Apple II Bits

As host of the IndieSider podcast, I’m constantly on the prowl for new indie (self-published) computer and video games. I like to help my listeners discover obscure titles that represent a variety of genres and themes whose developers are available for podcast interviews about the game development process.

Last month, I found my biweekly guest within the Apple II community with Wade Clarke, creator of Leadlight, a text adventure released in 2010 for the Apple II. The game was featured on the cover of Juiced.GS Volume 16, Issue 1, and Wade declared his intention to translate the game from Eamon to Inform in Volume 17, Issue 2. That project was completed earlier this year with the release of Leadlight Gamma, a game that runs natively on Windows and Mac and is one of the first products under Wade’s new label, Heiress Software.

Since Juiced.GS has already covered interactive fiction at length — we have an entire themed PDF on the subject — associate editor Andy Molloy and I decided to give the genre some love in another outlet — namely, the IndieSider podcast. And since I’d already asked Wade about the genesis and influences of Leadlight, I focused this conversation on its transition from the Apple II to modern platforms. The result is episode #26 of IndieSider:

In addition to subscribing to the show in iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your podcatcher of choice, you can also listen to the above audio interview paired with video of the game being played on YouTube:

Text adventures may not lend themselves to a visual medium like YouTube, but that’s exactly why I did it: there are far fewer examples of interactive fiction on YouTube than there are other genres of games. Wrote one of my regular viewers, "I’ve never seen this type of game in life."

Getting the word out about games, genres, and developers that mainstream gamers may otherwise overlook? Mission accomplished!

Wade Clarke has long been unique in the intersection of musicians and Apple II programmers. Unlike chiptune musicians such as 8 Bit Weapon, who create music entirely from classic computers, Clarke is more free-range, drawing inspiration and instruments from synthesizers, real-world samples, video games, and more.

Since not all Clarke’s music is based on the Apple II, it makes it all the more fun when the computer does pop up in his work. Recently, Clarke pointed me to the liner notes for his album, Victris, where he describes the song "Ai no kuni"

I play by ear, so most of my compositions from back then were only stored in my head. I did record some to cassette, but more often I transcribed them into music software on my family’s Apple II computer … in the early 1990s using the Apple IIGS program The Music Studio. The synths I had playing these lines sounded bad, but in this case what I really valued was the composition itself.

These intersecting lines were good enough that even two decades later I didn’t want or need to change a note when I had the idea to bring them into an Aeriae track. I’d just heard the riffs anew after rescuing my old Music Studio files from the decaying 3.5-inch floppy disk where they’d lived for twenty-something years.

The song "Heiress" also has ties to the Apple II, incorporating output from Paul Lutus’ Electric Duet.

Victris is only the latest embodiment of Clarke’s work in both digital and musical realms, as he’s been fusing the Apple II with his musical pursuits for the better part of a decade. In 2007, he used Fantavision to create this music video for the song "Amay":

More recently, Clarke contributed his art to the Drift demo disk that was bundled with the June 2012 issue of Juiced.GS.

But even that disk was not Clarke’s first appearance in the magazine. In Clarke’s track notes for the Victric song "Nurse 2 Alyssa Type", he reflects on his experience with survival horror video games. It was this genre of game that inspired Clarke to develop Leadlight, the Eamon adventure that graced the cover of Juiced.GS‘s first color issue. Two years later, in Volume 17, Issue 2, he wrote a Juiced.GS article about his ensuing experience transitioning from Eamon to Inform for his interactive fiction exploits.

Survival horror, text adventures, synthesized music, journal articles — Clarke is truly a Renaissance man of the Apple II community! Catch him on tour in Australia later this year.