By the late 80s, the 8-bit computer boom set off by the Apple II was winding to a close, but not before Brian Fargo could prove that there was still some untapped potential in those archaic chips. Fresh off the success of A Bard’s Tale, Fargo hired up a team of pen and paper roleplaying […]

The post S2 E8: Wasteland, AKA Fallout 0 first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

Searching for the inspiration behind Wasteland and the Fallout series, we look back at the independent film that started it all. And, if you haven’t seen the film in a while or ever, it probably isn’t what you think it is. Seriously, where are the fights over gasoline and desolate unpopulated spaces? This week on […]

The post S2 E7: Mad Max And the Road to the Apocalypse first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

This episode we continue our discussion of The Beatles: Get Back and the post-Beatles fab four solo careers. Get Back | 70 mins https://gameographypod.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Get%20Back%202,%20Devin%20is%20Dead%20(Devin%20is%20Devin).mp3

The post Get Back 2 Bein 4 Fab Guys first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

This episode and next we break from our regular season to bring you a conversation on the new documentary Get Back. Our conversation roves between observations on the filmmaking and the four who fab along with their post-Beatles careers. Get Back | 60 mins https://gameographypod.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Gort%20Bork-%20and%20now%20your%20hosts%20for%20the%20evening,%20The%20Gameographies.mp3

The post Get Back first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

It wasn’t until 1985, 14 years after the original, that the game most people associate with The Oregon Trail name was released for the Apple II. Benefiting greatly from the Apple II’s breakthrough success, especially in the education sector, Philip Bouchard reimagined The Oregon Trail as a real-time simulation, breaking from the text only, turn […]

The post S2 E6: The Oregon Trail Across the Ages first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

Looking for a way to get his students engaged in the material, Don Rawitsch decided he was going to make a board game about the western migration to Oregon in the 1800s. His roommates who knew a little about computers suggested they build it as a computer program instead. The year was 1971. Yes, before […]

The post S2 E5: The Oregon Trail, 50 Years of Dysentary first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

Video games, like Richard Garriott were still in their adolescence in the early 80s. Garriott, known as the father of computer role-playing games, straight off the success of the first three games in his groundbreaking Ultima series that he developed while still in school, moved away from home for the first time and felt a […]

The post S2 E4: Ultima IV & The Origin of Morality in Games first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

Surreal psychedelics come to video games. In 1982, Mel Croucher, an anti-establishment music producer and father of the British video game industry, released Pimania a puzzler that blended a virtual mystery with a real one. Pimaniacs, as he referred to the players sucked in by the game were tasked with finding a golden sundial hidden […]

The post S2 E3: A Couple of Pimaniacs first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

Where did Rogue and the Roguelike come from? Created to appease its own programmer’s lust for adventure, Rouge (1980) built the game world from scratch each time you played. On top of that, it is one of the first games that based its play and setting on the still relatively new Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying […]

The post S2 E2: How Rogue and the Roguelike Were Born first appeared on Gameography Podcast.

Computers were built for war. Specifically, calculating artillery bombardments. It wasn’t until a group of students at MIT, uninterested by the traditional, often painfully practical, applications of computers, challenged themselves to create a game, that the true potential of interactive entertainment became clear. But of course, it was about war. 1969’s Spacewar! is often considered […]

The post S2 E1: Spacewar! Or Pong Wasn’t the First Video Game? first appeared on Gameography Podcast.