Apple II Bits

Every year, the World Video Game Hall of Fame — a product of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York — conducts a poll of which video games deserve to be inducted into the annals of history. The criteria are not what games we had the most fun playing or are the most nostalgic for, but which games have "icon-status, longevity, geographic reach, and influence".

Given the substantial impact such games must’ve had on the industry, you’d think Apple II software would be a shoe-in. Sadly, this has not always been the case. Not a single Apple II game was inducted in 2017, and previous years overlooked such obvious candidates as Oregon Trail.

This year’s candidates—recognize any?

This year isn’t looking to make a much stronger showing, unfortunately. From the following dozen finalists, three have been selected to be added to the Hall of Fame in 2018:

• • Asteroids
• • Call of Duty
• • Dance Dance Revolution
• • Final Fantasy VII
• • Half-Life
• • John Madden Football
• • King’s Quest
• • Metroid
• • Minecraft
• • Ms. Pac-Man
• • Spacewar!
• • Tomb Raider

All 12 games are worthy candidates, but the Apple II can lay claim to only two of them: King’s Quest and John Madden Football. Of the two, I’d much rather see King’s Quest be inducted. But does Sierra On-Line’s flagship title have the longevity, geographic reach, and influence to attain that status?

We’ll find out soon enough — voting ended last Wednesday, and the winners will be announced on Thursday, May 3. Stay tuned!

(Hat tip to the AP)

I love presenting at KansasFest. Speaking at such an esteemed gathering of Apple II aficionados reaffirms that I nonetheless have something to contribute to this community, despite not having extensive knowledge of Apple II hardware or software.

In brainstorming this year’s presentation, I emailed KFest schedulemeister Andy Molloy for ideas. He suggested:

How about something like “10 influential Apple II games” and then you talk about them, demo them and show how they are cool. There’s certainly a segment of the audience (i.e., me) who loves to watch old Apple II games, which is why I liked Bruce’s stuff. Or something like “here are 10 Apple games that were later remade on modern systems”.

It was a great idea — so great, that it’d already been done: I presented "Classic Gaming Inspirations" at KansasFest 2009 and "Classic Gaming Inspirations, Part Deux" in 2010. In each, I demoed modern games for Mac, PC, and iOS that were reminiscent of classic Apple II games. Despite being a familiar theme, I enjoyed giving those talks and felt that enough time had passed, so I decided to dust off the theme for 2016.

This year’s constraint: all the games had to be available for Steam, the digital distribution platform for games. And they had to be available for Mac, PC, and Linux. Fortunately, even given these limitations, I was not wanting for ideas, as I’d discovered many such games through IndieSider, my biweekly podcast where I interview indie game developers. Most KFesters know my podcasting efforts in the vintage computing realm, specifically on Open Apple and the Retro Computing Roundtable, but were not aware that I host gaming podcasts as well. It was fun to share this other side of myself with the audience.

Here are the Apple II genres and games I started with and the Steam games in which a modern gamer might find an echo of the past.

Thanks to Jason Scott’s speedy turnaround, a video of the presentation is already available online:

I had so many games in mind for this year’s talk that I had to keep many in reserve. Expect to see more Steam games at KansasFest 2017!

I don’t remember ever not having an Apple II in my house — and our early acquaintance made for a rough childhood. My very small elementary school class was composed primarily of jocks who didn’t take kindly to bookworms and computer nerds, producing an unwelcoming environment, to say the least. I often wondered, would it ever get better?

I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Ten years after middle school, I was in a college where computer prowess was lauded; ten years after that, the things I was into as a kid were mainstream and cool.

So if you ever wonder if things get better, just wait ten years — that’s the time in which geeks become hip, as detailed in H.P. Mendoza‘s music video, "In Ten Years", off the 2004 album Everything Is Pop:

And yep, that’s an Apple II in the first shot — or at least, it appears to be. Says Charles Mangin, "It looks like a II or II Plus with the badge on the cover removed, or a close clone. The drive certainly looks like a Disk II with the Apple logo removed or covered." The first game of the video being King’s Quest (with Sir Graham later getting jiggy) seems to cement the theory.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Of course Apple II users are cool! Wil Wheaton would agree: it’s awesome to be a nerd.

(Hat tip to <a href=”https://twitter.com/IQ_Adventures/status/624582018916028416″ title=”Infamous Quests on Twitter: “Because this can never be shared enough. In 10 Years I’ll Be Cool – @hpmendoza https://t.co/EXcCb2KhLs #retrogaming””>Infamous Quests, with whom I appeared on a panel this past spring about point-and-click adventure games!)

This week marks Boston‘s sixth annual PAX East, and my sixth time attending the video game expo with Juiced.GS editor Andy Molloy. Inspired by our Apple II magazine’s 2014 cover stories about Leisure Suit Larry and Shadowgate, we’ll be bringing our retrogaming love to bear on the event.

On Sunday, March 8, at 1:30 PM EDT, I’ll be moderating the panel "Reboot Our Roots: Bringing Our Favorite Genres Back to Life"

Many of today’s indie games are spiritual successors of yesteryear’s hits, from King’s Quest to Gabriel Knight to Quest for Glory — with some even being developed by the same teams that brought us the originals. What’s it like to reboot a franchise or genre after 30 years? How do you update a classic while staying true to the original? Industry veterans share their stories of revisiting their roots, taking up their heroes’ mantles, and what they’ve learned in the intervening years.

I’m excited to be hosting this panel with so many talented developers. Katie Hallahan of Phoenix Online Studios will be representing Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, as well as the King’s Quest fan sequel The Silver Lining, which I previously presented at KansasFest 2010. Steven Alexander will be on the panel discussing Quest for Infamy, a spiritual successor to Quest for Glory, while Dave Wadjet will present his original creation, the Blackwell series, a point-and-click adventure inspired by the games of yesteryear.

This will be my third year moderating panels at PAX East, and the third year the Apple II has influenced my contributions to PAX. In 2013, I coordinated the donation of an Apple II gaming rig to become a permanent part of the freeplay console room. And in 2014, I moderated a panel on gender equality in gaming, which was made possible through 8-bit connections.

If you’re in Boston this weekend and have a ticket to this sold-out show, please stop by "Reboot Our Roots" on Sunday afternoon and say hello — it’ll be great to meet fellow gamers who have been around long enough to appreciate these classic genres and franchises. If you can’t make it ot the panel, it will be recorded by Travis Stewart of Broken CRT Productions and will be posted to Apple II Bits at a later date.

UPDATE (May 25, 2015): Here’s a video of the panel, as well as coverage from 2Old2Play.

At KansasFest 2010, I presented a session on modern spiritual successors to classic games. Among them was The Silver Lining, an unofficial sequel to King’s Quest. The fan-produced game was long delayed due to legal issues with the official copyright holders of the King’s Quest series, finally being cleared to begin its episodic release in 2010. Although received to mixed reviews, it was nonetheless a welcome, if unofficial, revival of the King’s Quest series, which had lain dormant since Mask of Eternity’s 1998 release.

Now it is time for the series to receive an official revival. The brand name of original publisher Sierra has been revived, and in 2015, they will publish King’s Quest.

The new game has the blessing of none other than Sierra founders Ken and Roberta Williams, who accepted an award for their contributions to the industry at the recent Game Awards.

Apple II users should be interested to see where this series goes, as its origin is on their favorite computer. Many early King’s Quest games were released for the Apple II or IIGS:

• • Wizard and the Princess (1980)
• • King’s Quest: Quest for the Crown (1984)
• • King’s Quest II: Romancing the Throne (1985)
• • King’s Quest III: To Heir Is Human (1986)
• • King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella (1988)

Will this latest sequel return the game to its roots? Or will it be a reboot for a new generation of gamers? We’ll find out when it releases in Fall 2015 for PlayStation 3 & 4, Xbox 360 & One, and Windows.

In researching last week’s blog post about the history of Sierra On-Line, I came across some underwhelming reviews of the new Leisure Suit Larry for hewing too closely to the original. Apparently, critics are not enjoying reliving what passed for puzzles in 1987.

Uh-oh! That’s not good. Early adventure games could be devilishly obtuse and unforgiving, as Joe Keiser of Gameological recently demonstrated. As an example of a game that isn’t fair, he chose King’s Quest V:

Early in the game, a custard pie can be purchased. King’s Quest V then spends hours imploring you to eat it. It looks delicious, the game says. It is the best pie you have ever tasted, the game says. There is even a puzzle where you are starving, and eating the pie will solve it. And yet once you’ve eaten the pie, you have already lost. Oh, you can continue playing, but eventually you will reach a mountain, and there will be a yeti there, and it will kill you because you do not have a pie to throw at it. Now you have to start the game over, because you did what the game asked instead of saving a pie to throw at a yeti. No one could blame you if you’ve spent the last 23 years mad about this.

This particular installment in the King’s Quest franchise was never released for the Apple II, yet it’s the only King’s Quest I’ve ever played, courtesy the Nintendo version. I can therefore empathize with Keiser’s frustration — but I can also laugh at it, courtesy this brilliant real-life send-up:

Whatever our memories, adventure games are making a comeback, courtesy the combination of tablet gaming and Kickstarter funding. Let’s hope as good as we remember and better than they actually were!

(Hat tip to Emily Kahm)