Leisure Suit Larry is a series of adventure games written by Al Lowe and published by Sierra from 1987 to 2009. The main character, whose full name is Larry Laffer, is a balding, dorky, double entendre-speaking, leisure suit-wearing (but still somewhat lovable) "loser" in his 40s. The games follow him as he spends much of his life trying (usually unsuccessfully) to seduce attractive women. [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Dec 7, 2011 -
68 comments
National Characters is a long, multi-part essay about how computer games deal with the concept of nations and turns it into a game mechanic. The author, Troy Goodfellow of strategy gaming blog Flash of Steel, focuses on how the fourteen indistinguishable national factions of the original Sid Meier's Civilization have been treated by different games through the years.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Aug 15, 2011 -
50 comments
"From 1965 to 1971, we played together, inventing one thing or another.... But, like the bride of Bluebeard, there was one door I was not allowed to enter. That was the door marked “Colorforms”. That alone was off limits. Harry had invented Colorforms, the vinyl plastic pieces that stuck to a shiny surface. And he was convinced that there was no idea or application involving Colorforms, nor could there be, that he had not thought up already.... [H]e would entertain no further discussion on the subject. The very mention of “stick-ons” was off limits. The door to Colorforms was shut and bolted. Until 6 years later, through a curious set of circumstances, I broke it down once and forever." The Colorforms Years is Mel Birnkrant's illustrated history of two decades of ups and downs working with
Colorforms, the first plastic-based creative toy and one of the first toys promoted in television commercials.
[more inside]
posted by jessamyn
on Dec 2, 2010 -
68 comments
Educational gamesmaker Preloaded has recently made two strategy games for English TV station Channel 4.
1066 is a mix of tactics, insult-typing, bowmanship, rhythm-game and narration by Ian Holm.
Trafalgar Origins is all Napoleonic high seas derringdo all the time, as you sail your English ship in real time against the damnable French and Spanish. Whether you want to hoist the sails or call your opponent a stench weasel, they are fun little games which have the added bonus of teaching you about British history. Both games can be played solo or multiplayer.
[via Rock Paper Shotgun, where they like those games quite a lot]
posted by Kattullus
on May 5, 2010 -
14 comments
Chess has a long, if somewhat
shrouded,
history, with beautiful chess pieces found dating from the
5th century. It has spawned
hundreds of fascinating stories, and
many interesting names for moves. For the last five decades, the history of chess and computers have
been intertwined in many ways. Chess continues to adapt to a new age, with controversies around
computer-assisted cheating, attempts to
sex-up chess books,
thousands of variants, and an
amazing online database that can search through recorded games for the last 200 years.
posted by blahblahblah
on Dec 4, 2006 -
5 comments
The Dot Eaters. A dauntingly comprehensive history of video games, beginning with
proto-PONG and Spacewar!. If it's difficult to navigate through Captain O's prize matrix,
use the handy timeline/scape (the dates don't work, so don't try). It's an interesting site, for sure, but if it doesn't pique your interest maybe the
links page will,
since it's the largest I've ever seen. In just minutes I found the
First Church of Pac-Man,
Super Mario Bros fanfiction (
@), and a great
Robotron shrine. Plus,
this noise (wav).
posted by BlackLeotardFront
on Apr 27, 2006 -
16 comments
The Elliot Avedon Museum and Archive of Games. Board games from a thirteenth-century 'Book of Games',
Inuit games,
card games,
row games,
puzzles,
ethnographical papers on games, etc.
A different kind of game at
Streetplay -
stickball,
hopscotch,
galleries, and
street games worldwide.
posted by plep
on Jul 16, 2003 -
2 comments
If you're a fan of Interactive Fiction then you'll certainly be familiar with
Andrew Plotkin the author of some of the best works in the genre, including
Spider in Web and
So Far. Only Macintosh users, however, will remember his phenomenol early-90s puzzle game,
System's Twilight, "An Abstract Fairytale." I recently played it again, and am astounded that such an early piece of work contains such a fully realized fantasy world (literally, it's abstract) and such
goddamn hard puzzles. Download it and experience some gaming history, and a damn good time.
posted by tweebiscuit
on Aug 2, 2001 -
12 comments
Every once in a while I get a bad case of 8-bit nostalgia, and I remember fondly my many hours of joy with my Nintendo Entertainment System. One of the most fun games on the NES had to be Tetris, and this
history of the game is a neat read.
TSR's NES Archive is another cool site dealing with the NES. Of course, the original Legend of Zelda is the best game of all time, but that's another thread entirely.
posted by tdecius
on Sep 20, 1999 -
0 comments
