I really can't believe it has taken this long to talk about Pinball!  Pinball machines are so insanely cool and the history around this is even cooler!  To paraphrase Outkast, it is Ice Cold! Pinball is an iconic part of our world and the advent could be discussed as a mythos and everyone has most likely played a pinball machine if not sat and watched others. This episode also allowed me to discuss one of my favorite print, tv and cinema genre's too! (have to listen to hear about it!)

It has been almost 14 months since the last podcast was recorded. Simply I hit a wall and started finding myself getting in the weeds of topics and I was worried this was becoming less fun and more a have to do. So I went on a quest, well a lot of quests and am really excited to share what I have seen, learned and done!

Including!

I am looking forward to include some videos, pictures and maybe streaming some topics as well!

Thank you as always for listening!

To set the stage for this podcast, I want you to think of something from your childhood to say 18 years old which you thought was amazing and maybe never owned or only saw the commercial.  For me it was the game Dark Tower.  This podcast is everything Dark Tower and I mean everything!  It's also some great facts from 1981 when Milton-Bradley released the Dark Tower electronic board game.

This is a hugely complicated topic as my knowledge base on the subject is big but in some areas of video game development I am going to bet it will expand and I hope anyone listening learns something too.

Prior to the creation of Game Engines, every part of a video games for consoles or PC's was created by the development team.  A game engine can hold the basic concepts for a game, or be a template that can be built upon.  Let's jump in to what a Game Engine is and then the pieces and a few examples of game engines with maybe a few games developed for each!

One of my goals this year was to learn a language and I looked at programming languages, then I looked at programming languages for games.  There is a rich history from Assembly as a first language built to run cabinet games to many other languages.  This is not the comprehensive list of programming languages but I tried to pick some from the last 5 decades and then also jump in to API's as well!  This is the first in a series on Game Development.

Virtual Reality is one of the most interesting topics in technology/gaming and the thought of it has been around for "(have to listen to hear when!)" and it is still evolving today!  In this episode there is history, hardware, software, use, context and of course Obscure Facts!  I was unable to enter the Matrix (Thanks Morpheus....) but I did put on a VR Headset and researched the heck out of the subject! Enjoy!

Back behind the Mic!  I finished out 2021 and started 2022 with a ton of fun including getting crafty (not the Beastie Boy type), reading (woo that is not boring, unless it's what I am reading!), having a really fun time with family for the holidays and playing a couple games so much that I should get a patch for my jean jacket!  Looking forward to a bunch of topics for 2022 and even some special guests!

“Patience's design flaw became obvious for the first time in my life: the outcome is decided not during the course of play but when the cards are shuffled, before the game even begins. How pointless is that?” David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

One of the first card games I learned was Solitaire also known as Klondike, my grandmothers both played it to pass the time and challenge themselves and others in our family.  The history of Solitaire is so cool and definitely worth a look, listen and play a few of the over 300+ version of Patience or Solitaire!

Buying games can be very easy, you can jump on Amazon or head to Target, Walmart, Game Stop or another big company.  In this episode I share some other places to shop and find items that your gamer or yourself will enjoy!