The founder of influential old website The Home of the Underdogs discusses the difference between "abandonware" and piracy, and explains why the former needs to exist.

To wrap up the year I wanted to revisit one of my old favourites: a story I made for my other (currently-inactive) podcast about one of the strangest and most thought-provoking programs ever created. This is the story of If Monks Had Macs.

To celebrate the 25th birthday of my favourite game franchise, I thought I'd pull out the old Tomb Raider grid episodes from Season 1 and merge them into one. I also put some time into cleaning up the audio, though it'll still sound rough compared to newer episodes — given the lower-fidelity recordings I was using then.

There was no encyclopaedia nor fleshed-out database of video games in 1999. There were barely even any reliable or comprehensive lists of video games. Not until Jim Leonard decided he needed to build one.

I speak to games historian and graphic designer Kate Willaert about her research and current projects, as well as her efforts to turn this work into a job. We also voice our complaints about Google's Usenet archives, discuss the horrible world of YouTube publishing, the struggles of getting your work seen/read/heard as a content creator today, the value of a good hook for getting people interested in history, how to structure a historical narrative, our font choices for writing draft scripts, and much, much more. Interview conducted 1 May 2021 Links: Kate has talked lots about her Carmen Sandiego research, both on Twitter and her blog. Here's one example. Tetris: The Games People Play, a graphic novel about the history of Tetris The intro to Kate's (eventually) 50-part video series on playable female protagonists MobyGames tag for female protagonists (excludes games with multiple playable characters) Hardcore Gaming 101 feature on 1980s video game heroines The rules governing her 50-part playable female protagonists series are laid out in the intro video and this article Atari Compendium's collection of scanned magazines The Internet Archive's Magazine Rack The Usenet archives on Google Groups are now mixed in with the other groups and not easily browsable, but search still works The UTZOO-Wiseman archives on archive.org are a great resource for Usenet posts American Radio History newspapers.com newspaperarchive.com Kate's Moonlander article Kate's YouTube channel I didn't go into specifics on the many significant games made in 1973, so here are several off the top of my head: Maze, arguably the first first-person shooter Spasim, one of the earliest 3D games Airfight/Airace, the first computer flight combat sim (covered on this show in ep2) Moonlander Empire (the PLATO one) David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games collection/book Lemonade Stand Kate's article/video on the origin of the term "gamer" Kate's Moonlander article has good info and sources for the electro-mechanical Lunar Lander game, but those of you looking for more detail may appreciate this article that contextualises its place in early coin-op game history (the article is about Nutting Associates, but Lunar Lander is mentioned at the end) Kate's best social media posts are highlighted in her newsletter. Two specific ones we mentioned: The "City Boy Mario" Twitter thread The Comic Sans Twitter thread As of August 9th, 2021, the best of these threads are available in an ebook that's part of a video game StoryBundle along with a bunch of other cool games books. Check it out. Here's an article with more info about the ideal number of characters per line They Create Worlds book — publisher website | My Amazon affiliate link They Create Worlds podcast The Ultimate Guide to Video Game History by Steven Kent We didn't talk about it, but the best big-picture, whole-industry history of games that I've read is Replay by Tristan Donovan (And while we're linking to books, note that my first book, The Secret History of Mac Gaming, is getting an Expanded Edition from Bitmap Books, and my second book, Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet, is currently slated for Q2 2022 publication.) Kate's Patreon page Thank you to my Patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Carey Clanton, Joel Webber, Scott Grant, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, and Vivek Mohan. To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email or Ko-Fi, if you're after something specific.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How a game designed in a week helped to change everything — for the company that made it, for a local industry in turmoil, and for a global industry in transition.

The Strong Museum of Play's digital games curator Andrew Borman describes his deep passion for uncovering and preserving cancelled, unreleased, and prototype games. This is so much more than a vocation for him, and here you get to hear all the stories and insights he shared with me when I interviewed him for the season 4 finale, The Ghosts of Games That Never Were. Highlights include the stories behind cancelled Halo and Elder Scrolls games, an unreleased version of Until Dawn, an early version of Resident Evil 2, and some in-depth discussion about the significance of finding and sharing these stories. We also talk a bit about Andrew's work at The Strong and the amazing power and value of institutional backing in games preservation. Interview conducted January 14th, 2021. Links (many of these go to YouTube): I can't find a surviving archive of Andrew's Resident Evil 1.5 post, but here's a great Eurogamer article about the game and the community quest to preserve it The Strong Museum of Play Research fellowships at The Strong This page on The Tomb of Ash has info, screenshots, and download links for Core Design's cancelled Tomb Raider 10th Anniversary Edition Episode 31 of this show also included a segment on said 10th Anniversary Edition Tomb Raider's video game hall of fame entry Andrew has multiple videos on the Haggar Xbox demo build for a Halo Mega Bloks game. Here's the most recent one. And here's the first one. A video Andrew made about the Sonic Extreme skateboarding/hoverboarding game that turned into the Sonic Extreme we actually got Elder Scrolls Oblivion cancelled PSP game Andrew's Star Wars Battlefront 3 unseen PC footage video Andrew's video on Until Dawn's unreleased PS3 version VICE Gaming/Waypoint has an excellent Halo 1 oral history Manse was mentioned four times in Ambrosia Software's newsletter before its quiet cancellation Here's the Wikipedia page on Captain Comic Andrew's Stargate SG1: The Alliance hub page from his old website has both articles and videos Women in Games exhibit at The Strong Andrew Borman is @borman18 on Twitter I am @MossRC and @LifeandTimesVG on Twitter Thank you to my Patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Carey Clanton, Joel Webber, Scott Grant, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, and Vivek Mohan. To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email or Ko-Fi, if you're after something specific.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When I interviewed the legendary game designer and GDC founder Chris Crawford for episode 30, on his famous Dragon Speech, I asked him if he'd have pursued this dragon had he known he'd still be chasing it three decades later. He admitted that he probably would have not. He'd have instead put his energy into making more simulations, teaching people to think in a way that he only recently realised is rare. He calls it process-intensive thinking, and here, in this excerpt from our interview, he explains what that means, why he thinks it's rare, and how he believes it will eventually reshape our society. He's also written multiple short essays about this idea on his website. Here are links to a couple of them: https://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/i-really-blew-it.html https://www.erasmatazz.com/library/course-description-2018/object-versus-process.html You can find a full transcript of this soundbite at lifeandtimes.games/episodes/files/soundbite-chris-crawford-2 To support The Life and Times of Video Games, please remember to share your favourite episodes with other people. You can also donate to the show via paypal.me/mossrc or sign up for a monthly subscription on patreon.com/lifeandtimesofvideogames (which will get you various tier-dependent bonus perks like an ad-free podcast feed and research and production notes). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What about the games that never make it to market? Do they have stories worth telling, or lessons worth learning? These are the ghosts of games that never were.

If you've listened to episode 30 of the show, even if you weren't previously aware of his work, you'll know what a brilliant orator Chris Crawford is. The Dragon Speech, that famous moment where he charged out of the games industry — by literally charging out of the room — was arguably his magnum opus. And it was only possible thanks to Chris's mastery of the spoken word. Here he describes his approach to public speaking and gives tips on how everyone can give better speeches. To learn more about Chris, his Dragon Speech, and his immense importance to the early years of the games industry, be sure to listen to episode 30, 'The Dragon Speech, and Chris Crawford's improbable dream'. You can support The Life and Times of Video Games by sharing your favourite episodes with others and by making a donation, either in the form of a one-off payment via paypal.me/mossrc or a recurring payment (with some reward perks!) via patreon.com/lifeandtimesofvideogames Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Given the hellish year we've had in 2020, I thought it'd be fun to close the year with a touch of levity...in the form of my cat, interrupting me, and just generally wanting to be podcast famous. Happy holidays. May your 2021 be blessed with joy and happiness and dreams fulfilled. Or at least better tidings than this year brought. Thank you to my Patreon supporters for making this show possible — especially my producer-level backers Scott Grant, Rob Eberhardt, Carey Clanton, Vivek Mohan, Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, and Simon Moss. To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I speak to Bitmap Books founder/publisher/owner/designer Sam Dyer about the hows and whys of publishing visually-led, high-quality books about games history, including why he loves to publish them and why they are so much more than just "picture books" — indeed, as we cover in the interview, there's both a huge amount of care and craft that goes into making them and we can learn so, so much from looking at the graphical evolution of the medium. We also discuss the challenges and processes of book publishing, the history of Bitmap Books, and Bitmap's current and upcoming projects. This is the sixth entry in a new series of interviews I'm running alongside the main show — every month-or-three I'll talk to a different person who's exploring games history, in one way or another, to learn about the many ways people are preserving the games industry's past as well as to further our understanding of how this wonderful medium (and the industry that's built around it) has come to be the way it is now. The previous one was with Kelsey Lewin of The Video Game History Foundation. Before that, I talked about computer role-playing games with the author of The CRPG Addict blog. Other interviews include Shmuplations.com proprietor and Japanese-to-English translator extraordinaire Alex Highsmith. Follow the "games history explorers" tag or the Interviews category on my website to see them all. Interview conducted November 24th, 2020. Links: Commodore 64: A Visual Compendium Commodore Amiga: A Visual Compendium NES/Famicom and SNES/Super Famicom visual compendiums The Art of Point-and-Click Adventure Games Metal Slug Book The Secret History of Mac Gaming (out of print right now but stay tuned — it'll be back available in 2021) Video footage of Dark Castle in action during a livestream I did to promote my book Royal Mail video games postage stamp set The CRPG Book Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection Game Boy: The Box Art Collection Sega Master System Visual Compendium Bitmap on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube Thank you to my Patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Carey Clanton, Scott Grant, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, and Vivek Mohan. To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was "the greatest speech he ever gave in his life", and it marked a turning point in his pursuit of his dream, but it had the note of a eulogy. This is the story of how — and why — the legendary designer Chris Crawford left the games industry in an opening-day lecture at the 1993 Game Developers Conference, an event that he had founded just six years prior.

Utopia and Intellivision World Series Baseball designer Don Daglow, one of the original five game programmers in Mattel's Intellivision group, describes his years spent at the company dodging forklifts, dumpster diving, listening to toys being smashed, and sharing a space with the rest of the electronics division. To learn more about Don Daglow and his mega-influential game Utopia, be sure to listen to episode 29, 'Utopia, and the teacher who made a game of its impossibility'. I've just added one more way you can listen to the show — it's now available on the audio sharing platform Vurbl at https://vurbl.com/station/3Ul4MkAwo7Z/ You can support The Life and Times of Video Games by sharing your favourite episodes with others and by making a donation, either in the form of a one-off payment via paypal.me/mossrc or a recurring payment (with some reward perks!) via patreon.com/lifeandtimesofvideogames Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Don Daglow pitched management at Mattel on an Intellivision game about trying to build a perfect society, he thought he was just creating a "line filler" in their product calendar. Instead he made one of the most important games of all time. Don wrote a book in 2018 about the business and design insights he's gained from his long career making video games (nearly 50 years if you include his mainframe games!). If you buy it on Amazon via my affiliate link, I get a small percentage of the sale price. It's also worth noting, for anyone up for some further reading, that I've done in-depth genre histories for Ars Technica on two of the genres that Utopia influenced — city-building games and real-time strategy. I'll also have more content from my two (so far!) interviews with Don in the coming weeks and months — probably a "soundbite" in mid-November and a full episode in 2021, plus maybe more of each of those. Utopia is one of several Intellivision games slated for re-release on the upcoming Intellivision Amico console. In the meantime, you can grab a fan-made remake on Itch.io (Mac or Windows), track down a copy of the Intellivision Lives! collection from some years back, boot it up in an emulator, or just watch some videos of it on YouTube. All music in this episode was my own, except selected clips from Santa Paravia, Astrosmash, Fascinating Fruit, and Utopia, and the IBM mainframe playing a song. Thanks to my sponsor for this episode, Richard Bannister. You can find out more about his Retro Games for Mac collection at his website or by listening to my Indie Spotlight interview with him. To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a sponsored post, but don't let that turn you off. I made a point of doing the interview as I would any other — and Richard Bannister has some fun stories to tell. Richard Bannister is best-known for his Mac-native emulator ports of BSNES, Nestopia, Genesis Plus, and Boycott Advance, plus some two-dozen others, which he built and maintained through the 2000s and returned to relatively recently after a long hiatus. But he also has a fantastic game music player called Audio Overload (with Mac and Windows versions) that supports more than 30 console/handheld/computer file formats. And this year, during a period of unemployment, he decided to flex his creative muscles and make some games. He's up to 20 in all, each inspired by a classic arcade game or early home computer puzzle game — and very often by multiple variants of a particular game — and he's selling them on the Mac App Store. He's got his own version of Mr Do — via Amstrad CPC clone Fruity Frank — called Fascinating Fruit, and a Snake/Pac-Man hybrid called Wacky Snake, plus a Crystal Quest reimagining called Space Diamonds and a JezzBall/Barrack clone called Little Green Balls that I can personally attest feels just like the original. And many others, available individually or in two discounted bundles. In this interview we discuss his Retro Games for Mac collection — its inspirations, design, development, cheat codes(!), and future plans — as well as his 90s shareware games and his contributions to the emulator scene. Interview notes: His Breakout-style game is called Shaded Bricks It's inspired by Commodore 64 game Crillion 1992 Mac game Diamonds Fascinating Fruit is based on the arcade game Mr Do But also on Amstrad CPC game Fruity Frank cheat codes include "drfauci" to give your character a mask and "fiveaday" to swap fruits and vegetables out for junk food (see below for how they change the appearance) I covered the rise and fall of Ambrosia Software in a PAX talk that you can read/listen to here Ambrosia Software's Pengo clone Bubble Trouble is no longer available, except via abandonware sites Ice Squishing His shareware games included Smashing Windows and Star Chaos Pang aka Buster Brothers arcade game Crystal Quest is available on modern systems (Mac, Windows, Xbox 360) thanks to the company co-founded by its creator Patrick Buckland There was indeed a Game Boy port, though the game was never going to work well with d-pad controls Richard Bannister's original shareware clone was called Space Debris His new version is Space Diamonds Richard Bannister's emulators Audio Overload You can find some of the games and emulators John Stiles made at the Macintosh Garden Frodo C64 emulator (and Richard Bannister's Mac port) French-territory-only computer, the Thomson MO5 RB's emulators of them: Thom, TEO, MO5 Cities Skylines Wacky Snake - Pac-Man/Snake hybrid You can send RB feedback via the form at bannister.org/email or from inside any of his games Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the rise and, um...fade out(?) of Chris Sawyer, the genius creator of bestselling, critically-acclaimed simulation games Transport Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon — who made a career out of working at the cutting-edge, in bare metal assembly code that he wrote and optimised (and optimised again) on his own, until the cutting-edge left him behind. Chris was only a design consultant on 2004 game RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, but its remastered "Complete" edition has just come out on Nintendo Switch and the PC version is free on the Epic Games Store right now (until October 2). The original two games are also still sold via the likes of Steam and GOG. Transport Tycoon, meanwhile, lives on in open-source project OpenTTD and in a mobile port (Android, iOS) of the original game by Chris's company 31X. Thanks as always to my supporters on Patreon — especially my $10+ backers Carey Clanton, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Vivek Mohan, Wade Tregaskis, and Seth Robinson. If you'd like to become a supporter, for as little as $1 a month, head to my Patreon page and sign up. Or for one-off donations you can use paypal.me/mossrc. Please remember to tell other people about the show, and to leave a review by following the links at ratethispodcast.com/ltvg. I'm currently writing a new book called Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet. You can learn more and/or pre-order your copy from Unbound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former Links, PGA Championship Golf, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour lead Vance Cook explains how and why his team(s) created new ways to swing a virtual golf club — beginning with the C-shaped gauge in Links and leading into "TruSwing" on Front Page Sports Golf and PGA Championship, and then ending with the motion-controller (Wiimote) swing in Tiger Woods Wii. Also listen for insights into the difference between sports games that aim for simulation versus those that aim for the "emotional experience". This soundbite uses leftover material from Episode 27 - Links, though that story's not a pre-requisite for listening. Thanks as always to my supporters on Patreon — especially my $10+ backers Carey Clanton, Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, Simon Moss, Rob Eberhardt, and Vivek Mohan. If you'd like to become a supporter, for as little as $1 a month, head to my Patreon page and sign up. Or for one-off donations you can use paypal.me/mossrc. Please remember to tell other people about the show, as word-of-mouth is the main way my audience grows, and if you'd like to leave a review you can do so by following the links at ratethispodcast.com/ltvg. I'm currently writing a new book, Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet. You can learn more and/or pre-order your copy from Unbound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1990, in a bid to move ahead of their rivals, Access Software reinvented virtual golf. Their game Links set the template for golf games over the next decade, with a technological tour de force, and along the way it dominated bestselling PC games charts month after month, year after year. Until suddenly it didn't. This is the story of Links and the huge shadow it cast over its genre. If you'd like to play the original Links for yourself and would like to see it the way people saw it at the time, don't forget to turn down the CPU speed in DOSBox — a 386 was still a high-end machine when it came out, and so you want to go somewhat slower than that. TruGolf EA got out of golf games after Rory McIlroy PGA Tour in 2015, but 2K picked up the PGA Tour licence this year and has taken over publishing duties for former EA Sports contractors HB Studios' golf series The Golf Club — now renamed PGA Tour 2K. Their first game together, PGA Tour 2K21, just came out on Switch, Xbox One, and PS4 (disclosure: those are Amazon affiliate links). Thanks as always to my supporters on Patreon — especially my $10+ backers Seth Robinson, Wade Tregaskis, Rob Eberhardt, Vivek Mohan, Simon Moss, and Eric Zocher. If you'd like to become a supporter, for as little as $1 a month, head to my Patreon page and sign up. Or for one-off donations you can use paypal.me/mossrc. Please remember to tell other people about the show, and to leave a review by following the links at ratethispodcast.com/ltvg. I'm currently writing a new book, Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet. You can learn more and/or pre-order your copy from Unbound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices