Leigh Alexander’s Patreon for Lo-Fi Let’s Play

September 19th, 2016 1:54 PM
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Two-and-a-half years ago, I pointed Apple II Bits readers to the YouTube videos of Leigh Alexander. This renown and accomplished journalist in the video games industry was creating Let’s Play videos of classic Apple II games, recording her gameplay experiences combined with her personal commentary. It was a fun and original look at one player’s history with her childhood computer.

A lot has happened to gaming and to Alexander since that April 2014 blog post. In August 2014, GamerGate broke. In December 2014, Juiced.GS reviewed Alexander’s e-book, Breathing Machine. In April 2015, Alexander became editor-in-chief of Offworld, a BoingBoing-run video game journalism website with a focus on publishing marginalized voices. In February 2016, Alexander departed Offworld and the gaming industry entirely.

I was concerned we’d heard the last of this powerful and important voice — so I was delighted this month when she launched a Patreon to support her latest initiative: the return of her Lo-Fi Let’s Play video series.

"What started as a fun outlet for me to recapture some of the sense of mystery and wonder I once felt about games became much more popular than I expected," writes Alexander:

Rediscovering and sharing these charming old works was a great source of comfort and joy toward the end of my time in the game industry. They had a sort of innocence I had missed, and a pioneer spirit I felt warmly toward, and they reminded me in an essential way why playing computer games was once a source of uncomplicated joy and imagination for me. The simplicity of their infrastructure, the severity of their limitations, and their earnestness in the face of those limitations is still a touchstone of inspiration for me in the age of modern high-end hardware and noisy social media. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that there are folks out there that share these feelings with me.

Alexander is asking for contributions on a per-video basis of an amount of your choosing. At $5, you get a newsletter with behind-the-scenes storytelling; at $20 and $200, Alexander sacrifices some degree of editorial control to let you help pick what games she plays next.

You may wonder why one should contribute anything; after all, "Thanks to the magic of emulation and the tireless work of archivists, the videos cost me nothing but time and love to make, and they are and will always be ad-free and available to all on YouTube," acknowledges Alexander. "But sadly, life as a freelancer means that the things I get paid for need to come first, leaving passion projects to languish."

I don’t tend to watch Let’s Play videos myself, but I acknowledge their value and importance in capturing the experience the Apple II invokes. I’m contributing to Alexander’s campaign and encourage you to do so, too — but even if you don’t, I hope you’ll check out her videos and share in her joy for the gaming heritage of the Apple II.

If this is your first Patreon, don’t let it be your last — these other Apple II creators are also seeking your support:

Pittsburgh Dad plays Oregon Trail

September 5th, 2016 10:51 AM
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Members of the Apple II community can at times express a certain "get off my lawn!" mentality, railing against today’s youth and their new-fangled computers. Fortunately, this behavior is often in good fun: while a reasoned critique comparing old and new computers and enthusiasts can be well-founded, any actual castigation against a younger generation is often more self-effacing, tinged with a note of jealousy of how much better and easier things are now.

Actor Curt Wootton has made such parody his entire schtick with his YouTube series, "Pittsburgh Dad". His one-man, five-minute episodes offer a crotchety perspective on modern media and conveniences, including Pokémon GO, iPhones, and Captain America.

In the latest episode, Pittsburgh Dad plays Oregon Trail:

It’s funny to see this behavior from someone just four months older than me. And yet, it’s hard to imagine anyone I know from KansasFest playing Oregon Trail with this attitude. We tend to be enthusiastic evangelists for our niche hobby, and beating someone else over the head with it isn’t going to convert them to our cause. I suppose that’s why it’s parody, eh?

(Also, I wonder if Dad knew that the malapropistic floppy label "Organ Trail" represents an actual game?)

For more of Pittsburgh Dad’s takes on retro technology, check out the episode where he replaced his kids’ Grand Theft Auto game with E.T. for the Atari 2600.

(Hat tip to Cat Morgan)

Week of the KFest

July 25th, 2016 9:38 AM
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Today is the first day after KansasFest 2016. It’s a day when I, like all 83 of this year’s attendees — the largest turnout in my 19 consecutive years of attendance — am in a delirious stupor from too much excitement and too little sleep. I have unpacking to do, software to test, publications to read, photos to process, and memories to cherish. It’s an event that will stay with me for a long time — at least until KansasFest 2017, scheduled for July 18–23 at Rockhurst University.

In the meantime, I admire all the contributions made by the attendees and the committee, from organizing the event to giving presentations to livestreaming the videos. But as a YouTube content creator, one of the KansasFest creations I admire the most comes once again from Steve Weyhrich. Just prior to KansasFest 2015, Steve — who once built an entire Apple II in Minecraft — debuted the music video "KFest Funk", an inspired parody of the 2014 tune "Uptown Funk". For KansasFest 2016, Steve decided to kick it old school by reimagining the 1982 classic "Eye of the Tiger". The result is the music video "Week of the KFest":

Many of the photos Steve used in each of his last two music videos are my own, yet he puts them in a far more imaginative context than I could ever imagine. Not only that, but his audio and video production qualities are significantly higher than my own, despite his use of iMovie compared to Final Cut Pro. Why isn’t this creative genius a YouTube star?

My thanks to Steve for this fun memento that we can share with our friends and family who don’t quite understand what KansasFest is all about!

How to leave a YouTube comment

June 6th, 2016 10:27 AM
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One of the first rules for interacting with online media and communities is don’t read the comments. It’s terrible advice, actually, with some notable exceptions — such as when you’re the one responsible for managing a community and cultivating a safe, welcoming environment.

I consider that to be one of the responsibilities that comes with being a YouTube content creator. In the last 3.5 years, I’ve read roughly 34,152 comments that have been posted to my channel’s 600 videos. (My most popular video currently has 10,767 comments.) Wanting anyone who comes to my channel to know that they can leave feedback without fear of threats or reprimands, I reply to as many comments as I can — and, just as important, I delete those comments I deem inappropriate.

Some commenters come specifically to troll — not in the "online abuse" sense, but by intending to be argumentative and disrupt conversation. The modern Apple II community is fairly free of such pests, fortunately: as a niche hobby, it’s just not worth someone’s time to get involved only to annoy so few.

But what if the two communities intersected, and trolls used Apple II computers to leave provocative YouTube comments? YouTube artist Techmoan crafted a video demonstrating that exact hypothetical scenario in "How to Write A YouTube Comment in 10 Steps":

Why this puppet is using an Apple IIc of all computers is a mystery, but Techmoan has demonstrated himself a fan of old technology in other videos, such as when he made an iPad dock out of a Mac Classic. I haven’t seen the IIc show up elsewhere in his channel, but this one appearance has made its mark. A couple of great animated GIFs, perfect for embedding on social media, have been produced from this video:

This look inside a troll’s mind reminds me of another classic, Bernard Smith’s 2007 music video, "YouTube Is My Life":

I’m glad the Apple II community is above such behavior — I get enough of it from my "fans" on YouTube!

(Hat tip to Lisa Anne Allyn)

40 years in 40 seconds

March 28th, 2016 9:16 AM
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Apple is the most profitable company in the world, based on its market cap of $672 billion. (That’s more than half a trillion, folks.) The iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and Macs all started in the apocryphal garage, where Steve Wozniak invented and Steve Jobs designed the Apple II.

Given all the success that’s sprung from those early innovations, we diehard enthusiasts sometimes feel that modern-day Apple Inc. doesn’t give its roots the recognition it deserves, as evidenced by the Apple II being erased from press releases. But our favorite computer finally did get a nod in this commercial celebrating Apple’s 40th birthday on April 1, 2016:

On Facebook, commenters were underwhelmed, with "Not enough Apple II" being a recurring theme. It’s true that Apple’s classic machines constitute only a few of the video’s opening seconds, but I’m not sure we could expect more than that: even more than the computers themselves, programs and peripherals for the Apple II lack the modern recognition of more recent innovations, such as iWork, AirPort, or Mighty Mouse.

Sometimes it’s nice just to be mentioned.

(Hat tip to Shona Ghosh)

Let’s Play Operation Lambda

December 28th, 2015 9:39 AM
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At KansasFest 2015, I gave a presentation on how to record Let’s Play videos on an Apple II. These videos combine A/V capture of Apple II software, usually games, with the player’s audio commentary of their session. It’s a way not only to demonstrate the program, but also to capture one person’s unique, subjective experience.

My YouTube channel consists primarily of Let’s Play videos of modern gaming consoles, such as the Sony PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Wii U. I occasionally mix it up with videos featuring other kinds of content, though my ability to produce any videos at all depends on how available my day job, night job, and Juiced.GS leave me. I recently enjoyed a bout of freedom from other obligations, and so from October 22 to December 9 — 50 consecutive days — I was able to produce one video a day. I capped that streak with a Let’s Play of one of the most impressive games for the Apple IIGS: Operation Lambda.

“A logic/action game, where you work your way through a space station under distress, deflecting laser beams and saving hostages,” describes developer Bret Victor on the game’s website. The press release lists the game’s features:

  • • 100 levels, ranging from simple to challenging to brain-boggling
  • • an original, kickin’, five-song musical score
  • • impressive graphics from the PowerGS staff artist and former LiveWire IIgs art editor
  • • smooth, flicker-free animation
  • • three difficulty settings
  • • written in 100% assembly language for speed
  • • a concise, one-page printed manual

For the purpose of this recording, I used Eric Shepherd’s Sweet16 emulator, as it was quicker and easier to set up than capturing video off an actual IIGS would’ve been. It was fun to revisit this title from the creator of TextFighter, PuyoPuyo, SurfBurgers, and Opening Line.

Bret Victor was a genius programmer to have developed Operation Lambda at only 16 years old; he was interviewed for Juiced.GS Volume 2, Issue 1 and wrote the cover story for Volume 3, Issue 1. He remains a genius software developer, speaking at a Dropbox developer conference in 2013 on the future of programming:

Personally, I’d like the future of programming to include ports of Victor’s classic games. John Romero recently released Dangerous Dave for iOS — a platform I can see Operation Lambda residing on. Any chance we’ll see updates to these lost classics from Right Triangle Productions?