Eurogamer article about the game and the community quest to preserve itThe Strong Museum of PlayResearch fellowships at The StrongThis page on The Tomb of Ash has info, screenshots, and download links for Core Design's cancelled Tomb Raider 10th Anniversary EditionEpisode 31 of this show also included a segment on said 10th Anniversary EditionTomb Raider's video game hall of fame entryAndrew has multiple videos on the Haggar Xbox demo build for a Halo Mega Bloks game. Here's the most recent one. And here's the first one.A video Andrew made about the Sonic Extreme skateboarding/hoverboarding game that turned into the Sonic Extreme we actually gotElder Scrolls Oblivion cancelled PSP gameAndrew's Star Wars Battlefront 3 unseen PC footage videoAndrew's video on Until Dawn's unreleased PS3 versionVICE Gaming/Waypoint has an excellent Halo 1 oral historyManse was mentioned four times in Ambrosia Software's newsletter before its quiet cancellationHere's the Wikipedia page on Captain ComicAndrew's Stargate SG1: The Alliance hub page from his old website has both articles and videos -
When I interviewed the legendary game designer and GDC founder Chris Crawford for episode 30, on his famous Dragon Speech, I asked him if he'd have pursued this dragon had he known he'd still be chasing it three decades later. He admitted that he probably would have not. He'd have instead put his energy into making more simulations, teaching people to think in a way that he only recently realised is rare.
He calls it process-intensive thinking, and here, in this excerpt from our interview, he explains what that means, why he thinks it's rare, and how he believes it will eventually reshape our society.
He's also written multiple short essays about this idea on his website. Here are links to a couple of them:
https://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/i-really-blew-it.htmlhttps://www.erasmatazz.com/library/course-description-2018/object-versus-process.htmlYou can find a full transcript of this soundbite at lifeandtimes.games/episodes/files/soundbite-chris-crawford-2
To support The Life and Times of Video Games, please remember to share your favourite episodes with other people. You can also donate to the show via paypal.me/mossrc or sign up for a monthly subscription on patreon.com/lifeandtimesofvideogames (which will get you various tier-dependent bonus perks like an ad-free podcast feed and research and production notes).
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What about the games that never make it to market? Do they have stories worth telling, or lessons worth learning? These are the ghosts of games that never were.
With help from The Video Game History Foundation's Frank Cifaldi, The Strong Museum of Play's Andrew Borman, Games That Weren't author/curator Frank Gasking, Tomb Raider superfan Ash Kaprielov, and a couple of old developer interviews, I round out season four by looking at the life and death (and afterlife) of Half-Life for Mac, Desert Bus, Citizens, and Core Design's Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary Edition — along with the strange fascination we have with games that didn't get published.
LINKS
PtoPOnline YouTube channelTomb of Ash page about Core Design's cancelled Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary Edition (with instructions on how to play it)Ash's highlights video from his Twitch livestream (and his Twitch channel)The Games That Weren't bookDesert Bus for HopeThe Video Game History Foundation blog (which includes stories of a few cancelled games as well as a cancelled Sega VR headset)Episode 7 - The Tomb Raider GridThank you to my patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Chaun Huff, Carey Clanton, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Seth Robinson, Scott Grant, Vivek Mohan, and Wade Tregaskis.
To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific or just don't want to deal through those platforms.)
Thank you also to my sponsor, Richard Bannister, for his support. You can check out his modern reimaginings of classic arcade games at retrogamesformac.com.
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If you've listened to episode 30 of the show, even if you weren't previously aware of his work, you'll know what a brilliant orator Chris Crawford is. The Dragon Speech, that famous moment where he charged out of the games industry — by literally charging out of the room — was arguably his magnum opus. And it was only possible thanks to Chris's mastery of the spoken word. Here he describes his approach to public speaking and gives tips on how everyone can give better speeches.
To learn more about Chris, his Dragon Speech, and his immense importance to the early years of the games industry, be sure to listen to episode 30, 'The Dragon Speech, and Chris Crawford's improbable dream'.
You can support The Life and Times of Video Games by sharing your favourite episodes with others and by making a donation, either in the form of a one-off payment via paypal.me/mossrc or a recurring payment (with some reward perks!) via patreon.com/lifeandtimesofvideogames
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Given the hellish year we've had in 2020, I thought it'd be fun to close the year with a touch of levity...in the form of my cat, interrupting me, and just generally wanting to be podcast famous.
Happy holidays. May your 2021 be blessed with joy and happiness and dreams fulfilled. Or at least better tidings than this year brought.
Thank you to my Patreon supporters for making this show possible — especially my producer-level backers Scott Grant, Rob Eberhardt, Carey Clanton, Vivek Mohan, Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, and Simon Moss.
To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific.)
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I speak to Bitmap Books founder/publisher/owner/designer Sam Dyer about the hows and whys of publishing visually-led, high-quality books about games history, including why he loves to publish them and why they are so much more than just "picture books" — indeed, as we cover in the interview, there's both a huge amount of care and craft that goes into making them and we can learn so, so much from looking at the graphical evolution of the medium. We also discuss the challenges and processes of book publishing, the history of Bitmap Books, and Bitmap's current and upcoming projects.
This is the sixth entry in a new series of interviews I'm running alongside the main show — every month-or-three I'll talk to a different person who's exploring games history, in one way or another, to learn about the many ways people are preserving the games industry's past as well as to further our understanding of how this wonderful medium (and the industry that's built around it) has come to be the way it is now. The previous one was with Kelsey Lewin of The Video Game History Foundation. Before that, I talked about computer role-playing games with the author of The CRPG Addict blog. Other interviews include Shmuplations.com proprietor and Japanese-to-English translator extraordinaire Alex Highsmith. Follow the "games history explorers" tag or the Interviews category on my website to see them all.
Interview conducted November 24th, 2020. [Note that since completing this interview, I have started working with Bitmap on some stuff and they have republished my Mac gaming history book as The Secret History of Mac Gaming Expanded Edition.]
Links:
Commodore 64: A Visual CompendiumCommodore Amiga: A Visual CompendiumNES/Famicom and SNES/Super Famicom visual compendiumsThe Art of Point-and-Click Adventure GamesMetal Slug Book -
It was "the greatest speech he ever gave in his life", and it marked a turning point in his pursuit of his dream, but it had the note of a eulogy. This is the story of how — and why — the legendary designer Chris Crawford left the games industry in an opening-day lecture at the 1993 Game Developers Conference, an event that he had founded just six years prior.
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Chris is still at it, still chasing his dragon, now with a more stripped-back storyworld and storyworld engine. You can read about these — and perhaps have a go at making your own interactive storyworld — at his website, which is full of essays, reflections, development diaries, and educational materials from the past 30+ years of his life.
Thank you to my patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Scott Grant, Carey Clanton, Wade Tregaskis, Simon Moss, Seth Robinson, Vivek Mohan, and Rob Eberhardt.
To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific.)
Thank you also to my sponsor, Richard Bannister, for his support. You can check out his modern reimaginings of classic arcade games at retrogamesformac.com.
I've just added one more way you can listen to and share the show — it's now available on the audio sharing platform Vurbl at https://vurbl.com/station/3Ul4MkAwo7Z/
To find other ways to listen, head to lifeandtimes.games/listen
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Utopia and Intellivision World Series Baseball designer Don Daglow, one of the original five game programmers in Mattel's Intellivision group, describes his years spent at the company dodging forklifts, dumpster diving, listening to toys being smashed, and sharing a space with the rest of the electronics division.
To learn more about Don Daglow and his mega-influential game Utopia, be sure to listen to episode 29, 'Utopia, and the teacher who made a game of its impossibility'.
I've just added one more way you can listen to the show — it's now available on the audio sharing platform Vurbl at https://vurbl.com/station/3Ul4MkAwo7Z/
You can support The Life and Times of Video Games by sharing your favourite episodes with others and by making a donation, either in the form of a one-off payment via paypal.me/mossrc or a recurring payment (with some reward perks!) via patreon.com/lifeandtimesofvideogames
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When Don Daglow pitched management at Mattel on an Intellivision game about trying to build a perfect society, he thought he was just creating a "line filler" in their product calendar. Instead he made one of the most important games of all time.
Don wrote a book in 2018 about the business and design insights he's gained from his long career making video games (nearly 50 years if you include his mainframe games!). If you buy it on Amazon via my affiliate link, I get a small percentage of the sale price.It's also worth noting, for anyone up for some further reading, that I've done in-depth genre histories for Ars Technica on two of the genres that Utopia influenced — city-building games and real-time strategy.I'll also have more content from my two (so far!) interviews with Don in the coming weeks and months — probably a "soundbite" in mid-November and a full episode in 2021, plus maybe more of each of those.Utopia is one of several Intellivision games slated for re-release on the upcoming Intellivision Amico console. In the meantime, you can grab a fan-made remake on Itch.io (Mac or Windows), track down a copy of the Intellivision Lives! collection from some years back, boot it up in an emulator, or just watch some videos of it on YouTube.All music in this episode was my own, except selected clips from Santa Paravia, Astrosmash, Fascinating Fruit, and Utopia, and the IBM mainframe playing a song.Thanks to my sponsor for this episode, Richard Bannister. You can find out more about his Retro Games for Mac collection at his website or by listening to my Indie Spotlight interview with him.To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific.)
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This is a sponsored post, but don't let that turn you off. I made a point of doing the interview as I would any other — and Richard Bannister has some fun stories to tell.
Richard Bannister is best-known for his Mac-native emulator ports of BSNES, Nestopia, Genesis Plus, and Boycott Advance, plus some two-dozen others, which he built and maintained through the 2000s and returned to relatively recently after a long hiatus. But he also has a fantastic game music player called Audio Overload (with Mac and Windows versions) that supports more than 30 console/handheld/computer file formats.
And this year, during a period of unemployment, he decided to flex his creative muscles and make some games. He's up to 20 in all, each inspired by a classic arcade game or early home computer puzzle game — and very often by multiple variants of a particular game — and he's selling them on the Mac App Store. He's got his own version of Mr Do — via Amstrad CPC clone Fruity Frank — called Fascinating Fruit, and a Snake/Pac-Man hybrid called Wacky Snake, plus a Crystal Quest reimagining called Space Diamonds and a JezzBall/Barrack clone called Little Green Balls that I can personally attest feels just like the original. And many others, available individually or in two discounted bundles.
In this interview we discuss his Retro Games for Mac collection — its inspirations, design, development, cheat codes(!), and future plans — as well as his 90s shareware games and his contributions to the emulator scene.
Interview notes:
His Breakout-style game is called Shaded BricksIt's inspired by Commodore 64 game Crillion1992 Mac game DiamondsFascinating Fruit is based on the arcade game Mr DoBut also on Amstrad CPC game Fruity Frankcheat codes include "drfauci" to give your character a mask and "fiveaday" to swap fruits and vegetables out for junk food (see below for how they change the appearance)I covered the rise and fall of Ambrosia Software in a PAX talk that you can read/listen to hereAmbrosia Software's Pengo clone Bubble Trouble is no longer available, except via abandonware sitesIce SquishingHis shareware games included Smashing Windows and Star ChaosPang aka Buster Brothers arcade gameCrystal Quest is available on modern systems (Mac, Windows, Xbox 360) thanks to the company co-founded by its creator Patrick BucklandThere was indeed a Game Boy port, though the game was never going to work well with d-pad controlsRichard Bannister's original shareware clone was called Space DebrisHis new version is Space Diamonds -
On the rise and, um...fade out(?) of Chris Sawyer, the genius creator of bestselling, critically-acclaimed simulation games Transport Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon — who made a career out of working at the cutting-edge, in bare metal assembly code that he wrote and optimised (and optimised again) on his own, until the cutting-edge left him behind.
Chris was only a design consultant on 2004 game RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, but its remastered "Complete" edition has just come out on Nintendo Switch and the PC version is free on the Epic Games Store right now (until October 2). The original two games are also still sold via the likes of Steam and GOG.
Transport Tycoon, meanwhile, lives on in open-source project OpenTTD and in a mobile port (Android, iOS) of the original game by Chris's company 31X.
Thanks as always to my supporters on Patreon — especially my $10+ backers Carey Clanton, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Vivek Mohan, Wade Tregaskis, and Seth Robinson. If you'd like to become a supporter, for as little as $1 a month, head to my Patreon page and sign up. Or for one-off donations you can use paypal.me/mossrc.
Please remember to tell other people about the show, and to leave a review by following the links at ratethispodcast.com/ltvg.
I'm currently writing a new book called Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet (the subtitle got changed to "The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet"). You can learn more and/or pre-order your copy from Unbound.
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Former Links, PGA Championship Golf, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour lead Vance Cook explains how and why his team(s) created new ways to swing a virtual golf club — beginning with the C-shaped gauge in Links and leading into "TruSwing" on Front Page Sports Golf and PGA Championship, and then ending with the motion-controller (Wiimote) swing in Tiger Woods Wii.
Also listen for insights into the difference between sports games that aim for simulation versus those that aim for the "emotional experience".
This soundbite uses leftover material from Episode 27 - Links, though that story's not a pre-requisite for listening.
Thanks as always to my supporters on Patreon — especially my $10+ backers Carey Clanton, Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, Simon Moss, Rob Eberhardt, and Vivek Mohan. If you'd like to become a supporter, for as little as $1 a month, head to my Patreon page and sign up. Or for one-off donations you can use paypal.me/mossrc.
Please remember to tell other people about the show, as word-of-mouth is the main way my audience grows, and if you'd like to leave a review you can do so by following the links at ratethispodcast.com/ltvg.
I'm currently writing a new book, Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet (the subtitle got changed to "The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet"). You can learn more and/or pre-order your copy from Unbound.
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In 1990, in a bid to move ahead of their rivals, Access Software reinvented virtual golf. Their game Links set the template for golf games over the next decade, with a technological tour de force, and along the way it dominated bestselling PC games charts month after month, year after year. Until suddenly it didn't.
This is the story of Links and the huge shadow it cast over its genre.
If you'd like to play the original Links for yourself and would like to see it the way people saw it at the time, don't forget to turn down the CPU speed in DOSBox — a 386 was still a high-end machine when it came out, and so you want to go somewhat slower than that.
TruGolf EA got out of golf games after Rory McIlroy PGA Tour in 2015, but 2K picked up the PGA Tour licence this year and has taken over publishing duties for former EA Sports contractors HB Studios' golf series The Golf Club — now renamed PGA Tour 2K. Their first game together, PGA Tour 2K21, just came out on Switch, Xbox One, and PS4 (disclosure: those are Amazon affiliate links).Thanks as always to my supporters on Patreon — especially my $10+ backers Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, Rob Eberhardt, Vivek Mohan, Simon Moss, and Eric Zocher. If you'd like to become a supporter, for as little as $1 a month, head to my Patreon page and sign up. Or for one-off donations you can use paypal.me/mossrc.
Please remember to tell other people about the show, and to leave a review by following the links at ratethispodcast.com/ltvg.
I'm currently writing a new book, Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet (the subtitle got changed to "The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet"). You can learn more and/or pre-order your copy from Unbound.
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