On May 19, 1984, an unemployed ice cream truck driver named Michael Larson went on
Press Your Luck and over the course of two episodes, took home more money than had ever been won in the history of television: $110,237 -- to the shock of the show’s producers and host, the late
Peter Tomarken. How did he do it? The show’s game board had only 5 patterns of 18 squares, and Mr. Larson had memorized them all. After the show, CBS tried to disqualify him but couldn’t, because Larson hadn’t done anything illegal. But they
did refuse to allow those episodes to be aired in syndication. So, they didn’t re-air until 2003, when the Game Show Network produced a Tomarken-hosted documentary about Mr. Larson’s incredible win:
Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 3, 2012 -
42 comments
Tabletop: Analog Game Design - A commons licenced book containing a series of essays about digital and non-digital games from some esteemed boardgame veterans:
"Much has been written about the videogame revolution, [...] In a scant thirty some-odd years,
we’ve grown from nothing to one of the world’s largest entertainment
forms, grossing tens of billions annually [...] Works that discuss the evolution of the game industry from an historical perspective generally talk about the connection between the pre-digital
arcade and the earliest digital games; I’ve even heard some claim
that “without the arcade, videogames would not exist.” This is, of course, bosh..." [more inside]
posted by Cogentesque
on Aug 24, 2011 -
36 comments
Game programmer and designer Mike Dailly has been
making games since he was 14, back in 1984. It was then that he met
David Jones,
Russell Kay and
Steve Hammond at the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club, a group that gathered at Kingsway Technical College in Dundee, Scotland. These four chaps would go on to form
DMA Design, home to
Lemmings and
Grand Theft Auto,
amongst other games. Dailly has been sharing stories and materials from the archives of DMA, including
The Complete History of DMA Design,
The Complete History of Lemmings (
previously),
GTA prototypes,
graphics and
early game design docs (when it was called "Race 'n' Chase"), and more....
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Mar 24, 2011 -
16 comments
Adventure - based on the classic text game of the
same name - was the first game ever to contain an easter egg.
It seems laughably primitive these days, but when it first hit shelves, Adventure was a programming masterpiece. The
text version of Adventure (by Willie Crowther and Don Woods) required hundreds of KB and a mainframe computer to operate, so much that Atari brass told
Warren Robinett not to even bother with a 2600 version.
He did anyway, and the results are near legendary. The 2600 version of Adventure went on to sell over a million copies at $25 a pop. For his effort Robinett recieved absolutely nothing beyond his $22,000/year salary.
Play the 2600 Adventure. (Flash) If you're one of those who requires some eye candy, why not download the
Quake 3 Adventure Map, instead?
posted by absalom
on Jan 7, 2005 -
41 comments
