by Old School Gamer | Apr 15, 2026 | 1980s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
I can still remember my Atari 800. The screen went that deep shade of blue, and the cursor appeared, waiting for me to type something… No joystick… No sprites… Just text. Then these words appeared: “You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a...
by Eugenio Angueira | Apr 13, 2026 | 1980s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
A more adventured had forgone the“first”Atari in 2600 video is honored game history.to have It is the first adventure-type game on a console, and it is also considered the first action-adventure game (inspired by the text-only adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure)....
by Jeremy Parish | Apr 11, 2026 | 1970s, 2020s, Magazine Preview, Opinions
Gaming historians often write about popular media in the pre-internet age as if it all existed in vacuum-sealed silos by country, but that’s not true at all. Intercontinental communication may have been a lot more complicated back then, but consider Heiankyo Alien, a...
by Old School Gamer | Apr 9, 2026 | 1980s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
In 1979, Ken Williams was busy starting up his new business software company, On-Line Systems; years later, this company would be better known as Sierra Online. His wife, Roberta, had her own ambitions, often playing text adventure computer games like Colossal Cave or...
by Ryan Burger | Apr 7, 2026 | 1970s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
Before home computers ever had an “adventure game,” there was Colossal Cave Adventure (1976- 1977) by Will Crowther and Don Woods. Often referred to simply as Adventure or ADVENT, it ran on a PDP-10 mainframe, a machine that cost about $150,000 in the 1970s, roughly...
by Brett Weiss | Apr 5, 2026 | 1970s, 2020s, Magazine Preview
I discovered Space Invaders in 1978,Space was visiting my aunt and cousins in McGregor, Texas (outside of Waco), a town of barely over 2,000 people. It was in a dingy, seedy arcade and was very imposing. I’d already played my share of pinball and electromechanical...