doing some visual design research on isometric tile-based games and came across this incredible screenshot from Celtic Tales: Balor of the Evil Eye that entire screenshot was drawn with just *sixteen colours* #gameArt #retroGaming

History vga256 • 6d ago • 100%

in celebration of ward christensen's life and contributions to the BBS, i've uploaded the raw, uncut, extended three-hour interview @textfiles conducted with him in 2002 for the BBS Documentary

in celebration of ward christensen's life and contributions to the BBS, i've uploaded the raw, uncut, extended three-hour interview @textfiles conducted with him in 2002 for the BBS Documentary warning: the files are 15gb each just as they came off of the camera tapes without further recompression. <https://pixeldrain.com/l/cFtC5YE4> these are the same interviews included in the BBS Documentary archive.org collection - unfortunately IA is still down at the moment. #bbs #history #retroComputing

i haven’t found good PS1 games in the wild in nearly 20 years today i scored for $3 each! #retrogaming #playstation #psx

i am in love with the cover art on al sweigart's python game programming book it was switched out with some more corporate art a year later. #programming

😎 #programming

in 25+ years of retro gaming and sierra, i've never once seen someone mention Hoyle's Book of Games despite its small stature, it was one of the most financially lucrative sierra titles, and spawned an entire series of games. what makes it special is that opponents are (for the most part) characters from sierra titles, each playing in a style expressive of the character's personality. graham and rosella are friendly and not overly competitive, larry is silly and aggressive with his cards. the dog? the dog is a real shithead. #sierraOnline #retroGaming

although i've finished Conquests of Camelot several times, i've never thought to sit through the credits to the end. i find a few things fascinating about this. first off, the game never prompts you with sound effects showing that you've received points for solving a puzzle or winning a battle, contrary to almost every other sierra adventure title. second, unlike sierra adventures that lump all points together into a single score, this one has been stratified into three categories. third - and this is more in comparison to RPGs where playable characters are created for at the beginning of the game, this title inverts the process. "your" king arthur is really the outcome of the choices you made over the course of the game: my particular playthrough seems to have valued soul over skill or wisdom. #adventureGames #retroGaming #sierra

did i just drive 300 km one way in the middle of the night to pick up fifteen big box games. yes. yes i did. #bigboxgames #retrogaming

re: my last post - if you didn't already know, Stephen Biesty has the most beautifully animated and hilariously voiced multimedia version of Incredible Cross-Sections, called: Stowaway! <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9jKE6Y7vJQ> #retroGaming #windows311

wondrous Boardwatch BBS magazine "top 100" boards in the united states from 1994. this was based on a reader's choice vote-in. the first two boards are (respectively) the homes of Apogee software and Epic MegaGames shareware publishers. now just guess how many of the remaining 98 are porn boards! credit: @fearfair on /r/bbs: <https://i.redd.it/5pb1m577m9pd1.jpeg> #shareware #bbs #retroGaming

you... you included regina, but edmonton didn't make the cut? 😭 #RetroGaming #canada #yeg 

History vga256 • 1mo ago • 100%

academic researchers/readers of mastodon: is there a solid historical book (books?) that documents and explores the transition from the mechanical age to the age of “modern” technology as someone like

academic researchers/readers of mastodon: is there a solid historical book (books?) that documents and explores the transition from the mechanical age to the age of “modern” technology *as someone like heidegger understands the term technology*? i’m imagining a book that interprets the social and cultural transformations between the late medieval and victorian periods, from older conceptions of morality and mechanism to newer ideas about individualism and automation? eg. documenting not only demographic changes, but also the ways of thinking about people that were preconditions for modern technological thought. i realize this is a rather nebulous request covering a huge time span, but my background is in the philosophy of science and not british history literature. #academicmastodon #history

i can't believe it took me 10 years to find out that Transport Tycoon got a full live jazz orchestral remaster of its midi soundtrack 🤯 and it sounds GREAT. john broomhall and his "TT band" knock every piece out of the park <https://archive.org/details/Transport-Tycoon-2014-OST> #retroGaming #music #ost

History vga256 • 1mo ago • 100%

if you grew up in canada in the 90s and 2000s, you probably visited a Playdium arcade at one point or another.

if you grew up in canada in the 90s and 2000s, you probably visited a Playdium arcade at one point or another. if you didn't, playdium was a canadian national mega-arcade that had over a dozen locations at its peak. it grew in the late 90s and early 2000s when arcades had already withered away in most malls. they imported a ton of interesting massive arcade units, like Dance Dance Revolution, monster truck simulators and ride-racing sims the playdium archive is an online mini-museum of playdium history. the edmonton-based archivist has done an incredible job of digitizing old footage. my personal favourite are these reloadable Playcards that you'd use instead of cash in the arcade cabs. i wish i had hung on to mine. #canada #history #arcade #yeg

oh boy. i just found my academic records published on my old CS department's server 🤣 back in 1997 when i was a snot nosed first year university student, i was planning on becoming a CS student. the first requirement of the degree was CMPUT 114: Introduction to Computer Science. the course was pretty straightforward: learn how to code and solve problems with Turbo Pascal 7 in a lab, while learning about data structures and bubble search and encapsulation in class. unfortunately, that same semester, Ultima Online launched. 12 of my 14 hours a day were spent playing UO, leaving a few minutes for completing assignments. i have circled the assignments i missed, and final exam which i did not study for because i was trying to GM my swordsman in UO 🤣 #ultima #uo #retroGaming

found a really cool document: the official developer/user documentation for the codec used to compress most of the Sega CD FMV games: Cinepak for Sega-CD [https://dn720003.ca.archive.org/0/items/sega-cinepak-users-guide/SEGA%20Cinepak%20Users%20Guide_text.pdf](https://dn720003.ca.archive.org/0/items/sega-cinepak-users-guide/SEGA%20Cinepak%20Users%20Guide_text.pdf) sadly, the software (macintosh) doesn't seem to be preserved anywhere. it had a really simple interface, and came with a driver for playback on the console #macintosh #gamePreservation #vintageApple #sega #retroGaming 

back in the early 90s, i only knew of four ways to get new computer games: - buying my own (i could afford a new one every 3-6 months at best) - trading with friends (only 3 kids in my school had computers at home) - buying shareware diskettes at the grocery store for a few bucks - downloading shareware from local BBSes of all of the above, only the last two were reliable sources of new games every week. i was one of the only kids in the school that had a modem, so i spent every evening sourcing out hot new shareware on my local boards. i'd wear out my credits and time limits downloading every single disk i could find at 2400 baud, usually taking about an hour of the dozens of games I downloaded, two of them proved to be mega-hits: Tank Wars and Crystal Caves. for over a year, my two best friends and i huddled around the computer playing hotseat tank wars, and took turns trying to finish CC levels. consider that, at the time, we owned AAA titles like Wing Commander II and Space Quest IV, and a sega genesis with a dozen games between us. and yet, crystal caves was the first thing we'd load up on sleepovers. it found the exact right balance of addictive, fun and friendly. a few years ago i started collecting old shareware distributor diskettes - the kind you'd find for $2 at a grocery store. and i absolutely treasure them. 🙏 #apogee #shareware #retroGaming #dosgaming

to date, the Worlds of Ultima games have generally been ignored in favour of the numbered series, and that's a real shame. they're some of the best games wearing the badge, especially with the influence of designer warren spector on the game systems. savage empire has crafting for instance - something noticeably absent in the other games. so glad to see a comprehensive review of Martian Dreams come out, including exploration of the box art and browsies. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIIvODKWnQ> #ultima #retroGaming #dosGaming