Featured Posts
Mystery House – by Mat Bradley-Tschirgi
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...
Learning to Code in 1980: A Book, BASIC, and Pure Persistence
At 13, with an Apple II and a book of BASIC game listings, I learned to code the hard way – typing line by line, fixing errors, and discovering how programs really worked.
Adventure Land – by Ryan Burger
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...
How To Look At PONG
My most recent book, King PONG: How Atari Bounced Across Markets to Make Millions, shows how Atari established not one but two massive consumer technology categories by adopting innovative product positioning and market development strategies. I conclude the short...
Axis – Escape the Aliens in this new C64 port from AnyStone Games
The Commodore 64’s library has grown even bigger today with the official release of Axis, a high-stakes "escape" title developed by AnyStone Games. Born from the legacy of Zsolt Bertók’s (Bery) original Videoton TV Computer game of the same name, this modern C64...
Five Classic Video Game Easter Eggs
The first use of the term "Easter Egg" is widely attributed to Steve Wright, then director of software development at Atari, circa 1980. He was, of course, referring to the now classic hidden credit room in Warren Robinett's Adventure for the Atari 2600. Since then,...
Space Invaders – by Brett Weiss
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...
A review of The History of the Pokémon Games
It's the thirty-year anniversary of the very first Pokémon games which were released back in 1996. Nintendo is pulling out all the stops reminding us. But unofficial historians are getting in on the act too, with The History of the Pokémon Games by James...
This Day In Video Game History
