Video Game History Hour

Felipe Pepe takes us through his collaborative, non-profit project to create a historical guide to computer role playing games: The CRPG Book: A Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games. What CRPG’s around the world are cool, interesting, historically important, popular, meaningful, and why are they so? Each entry highlights a game’s eccentricities, context of the time to better understand it, and the straightforward reasons why you should play it (though, there are plenty of games they recommend you don’t play). What started as a six month, 72 item project quickly became a four year, 400 item effort, but only due to overwhelming participation from the community. While the PDF version is completely free for download, all profits from hardcover sales benefit an educational charity in Brazil.

See more from Felipe Pepe:

Hardcover Book: https://www.bitmapbooks.co.uk/products/the-crpg-book-a-guide-to-computer-role-playing-games

Free PDF Book: https://crpgbook.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/crpg_book_2.0-1.pdf

Twitter: @Felipepepe

Website: crpgbook.wordpress.com

Contact: [email protected]

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Diving into the history of the Xbox in his recent long read, Bet on Black: How Microsoft and Xbox Changed Pop Culture, Part 1, David L. Craddock goes back to the time of JezzBall, Age of Empires, and trusty ‘ol Minesweeper: the games that kept us entertained while someone else in the house was using the phone. We discuss the import of porting Doom to show off DirectX, the PC Magazine two level Diablo demo disc, and the PR disaster of The Lion King for Windows 95. Craddock, no stranger to suddenly massively expanding the scope of his research, takes us down this rabbit hole with tales of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, and Halo’s Blood Gulch map.

See more from David L. Craddock:

Website: shacknews.com

Twitter: @davidlcraddock

Book: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/monsters-in-the-dark-the-making-of-x-com#/

Website: davidlcraddock.com

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Eric Switzer joins us to share the development and downfall of Darkwatch in his article The Untold Story Of Darkwatch. A vampiric haunted western, Darkwatch could have, in another universe, been a major franchise. But, through a series of acquisitions and mandated pivots, its storyline deadended after only one title. Will this long silent universe ever see its rebirth? Switzer gives us his exciting take on what may come down the line.

See more from Eric Switzer:

Twitter: @EpicSwitzer

Website: thegamer.com

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Our podcasting duo takes us back to the dawning of real-time computer games: Spacewar! Alex Smith joins us for round two, being our second second-time guest, to pairaphrase the history of this 2-player game of binary ships thrusting around a gravity-well star, who (reluctantly) wrote it, who modded it, who played it, and who created the first couple of video game controllers ever made. If necessity is the mother of invention, can we agree ‘fun’ is at least a cool aunt? The second generation of computer engineers doubled down on these machines simply being fun toys and spawned an entire industry which now generates more than twice the revenue of both the music and film/TV industries combined!

Play Spacewar!: Masswerk.at

See more from Alex Smith:

Blog: videogamehistorian.wordpress.com

Video Game Pioneers Archive: https://invention.si.edu/node/20723/p/489-videogame-pioneers-archive

Project Transcripts: https://sova.si.edu/details/NMAH.AC.1498?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=&i=0

Book: https://www.routledge.com/They-Create-Worlds-The-Story-of-the-People-and-Companies-That-Shaped-the/Smith/p/book/9781138389908

Podcast: http://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Ben Hanson returns to the show to bring us The Oral History Of PopCap Games, a not 4 hour long video in which we learn how the “colors game” spawned the casual juggernaut Bejeweled, the black sheep in the corner made all the money, the PopCap Burrito won’t give us Plants Vs Zombies on our Switches, and the final score is 3-4. Look, I know that doesn’t really make a lot of cents, but you really only need nine.

See more from Ben Hanson:

Twitter: @yozetty

Website: www.Minnmax.com

Patreon: /minnmax

Podcast: The MinnMax Show

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Show

Dr. Sparkle, the creator of Chrontendo, takes us through his more than decade long project to analyze every commercially released game for the NES and Famicom in chronological order while simultaneously spinning off this already massive show into two more: Chronsega and Chronturbo. If you’re ever looking for something to do with your free time, this guy might have some ideas for you. But, you may just be committing years and years of your life to a ‘bad’ (read: admirable) idea.

See more from Dr. Sparkle:

YouTube: /Chrontendo

Twitter: @Chrontendo

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Raven Simone takes us down the research rabbit hole she fell into while making her video The Girl Games Of Lost Media - Documentary. With few clues to follow, she started researching the Mean Girls game, but soon found herself chasing down info on Clueless and Pretty in Pink as well, discovering that research can often take you in unexpected directions. Frank, Kelsey, and Raven bond over how satisfying and thrilling it feels hunting down the treasures of lost media, the anguish of knowing how much data we’ve already lost due to a lack of preservation, and how you always seem to get new information as soon as you ‘close the book’ on your project.

See more from Raven Simone:

YouTube: /RayMona

Twitter: @TheRayMona

Instagram: @theraymona

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Should Monkey Island be made into a movie? Could it be? Jack Yarwood lays out the history of how this project almost came to be as well as why it gave up the ghost, instead. He, Frank, and Kelsey cross swords over if this could have been a glorious triumph*, like Super Mario Bros.: The Movie, or a *mumble mumble mumble*, like The Watchmen. Either way, the beloved Monkey Island franchise could still find its way to the silver screen as you never know what lies just beyond the horizon. Find Jack’s more in-depth history in his recent Polygon article Spilling the secrets of the canceled Curse of Monkey Island movie.

*Producer’s Note: As the producer of this podcast and the writer of these episode descriptions, it is my prerogative to infuse my very personal, and very correct, opinion of Super Mario Bros.: The Movie into the official, and now forever historically archived, VGHF stance on said movie. “The VGHF” loved this movie when she was growing up and thinks people should give it more of a chance.

See more from Jack Yarwood :

Twitter: @JackGYarwood

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

David Haywood, AKA Haze, discusses the MAME software preservation project: a collaborative, encyclopedic haven and emulator for all those ‘forgotten’ games of our past. In December 2020, while most of us were cowering under a table feebly awaiting the fresh start of the new year, David took a look back at the community’s accomplishments within the project over the last seven years and what still needs attention in his article Looking Back at a List. He joins the Video Game History Hour to discuss the inner workings of recovering old code (including risky chemistry, dangerous plastic-melting acids, and literally reading 1’s and 0’s with a microscope), the value of Plug and Plays, and what can be learned from poorly designed games.

See more from David Haywood:

Twitter: @mamehaze

YouTube: /mamehaze

Twitch: /mamehaze

Website: mamedev.emulab.it/haze/

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Author, documentarian, artist, guest VGHF blogger, and wild west gunslinger Kate Willaert claims the title of First FMV Game for this fast draw pistol duelling simulator in her recent article Wild Gunman ‘74: The Forgotten First FMV Game and video by the same name. She’s a straight shooter as we hit topics of the effect of the oil crisis on this game and bowling alley laser clay equipment. But, don’t holster your earbuds too quickly at the end! Kate also discusses her 50 part video series Video Dames: The History Of Playable Female Protagonists.

See more from Kate Willaert:

Twitter: @katewillaert

YouTube: /acriticalhit

Website: acriticalhit.com

Patreon: /acriticalhit

Newsletter: criticalkate.substack.com

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/