Archive for July, 2013

The music of interactive fiction

July 29th, 2013 10:40 AM
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Juiced.GS has just shipped a PDF on the subject of interactive fiction. At 14 pages long, it’s a digestible yet diverse tour of the various aspects of modern IF. Once you’ve loaded the file onto your e-reader of choice and settled into your study’s reading chair, the only component missing is some background music to set the mood.

Enter Tony Longworth. The musician whose work has previously appeared in such documentaries as Get Lamp and Going Cardboard has released a new album, Memories of Infocom. "These pieces of music will transport you from ancient empires, to crime scenes, to outer space and beyond", the album’s description states. "This album captures the magic of those heady days of Interactive Fiction, so sit back and let yourself be transported to the 80s when text was king." The dozen tracks can be purchased for a dollar each or $9.99 for the lot, which clocks in at 57:55.

Memories of Infocom

Despite having often written about text adventures for Juiced.GS and this blog, I am not personally acquainted with many Infocom games, sadly. So although the songs have titled such as "Enchanter" and "Planetfall", I can’t say how those games may have inspired these tunes, or how pairing them might prove a complementary experience. But if you like ambient/background/electronic music and want to support a fellow retrogaming enthusiast, then check out these tunes.

(Hat tip to Lorien Green)

Game Informer interviews Steve Wozniak

July 22nd, 2013 10:34 AM
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Four months ago, Game Informer‘s print magazine featured an interview with Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer Inc. and inventor of the Apple II. I shared on this blog what little of the print-only interview was also published online, that being Wozniak talking about his love for Tetris.

Game Informer has now released the entirety of that interview online, with a 2,000-word transcript and several additional videos. Appropriate to the magazine’s scope, the conversation focuses largely on Woz’s gaming history, from how he created Breakout for Atari to what he thinks of Apple’s future in the gaming industry.

Reflecting on the early days of game programming, Woz demonstrates his usual humility: "Hardware games — I’m sorry, it’s not like software… I was one of the greatest designers ever; I was working on the iPhone 5 of its day — the hottest gadget product in the world."

More important, the above video once again reaffirms that the Apple II was designed to feed its creator’s gaming habit:

I built paddle hardware into the Apple II deliberately for the game of Breakout. I wanted everything in there. I put in a speaker with sound so I could have beeps like games need. So, a lot of the Apple II was designed to be a game machine as well as a computer. That is the way to get it to people, to get people to start buying these machines.

Why are games so important? Easy: "Your life is all about happiness — that’s how you judge it. It’s not how successful you are, or how many yachts you own, or that kind of stuff — it’s how much you smile."

By that standard, I wonder how happy a life Woz would feel Steve Jobs had?

The full, 48-minute interview is available after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Real-life King’s Quest

July 15th, 2013 12:34 PM
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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)

Kickstarting the history of Sierra On-Line

July 8th, 2013 2:00 PM
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We retrocomputing enthusiasts have seen Kickstarter used for books (The First Apple, <a href=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/845678003/electronic-version-of-classic-whats-where-in-the-a” title=”Electronic version of classic ‘What’s Where in the Apple” by Robert M Tripp — Kickstarter”>What’s Where), games (Shadowgate, Ultima), and documentaries (GET LAMP, 6502). Now it’s time to open your wallets again, as the latest project to warrant an Apple II user’s investment is a documentary of Sierra On-Line.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/772847014/the-history-of-sierra-on-line-through-a-documentar

Sierra On-Line was the developer and publisher of such classic point-and-click adventure games as the noble King’s Quest, comedic Space Quest, avaricious Gold Rush!, and lascivious Leisure Suit Larry (a modern remake of which was published just last month, courtesy Kickstarter). Many of these franchises got their start on the Apple II, so naturally we should be keen to back this project, right?

I bid caution: Kickstarter is an investment platform, and you’d do well to research this project. In this case, this project already toured the Kickstarter circuit in 2012, when the creators asked for $40,000; they received $1,312. Their pitch video at the time consisted entirely of gameplay footage and title cards — no interviews, no introductions, no voiceovers. To their credit, that initial fundraising failure didn’t deter the film crew, as their new pitch video demonstrates they’ve spent the past year conducting interviews with Sierra On-Line luminaries. Having that in their pocket may justify their new request for $125,000. (Makes you wonder what they were hoping to accomplish with just a third that sum!) They have thus far received $10,367, or nine times more than their last effort — but it’s a slow start, an still a long ways from their goal.

One thing missing from their new video is the talent behind the camera. I’d like to know that the documentarians dedicating themselves to this project are as passionate about adventure gaming as they need their backers to be. The enthusiasm that Dave Kellett and Fred Schroeder brought to their comic strip documentary, Stripped, was contagious and, I suspect, a large part of why it raised double its goal on its first Kickstarter and its second Kickstarter. Between the lack of personality in the video and the relatively terse text write-up, the drive behind the Sierra On-Line film is not as explicit.

The Sierra On-Line documentary is entitled Heroes, an improvement over the original name, So You Want To Be A Hero? One backer suggested, why not call it Quests? I like the ring of that, since it abstracts and plays upon the King’s/Space/Police Quest series. The project creators acknowledged and thoughtfully responded to that suggestion:

We chose the title Heroes for the film for a variety of reasons. Chief among them, the term "Hero" was a theme rooted in the adventure games. From the perspective of all of us who played the games, we had the opportunity to be a hero. We also felt that this was an appropriate term that serves as an homage to all of those at Sierra who worked tirelessly to create the games we all know and love a success.

Will this Kickstarter meet or even exceed its fundraising? Will the final film, scheduled for a March 2014 release, reveal anything new about this storied game company, or will it cater more to nostalgic fans? We’ll begin to have the answers when the Kickstarter campaign closes on the evening of August 5.

In the meantime, digital antiquarian Jimmy Maher, whom we interviewed this year on Open Apple, has written extensively about the history of Sierra. Although he’s not collected his works on this particular subject into a book, I encourage you to scroll through his posts and read them in the order in which they were published; the detail and accuracy of his narratives are remarkable.

UPDATE: This project has failed, having raised only $28,872, or 23% of its goal.

Panel suggestions for KansasFest 2013

July 1st, 2013 2:48 PM
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KansasFest is only a month away, and submissions for sessions are still being accepted. I know from past experience that I am happiest when I am able to contribute to an event. For example, this past March’s PAX East was my favorite of the four I’ve attended, courtesy the opportunity to moderate the panel "Will Win/Should Win". I enjoyed being on stage and sharing it with such talented gaming critics as Susan Arendt, Jesse Cox, Charles Battersby, and Will Brierly.

But that wasn’t my first rodeo, nor my first panel. Although I’ve been presenting at KansasFest almost every year for the past decade, lately I’ve cottoned to the panel format, as it allows multiple voices to be heard and engaged with. I moderated one panel at KansasFest 2010 and in the following years assembled panels for other attendees to moderate:

This was a blast. Let’s do it again!

I would like to resume the role of panel moderator at KansasFest 2013, but I’ve not yet given much thought as to what an appropriate topic might be. Ideally, it would be something timely (as in the 2010 and 2012 examples, above) or which plays to the panelists’ strengths (as in 2011, when Bob Bishop and Steve Weyhrich were guest speakers).

What issue is facing Apple II users, either within the Apple II community or in the larger Apple realm, today? What products, be they GS/OS, Mac OS X, Kickstarter, or Juiced.GS, warrant debate? Who has an expertise or opinionated personality that we can exploit with some time in the spotlight?

Let me hear your suggestions!