Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we try something a little different. Unattached to any particular game, we chat with Ed Fries, a long-time video game developer most well-known for his work shepherding the early days of Xbox and Microsoft Game Studios. We talk about five games of his early years that particularly affected him. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Podcast breakdown:
1:16:35 Break
1:16:48 Outro
Issues covered: a new model for interviews, productivity software wars, a child of engineers, Lunar Lander on a calculator, 6800-based kit computer and programming in assembly, cardboard computer, jumping from BASIC to assembly language, using a print terminal, modem sounds, competitive Asteroids, the first real video game, oscilloscopes and radar, complaining to the dentist, inspiring a generation of programmers and engineers, learning by typing from magazines, the 8-bit microprocessor, getting a 6502 square root routine from Woz, using a computer terminal, an intro to Rogue and its procedural elements, a things-going-wrong simulator, "there were not that many games in the world," building a game for different player types, the D programming language and other alphabetic languages, a short remembrance of Dani Bunten Berry, Multiple Use Labor Elements, how M.U.L.E. plays, screwing your buddies, similarities to Euro strategy games, the auction phase, crystite mining, a literary game, the first original IP character in a video game, moving from real caves to fantasy, some connections, album covers from EA, expensive personal computers.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Frogger, ROMox, The Princess and the Frog, Ant Eater, Sea Chase, Tom and Ed's Bogus Software, Tom Saxton, Sucker Punch, Microsoft, Ender's Game, Phil Spencer, Xbox, Bungie, Ensemble Studios, Rare Limited, World of Warcraft, Gabe Newell, Atari 2600, Halo, 1Up Ventures Fund, Psychonauts, Keeper, Tim Schafer, Boeing, Digital Equipment Corporation, Lunar Lander, CARDIAC, Nintendo Labo, Apple ][, Atari 800, Space Wars, Asteroids, Nolan Bushnell, Ampex, Ted Dabney, Computer Space, Nutting Associates, Computer Trivia, Pong, Homeworld, Steve Wozniak, Rogue, Defeating Games for Charity, Dark Souls, HACK, PDP-11/VAX, Epyx, Walter Bright, Sid Meier, Civilization, Bruce Shelley, Age of Empires, M.U.L.E., Dani Bunten Berry, Seven Cities of Gold, Settlers of Cataan, Diplomacy, AJ Redmer, Maxis, Will Wright, Dungeon/Zork, Don Daglow, Tim Anderson, Colossal Cave Adventure/Advent, Infocom, Frank Cifaldi, Video Game History Foundation, Kate Willaert, Will Crowther, Don Woods, Mike Haas, Andrei Alexandrescu, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Populous, The Bard's Tale, Outer Wilds, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
TBA! or more Pikmin
TTDS: 40m 6s
Links:
Ant Eater source
Princess and Frog source
Sea Chase source
Nitro source
Errata:
I misspoke with respect to the co-inventor of D, it was Andrei Alexandrescu. We regret the error.
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