MetaFilter posts tagged with gaming and retrogaming

New from VIDEO Magazine, it's Electronic Games!

JHarris — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 05:43:30 -0800

NEW from VIDEO Magazine, arising out of its popular "Arcade Alley" column, it's ELECTRONIC GAMES Magazine!(page of PDF links) Brought to you by editors Frank Laney Jr. and Bill Kunkel, and filled with all the latest news on programmable home console games, computer games (with special coverage for the new ATARI 800 system), stand-alone electronic devices and arcade gaming. In the premier issue on newsstands now:

Page 8: "Congratulations on the debut of your new magazine. As games designers, we are naturally pleased that there will be a magazine entirely devoted to the field of electronic gaming. Good Luck!
-- The ActiVision Design Staff: Alan Miller, David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Bob Whitehead, Steve Cartright."
Pages 10-11: One of the infamous George Plimpton ads promoting the Intellivision over the Atari 2600. "Atari Casino. No Dealer. Intellivision Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack. You play cards with a shifty-eyed dealer."
Page 12: An article on David Crane's Freeway. "'That's where the San Diego Chicken came in,' says Activision spokesperson Diane Drosnes."
Page 14: "Atari confirms rumor; secret messages exist! Sources at Atari have confirmed one of arcading's most persistant wild stories. If a gamer sends the hero to a certain room in the VCS Adventure and performs a specific action, a secret message revealing the designer's name will appear on the screen."
Page 14: "There's quite a story behind the delay in the release of the VCS Asteroids cartridge. The version the company showed a year ago received such a frosty reception from those who got an advance peak that the designers went back to the drawing board. They developed a special process that puts twice as much program--8K vs. 4K--on the cartridge as was previously possible. It seems that Atari's wizards came up with a special bank-switch that flips back and forth between two 4K programs, fooling the VCS into reading them both..."
Page 16: "Those who were planning to give (Atari's standalone game system) COSMOS to someone this holiday season had better start looking for a substitute present. Although Atari lavished much advance publicity on its holographically enhanced stand-alone programmable, the company has shuttled it back to the design department for more work. Although the accomplishment of actually developing a commercially viable holographic process drew much admiration, the game itself received mixed reviews. The chief complaint: The holograms served as mere decoration and did not directly affect play."
Page 18: "Holiday Gift Guide for Gamers," features a chess computer, a calculator watch with a game mode, a satin jacket reading "SPACE INVADERS," and the new Merlin and Pocket Simon handheld electronic games, among other things.
Page 22: Introducing the new Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer! "Gamers who have felt shackled by the black and white output of the TRS-80 series can now fill the screen with green, blue, yellow, red, buff, cyan, magenta and orange."
Page 24: Q&A with the Game Doctor! "Q: Do video games damage television sets? A: No, no, a thousand times no!"
Page 25-28: A four-page ad for the Odyssey 2's classic game Quest for the Rings, a combination video and board game. "Ten rings of power lie hidden within the Dark Lands of the evil Ringmaster. In gloomy dungeons. Crystal caverns. Molten infernos. And mysterious shifting halls. Each posing its own challenge. And its own threat."
"Each ring is guarded by the treacherous minions of evil that lurk within these halls of doom. Menacing Orcs and Firewraths. The loathsome Spydroth Tyrantulus. Doomwinged Bloodthirsts. And hiddeous (sic) firebreathing dragons."
Page 29: 15-year-old Atari VCS Space Invaders champion Frank Tetro Jr. gives game tips!
Page 31: An article on the rivalry currently heating up arcades, between Space Invaders and Asteroids.
Page 37: "The Player's Guide to Programmable Videogames." "Programmable" systems are consoles that can accept cartridges on which are coded new games you can play without buying a whole new unit, as opposed to all those units that only play Pong or other simple games. The age of those systems drew to a close with the recent release of the new Atari Video Computer System.
Page 39: "1981: Game of the Year: Superman." Although if you ask me, Adventure was robbed.
Page 40: The guide continues. Coverage of the state of the industry, covering the major companies. Atari, Activision, Phillips (who have taken over distributing the Odyssey2 from subsidary Magnavox), Mattel, and Zircon, who is reviving the Fairchild Channel F, the original programmable game console. Although the images in all these articles are obviously artist recreations, probably from the game companies' own promotional materials. If only someone could reliably take a picture of a video monitor, making some kind of "screen shot," it would advance the art of game magazines tremendously....
Page 49: Reviews of Quest for the Rings, and also Missile Command, Air-Sea Battle, Breakout (Atari), Kaboom, Tennis and Boxing (Activision) for the VCS, Auto Racing and Space Battle, for the Invellivision, UFO and Alien Invaders--Plus! for the Odyssey2, and... Video Whizball for the poor Channel F. Of the latter: "If you like explosions, you'll love UFO. There are at least three different ones, plus an occasional strange hybrid the machine concocts to take care of extraordinary occurrences[...]"
Page 58: Computer Playland is the magazine's computer software review column, covering among other games Star Raiders for the Atari 400 & 800, Empire of the Over-Mind from Avalon Hill, and Scott Adams' version of Lunar Lander.
Page 63: An arcade column covers Phoenix sequel Pleiades, Space Odyssey, the awesome Venture, and the even-more-awesome arcade version of Warlords. "Fantasy adventures, role-playing games, dragon-slaying and heroic quests have been hot media topics for over a year now. Just as 'Star Wars' launched the science fiction boom a few years back, films like 'Dragonslayer,' 'Knightriders', 'Excalibur' and even 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' are piquing nationwide interest in 'adventure' simulations."
Page 66: Joyce Worley contributes an article on the burdgening standalone game device scene, with reviews of several devices, including Dark Tower.
Page 70: An article on (dare we dream) buying your own arcade machine!
Page 73: "Within the next year, a sizable number of arcaders may be playing games on their very own IBM computers. The company, virtually synonymous with electronic brains to most folks, is finally going to produce machines for the home and small business markets. IBM plans three systems, ranging in price from $1,560 to $4,500. Gamers will most likely be interested in the low-end unit. Sold without monitor or cassette, it comes with 16K of memory. An additional 64K is available for slightly over $500. All the IBM personal computers are based on a 16-bit microprocessor, the 8088. This chip is faster than the ones used in most other home computers and will be able to handle significantly more complex programs. This could lead to the creation of some mighty complex games, particularly in the realm of fantasy adventures. How soon will games be produced for the IBM system? IBM will initially concentrate on business software. Once there's a sizable corps of owners, however, suppliers will undoubtedly begin pumping out entertainment software."
The issue wraps up with rundowns of football games and chess-playing devices, and "Arcade Spotlight," a general arcade news column.

Coming up in the NEXT ISSUE of ELECTRONIC GAMES:

The History of Videogames
The 1982 Arcade Awards
The Videogame Hall of Fame
How Videogames Are Made
The Players Guide to Electronic Science Fiction Games
All these columns, plus one devoted to electronic role-playing games, Passport to Adventure.

So watch for the second issue of Electronic Games ON SALE JANUARY 14 1982! - - - - - - - - Electronic Games is also preserved at the Internet Archive.

"Sweagledactyl": swan stuffed in giant eagle inside a pterodactyl

JHarris — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 17:45:57 -0800

Courtesy of that saint of old school gaming and dark god of the underworld Jason Sholtis, who runs the awesome, previously-posted blog The Dungeon Dozen, it's a new adventure to run using the game system of your choice: THE SECRET PARTY-HOUSE OF THE HILL GIANT PLAYBOY (PDF viewer w/ available download). Looting, slaying, and party crashing beckon to the bold!
Also from Sholtis: the one-page dungeon FLESH FOR THE WITCH QUEEN. (PDF viewer with download) Be sure to keep reading until you get to the stats for the new monster, the slugbear.

A link to the past

Artw — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 20:56:51 -0800

Seedling - "an incredibly overt love letter to SNES-era Zelda games" (flash) (via RPS)

MORE CHEETAHMEN THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE

DoctorFedora — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:32:15 -0800

THE HISTORY (AND MYSTERY!) behind Action 52 and Cheetahmen, FINALLY REVEALED! And, if you have five hundred bucks to spare, NES cartridges of the newly unearthed(?) CHEETAHMEN: THE CREATION is available for sale! VINCE PERRI AT HIS DESIGN BEST, the web site proclaims, though it's unclear what this is expected to mean to us!

NOW IT IS BEGINNING OF A FANTASTIC STORY

JHarris — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:41:43 -0800

Here are fan-translated Game Center CX (previously) Episodes on YouTube: #1: Atlantis No Nazo, #2: Challenger, #3: Ghosts 'N Goblins, #4: Konami Wai Wai World, #5: Metroid, #6: Solomon's Key, #7 & #8: Prince of Persia: Part 1 - Part 2, #9: Mega Man II, #10: Super Mario 3. Much more after the break.... #13: Tokimeki Memorial #19: Milon's Secret Castle #20: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past #21: Ultraman #22: Final Fight #23: Hudson's Adventure Island #24: Actraiser #25: Quiz: The Feudal Lords' Ambition #26: Doraemon #27 & #28: Super Mario 64: Part 1 - Part 2 #30: Kid Icarus #31: Umihara Kawase (THIS GAME IS AWESOME) #32: Contra #36: Shadow Lands #37: Street Fighter 2 #38: Castlevania III #40: Gargoyle's Quest (in three videos): Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 #41: Mighty Bomb Jack (second attempt, live) #42: Adventure Quiz Hatena's Quest (in four videos): Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 #43: S.O.S. #44: Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (in four parts): Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 #45: Ultra Seven #48: Out Of This World #49: Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Ganbare Goemon) #50: Arino in Korea #53: Clock Tower #54 & #55: Ki no Bouken: Part 1 - Part 2 #60: Bonk's Adventure #61: The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido #64: Sonic the Hedgehog #65: Trip to Cannes #66: Arino Gets Out of the Hospital #67: Zombie Nation #69: Legacy of the Wizard (Dragon Slayer IV) #73: Lemmings #80: Kirby's Adventure #82 & #83: Mega Man 3: Part 1 - Part 2 #86: Punch-Out!! #96 & #97: Ninja Gaiden II: Part 1 - Part 2 #101: Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode #105: Hokkaido Serial Murders (in four videos): Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 #132: Battletoads (untranslated, but pain is a universal language) Special: Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels: First - Later Extra challenges: Kunio-Kun Samurai (The best-known U.S. Kunio games are Super Dodgeball and River City Ransom) Super Mario Kart Super Metroid (untranslated) Transformers: Mystery of Convoy Door Door Galaga Star Force Roommania AstroRobo SASA Arino in the USA (2 hour special)

DUNGEON SQUAD! (IN COLOR)

JHarris — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 20:28:40 -0800

Here is Dungeon Squad! A simple, free role-playing game intended for younger players (but enjoyable by older ones), with lots of dice rolling and action. Here's a couple of adventures for it, here's an expansion, and here's a more complex version. Here's the expansion Adventure Squad, in three PDFs: Core - Abilities - D&D 3E Classes. Here's yet another expansion. Designed by Jason Morningstar, who wrote a couple of other awesome (but commercial) games: The Shab Al-Hiri Roach and Fiasco! The Shab Al-Hiri Roach is a game about politics at a small 1920s university that asks, what are you willing to do to succeed? Lie about your collegues? Stab your friends in the back? Swallow a telepathic god-roach that wants to destroy civilization? Fiasco! is an inventive storytelling game about bold plans that fail hard, in the vein of crime films like Reservoir Dogs and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

You feel yourself turning into a small fish! You flop three times then die.

JHarris — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 22:45:33 -0800

Here is a ancient Apple II computer role-playing game system with over 250 scenarios. It is EAMON, a little-known collection of RPG adventures for the Apple II. They are all in the public domain! This is its manual. You had better believe it is required reading. And this is the download page. The Digital Antiquarian (previously) wrote three articles on EAMON. Part 1. Sample play. Part 2.

retro gaming heaven

pyramid termite — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:11:44 -0800

The Computer Gaming World Archive. The first 100 issues of Computer Gaming World downloadable in pdf form, ads and all. 1981-89. (Url directs to splash page with ad, click link below to continue, pdf files somewhere around 20 megs.)

Power Glove sold separately

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 19:09:38 -0800

Andre's NES Emulator — play the classics online

Retro or Classic?

feelinglistless — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 15:16:30 -0800

Retro Gamer. £5.99 at all good newsagents in the UK. Classic Gamer. Free and downloadable here. I'm suddenly getting flashbacks -- should I buy Zzap! 64 or Commodore User? Choices, choices ... [latter link via ReBlog]