i just stumbled upon Sheri Graner Ray's old livejournal entries that document some of the days in which she worked at Origin Systems in the 90s. some of the anecdotes are gold... this one, from the Ultima VII development period:

“Spark... the little boy in Trinisic who follows you around in the beginning of Ultima VII was written by Raymond Benson and based on his son. The idea was cute, but the character got annoying really fast.. particularly for the testers. They would regularly dress him in a dress and then starve him to death until he became a ghost following you around."

http://sherigranerray.com/?p=10

#ultima #dosGaming #retroGaming

if you're familiar with the minitel videotex terminals, you are probably less familiar with our canadian equivalent: bell's AlexTel system. someone managed to send NAPLPS commands to it and made some vector drawings!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BKRfM5HHSM

#minitel #videotex #teletext

succinct and surprisingly deep writeup on the depth sorting technique used in the wonderful isometric ZX Speccy game Knight Lore

16 year old blog post still as relevant as ever!

https://bannalia.blogspot.com/2008/02/filmation-math.html

#zxspectrum #retroGaming #math

huge thanks to @[email protected] for uploading his Faery Tale Adventure (amiga) source to github

several users are already hard at work digesting the source tree and getting things working. one of the best is Xarklabs' ongoing SDL2 port, located here:

https://github.com/XarkLabs/faery-tale-amiga/tree/macos

talin's original source here:
https://github.com/viridia/faery-tale-amiga

#gamePreservation #retroGaming #amiga

i wish i had been the kid with the pluck to don this 10/10 spazwear in my 1990s junior high school

the Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire manual is a pulpy comic book that suits the game perfectly. no one talks about this manual sadly.

one of the most underrated ultima games - it got a lot less attention than Martian Dreams, and it was a far more interesting setting.

#ultima #retroGaming

https://sarahjaneavory.wordpress.com/2024/10/21/new-rpg-update-21-10-2024/

someone's working on a new C64 game inspired very heavily by Ultima III: Exodus

#ultima #commodore64 #retroGaming

TIL La Abadia Del Crimen got a 256 colour remake several years ago under the name "The Abbey of Crime Extensum", and the animation and pixel art is gorgeous

the controls have been modernized a bit, and it's a joy to explore.

free download and/or steam link here:
https://www.abadiadelcrimenextensum.com/en/the-game-2/

#retroGaming

to demonstrate the difference between painted and scanned (and auto-dithered) art, versus digitally painted art using dpaint, here are two screenshots from Gateway

left: painted with traditional media, scanned in and retouched at 256 colours. note the completely uniform dithering

right: painted in deluxepaint in 256 colours. note the careful manual dithers around the edges of the lilypads

#retroGaming #dosgaming

another example of the achingly beautiful art of frederik pohl's Gateway

several different artists worked on the backgrounds for the game. some backgrounds, like this one, were painted directly in deluxe paint. others were painted using traditional media, and then scanned in and auto-dithered to 256 colours.

#retroGaming #dosGaming

sometimes you have no choice but to drive 300km to a boondocks antique store to rescue a bunch of abandoned dos games 😍

#dosgaming #bigboxgames #RetroGaming

20 years ago i stumbled upon a "top dog" entry on Home of the Underdogs in the adventure section

part point and click adventure, part american gothic themed thriller, and part horror story; i've never found a comfortable label for it.

all these years have passed, and i'm still mesmerized by how unique the game is. some of david dew's bespoke animations still reign among the best i've ever seen in a 2d game.

it's still hard to imagine this entire experience was crafted by only three people.

here are a couple of minutes of the intro and gameplay from creative reality's DreamWeb (1994)

#dosgaming #retroGaming

i can't believe this is a real thing, and this is the first time i've ever heard about it

Seal: Magic Eye is an adventure-RPG for MS-DOS

Soft-World, a korean RPG and adventure game publisher/developer, did an amazing job of cloning Ultima VII's style, interface, sprites and tiles

it's cloned down to the smallest detail: the "journer onward" on the title screen, the pixel palette rotation effect during the load screen, and even the wonky isometric-ish projection.

it plays more like the SNES/SFC port of Ultima VII: The Black Gate - interactivity is stripped away, and it's mostly point and click dialogue.

the fact that this exists at all is incredible. now, whenever someone asks, "is there a game like Ultima VII?" i finally can say, yes!

sadly, it has no mobygames entry. work for a fellow software archivist who can translate, some day.

credit to /u/petrifiedpigs for pointing this game out
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultima/comments/1gdufp3/games_similar_to_to_the_black_gate/

#ultima #dosgaming #msdos #retroGaming

great interview with Ultima manual and cover artist Denis Loubet that i somehow missed years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttcuJXBh754

#ultima #retroGaming

doing some visual design research on isometric tile-based games and came across this incredible screenshot from Celtic Tales: Balor of the Evil Eye

that entire screenshot was drawn with just sixteen colours

#gameArt #retroGaming

in celebration of ward christensen's life and contributions to the BBS, i've uploaded the raw, uncut, extended three-hour interview @textfiles conducted with him in 2002 for the BBS Documentary

warning: the files are 15gb each just as they came off of the camera tapes without further recompression.

https://pixeldrain.com/l/cFtC5YE4

these are the same interviews included in the BBS Documentary archive.org collection - unfortunately IA is still down at the moment.

#bbs #history #retroComputing

after lusting for a copy of andré lamothe's Black Art of 3d Game Programming for years, i finally found an affordable copy

it does not disappoint. one of the fatal flaws of 95% of 3d game programming books is that they jump straight into mathematical proofs, instead of explaining in human terms how concepts are relevant to making a game. lamothe's programming concepts are clear, easy to understand, and provide real-world examples before diving into code

to my delight, the book doesn't limit itself to just 3d. it covers every conceivable topic for building a game engine from scratch in MS-DOS - and includes some great chapters on FM and wavetable synthesis!

#programming #c #retroGaming

i haven’t found good PS1 games in the wild in nearly 20 years

today i scored for $3 each!

#retrogaming #playstation #psx

time for some obscure game preservation history

back in the 80s, Distinctive Software was known for some of their heavy hitters like Hardball, the 4D Sports series, and Test Drive. (at the time, i had no idea they were a canadian studio based out of burnaby, BC.)

in 1990, DSI was bought by EA and became EA Canada, relegated to defecating EA Sports sequels for eternity.

last week, i noticed a weird EA sticker on a copy of Ultima VI that i'd never seen before. curiosity got the better of me, and i bought it just to find out the sticker was about.

as it turns out, this copy of Ultima VI sat in DSI's physical library for years. these libraries existed to let developers play their own company's (and often the competition's) games, use them as references, etc.

when EA bought DSI, EA suddenly owned all of their assets, and - interestingly - their company's internal software library. the DSI label got an EA library logo stickered over it. There's even a referencing number for whatever internal library referencing system EA/DSI used.

wish we had some photos of EA's library in the 90s. i bet it was pretty massive.

#gamePreservation #history #canada #ultima

i am in love with the cover art on al sweigart's python game programming book

it was switched out with some more corporate art a year later.

#programming

in 25+ years of retro gaming and sierra, i've never once seen someone mention Hoyle's Book of Games

despite its small stature, it was one of the most financially lucrative sierra titles, and spawned an entire series of games.

what makes it special is that opponents are (for the most part) characters from sierra titles, each playing in a style expressive of the character's personality. graham and rosella are friendly and not overly competitive, larry is silly and aggressive with his cards.

the dog? the dog is a real shithead.

#sierraOnline #retroGaming