The founder of influential old website The Home of the Underdogs, Sarinee Achavanuntakul, discusses the difference between "abandonware" and piracy, and explains why the former needs to exist.See full show notes and episode player…

Tags: sarinee achavanuntakul, home of the underdogs, preservation, piracy

It all started with a Macintosh ad: 'You too can be a knowledge worker.' This is the story of Brian Thomas' 15-year odyssey at the helm of one of the strangest pieces of multimedia software ever created — If Monks Had Macs.
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Tags: ludiphilia, if monks had macs, brian thomas, mac, hypercard, multimedia

To celebrate the 25th birthday of my favourite game franchise, I thought I'd pull out the old Tomb Raider grid episodes from Season 1 and merge them into one. I also put some time into cleaning up the audio, though it'll still sound rough compared to newer episodes — given the lower-fidelity recordings I was using then. Here's the original episode description:

Every aspect of the original Core Design Tomb Raider series (and by extension the franchise's success post-Core) comes back to the grid that lies beneath it — the majority of the puzzles; the platforming; the cavernous chambers and ruins and outdoor areas that provide a sense of isolation, of solitude and discovery; and Lara Croft's iconic acrobatic movement style. And yet it never would have happened if not for one pragmatic choice made by a programmer early in the game's development.

This is the story of how that came to be, and how it made Tomb Raider…well, Tomb Raider, based on interviews with Heather Stevens (née Gibson) and Gavin Rummery as well as my past work covering Tomb Raider's history as a freelancer. The second part, which was originally a separate release, also includes discussion of the place that such a grid system has — or might have — in game design today.
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Tags: tomb raider, lara croft, gavin rummery, heather stevens, andy sandham, core design, game design

There was no encyclopaedia nor fleshed-out database of video games in 1999. There were barely even any reliable or comprehensive lists of video games. Not until Jim Leonard decided he needed to build one.

He called it MobyGames, and 22 years later it's the de facto source for credits, screenshots, and other general information about video games. It is the "IMDB of video games". This is its story.
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Tags: mobygames, jim leonard, clint basinger, lazy game reviews, john romero, matej jan, retronator, john sczepaniak, tomer gabel

How a game designed in a week helped to change everything — for the company that made it, for a local industry in turmoil, and for a global industry in transition.

Features interviews with Defiant Development co-founder Morgan Jaffit and Firemint founder / Flight Control creator Rob Murray, along with a clip of former Touch Arcade editor Eli Hodapp.See full show notes and episode player…

Tags: flight control, mobile games, iphone, rob murray, morgan jaffit, australia, firemint, defiant development