Apple II Bits

At KansasFest 2010, I ran a session of a live text adventure. These Parsely games are inspired by interactive fiction but substitute a human for the computer. Think of it as a cross between IF and Dungeons & Dragons: I became the dungeon master (DM) who described rooms, solicited direction from the players, and reported results — but all input had to be provided as if I were a two-word text parser. So go ahead and tell me to “GET AXE”, but if you ask me “Can I pick up the axe?”, I’ll respond, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to ‘Can I pick up the axe?'”. It was a lot of fun to watch players with their graph papers map the connections between rooms, take notes, consult their IF cheat sheets, and try to coordinate their activities across alternating turns — it was a bit like watching Twitch Plays Pokémon. Here’s a demonstration of Action Castle, the game I ran at KansasFest 2010, as moderated by its creator, Jared Sorensen:

Parsely returned to KansasFest 2014 with an all-new adventure and was a hit! We even had to adjourn to another room when the players’ exploration of Jungle Adventure ran over the allotted session time.

Comparing maps in Jungle Adventure, the live interactive fiction game I ran

Rather than wait the four years that divided KansasFest’s last two rounds of Parsely, I’ll be bringing another text adventure to KansasFest 2015. I have several scripts to choose from but will not begin memorizing one until en route to Kansas City. That gives you, the potential players, time to suggest the nature of the game. Should we explore a haunted house; a space station; a medieval castle; a Halloween graveyard; or a zombie-infested hospital? Choose your own adventure in the below survey!

I love the Internet and social media: email, Twitter, and Facebook have made it possible to reach people who’d never otherwise be accessible, and easier than ever to remain in contact with friends and family near and far.

But there’s still something to be said for taking our communications offline. KansasFest is the most obvious example, when we get to welcome new users to our community and catch up with long-time attendees. Newcomers who think this event is a one-time affair to check off their bucket list are often discover the energy and camaraderie they find there is addicting, requiring the event become an annual staple in their calendar.

But for those who can’t make it to KansasFest, it doesn’t take much to let them know they’re remembered. Eight years ago in the September 2007 issue of Juiced.GS, Peter Watson of MUG! fame wrote:

In 1992, I was fortunate enough to attend KansasFest in its heyday when it was still run by Tom Weishaar at Avila College… Unfortunately I haven’t been able to make it back since… But every year I read all the plans and wish I could win a lottery so I could attend…

Today that vicarious KFest experience came a little closer and a little less "imaginary" when a postcard from Kansas City arrived in the mail … I read the greetings from many of the other attendees at KFest as well, and I can honestly say I was touched. Heck, "blown away" might be a better description!

I’d just like to say "Thank you!" to the people who took the time to sign the card. It would have taken seconds of your time, but it’s created a memory for me that will last much, much longer!

The Apple II was and is a special computer partly because of the people that were attracted to it, and who stayed. I’ve seen another example of those people today.

I’m reminded of this gesture by Steve Wozniak, who recently spoke at the University of Buffalo. Despite his affinity for technology, Woz was once reminded of the power of not letting machines express express his gratitude for him:

When Wozniak was on Dancing with the Stars in 2009, he figured he would be voted off the show right away, so he should buy gifts for all the cast early on. He made gifts for all the cast with joke books, $2 bills, business cards and computerized letters about what a great time had and how to contact him.

"And then I thought, like education when I was giving computers to schools, it you have a lot of money, it’s easy to give money away but not to give yourself," Wozniak said. "That’s why I started teaching. If you really have it in your heart, it’s got to be more than words."

He decided to just write handwritten letters to all 26 members of the celebrity and professional dance crew.

Woz gave us the tools and infrastructure that brought us together and keeps us together; we should never discount their utility. But let us remember the significance of occasionally disconnecting and using other means to let our fellow community members know they are thought of and appreciated.

On the KansasFest email list, Michael Sternberg proposed to organize a third annual Apple II game tournament. This is Sternberg’s forté, as he not only ran the Structris competition in 2013–2014, but modified Martin Haye’s original game to create the tournament edition used in the event. I captured some of Sternberg’s talent and passion in this video for Computerworld:

Sternberg has asked, what game should we play this year? Puzzle games seem a popular choice: GShisen is a KansasFest classic, having been featured in tournaments run first by Juiced.GS founder Max Jones, then by me. Structris, being inspired by Tetris, is also a puzzler, but with an action component that I enjoy. That hybrid nature also describes I classified in Juiced.GS as one of my favorite Apple II games of all-time. Its creator, Steve Chiang, is big in the modern gaming industry; and its artist, Dave Seah, recently made an appearance in the Apple II Enthusiasts group on Facebook. Maybe they’d sponsor a competition with some sort of promotion or giveaway!

But for those retrocomputing enthusiasts whose reaction times have not yet faded with age, there are plenty of action games to choose from, too. Retrobrite afficionado Javier Rivera, who this year will make his KansasFest debut, recently demonstrated two color LCD screens displaying the same video output simultaneously. His software for this test? Karateka.

Charles Mangin proposed we hack this game to allow a second player to control the opponent. Head-to-head Karateka? I’m in!

I’ve been bringing a digital camera to KansasFest every year since 2002. Every year, I come home with dozens or hundreds of photos that require sorting, cropping, tagging, and uploading. And every year, as I take more photos, I fall further behind in doing so.

This problem is getting bigger.

The biggest hangup is metadata — specifically, captions. I like to write captions for each photo that suggests what could be but isn’t happening. Sometimes it’s taking note of something happening in the background, or expressing what someone in the photo might be thinking. And the more photos I take, the longer this process.

I used to post the photos in August, shortly after I returned home from KansasFest; then, when I adopted an academic schedule, I’d wait until Christmas break; now my goal is simply to get them posted before the next KansasFest.

I’m relieved to say that KansasFest 2014’s photos are finally online. I selected two hundred of my 266 photos to post, then chose eight to share on Facebook, Google+ and Flickr.

Why eight? If you look at my Facebook profile, you’ll see I have hundreds of albums, but each one is limited to exactly eight photos. There are three reasons for this self-imposed restriction:

1. Any photo uploaded to a social network grants a license to that network to use the photo as they see fit. Copyright is the lifeblood of a professional content creator, so I want to grant that license on only a representative sample of my work. The rest are hosted on my own server, where I can claim sole copyright — while knowing that anyone can still copy and distribute a photo as they see fit, at least I am not granting them permission to do so.
2. As a content consumer, I know how little interest I have in browsing hundreds of other people’s photos. I respect people’s time by presenting them only a reasonable number of photos; those who wish to explore further may exercise the option of clicking the link to view the full gallery.
3. As a writer, I’ve learned how necessary it can be to say something in as few words as possible. Choosing eight photos out of hundreds to best represent an event is the photographic equivalent of that economy of expression.

I doubt anyone was waiting for these photos to be released or even noticed their absence, but given my past involvement in the planning of KansasFest and the production of Juiced.GS, my photos have a tendency to show up in ads, flyers, videos, and more. I like to think that someone, somewhere, sometime, will take a moment to read some of the two hundred captions and enjoy my perspective on this unique event.

Attending the Different Games conference in New York City this past weekend gave me plenty of opportunity to catch up with Juiced.GS staff writer (and frequent Apple II Bits blog subject) Ivan Drucker. While waiting for registration for KansasFest 2015 to open, we reminisced about our favorite moments of last year’s event — Ivan’s sixth KansasFest, and my 17th.

I was delighted to discover Ivan had not previously stumbled upon Kay Savetz‘s video capture of a unique moment: Martin Haye, having just demoed 8-bit Western RPG Lawless Legends, burned the game to disk and declared it <a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLBWA4qNQp4″ title=”5.25″ Floppy Disk in a Microwave – YouTube”>ready to ship.

For those archivists who thought it was too late to preserve floppies: Martin’s making sure of that!

For an equally entertaining pyrotechnic display, try burning an actual compact disc:

Ken Gagne, Gamebits, Apple II Bits, and Martin Haye offer no assurances, guarantees, or warranties, express or implied, regarding the safety of you or your hardware, software, or other property or loved ones as a result of information received or linked to from this or any other website.

Happy burning!

KansasFest is a week over, and all I have is memories.

Memories — and an awesome mug.

https://twitter.com/16kRAM/status/492749522863263744

For the second consecutive year, attendee Michael Sternberg hosted a Structris tournament based on his version of Martin Haye’s original Tetris game. I entered and, after a poor showing in 2013, rebounded in 2014: I had the highest score in the first round (100 points); went up against the reigning champion and broke the world record in the second round (249 points on level 17); and, in the third and final round, defeated the developer himself. It was pretty epic.

To give something back, I’ve created a Let’s Play video of Structris, coinciding with last week’s 25th anniversary of the North American launch of the Nintendo Game Boy, which came with Tetris. Enjoy!