TD Gaming Podcast 93: The M.I.T Gang

This weeks Gaming Podcast comes out a bit early due to some travel plans and an upcoming trip to Popcap’s Bejeweled Twist launch party. This week in the news we took a look at:

We also take a look back at Pitfall! and cover yet another DRM issue on our soapbox, asking the question, is online gaming the DRM of the future? Our history segment does a bit of history on Popcap games.

Our NFS: Carbon and Saints Row contest has ended, the gang names are in, and we’re giving away the games to the winner. Next, we’re going to give away Project Gotham Racing 4.

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Episode 723: Hellblade and HelldiversEpisode 723: Hellblade and Helldivers

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The gang discusses the PC Gaming Show coming June 9, Tesla ending Steam support in its vehicles, Ghost of Tsushima being PlayStation’s biggest single-player PC launch to date (second only to Helldivers 2), Hellblade 2 developer Ninja Theory’s next game reportedly already greenlit by Xbox (and “no plans whatsoever” to close studio), Grand Theft Auto 6 publisher “highly confident” of an Autumn 2025 release window and the Resident Evil 1 Remake is in production and will release in 2026 according to a leaker.

The news includes:

  • This year’s Call of Duty will reportedly launch on Xbox Game Pass
  • Jason Voorhees slashes into the MultiVersus roster
  • Life By You is delayed again

Let us know what you think.

The post Episode 723: Hellblade and Helldivers first appeared on Gaming Podcast.

Gaming Flashback: Lode RunnerGaming Flashback: Lode Runner

Lode Runner, a game many of us logged hundreds of hours upon. Lode Runner has a great deal of replay value thanks to its great map editor. The game was first published by Broderbund in 1983, but was first prototyped by Douglas Smith, an architecture student at the University of Washington.

The Lode Runner prototype was called Kong and was originally written for a Prime Computer 550 minicomputer on campus, but shortly after it was ported to the VAX minicomputer. Originally programmed in FORTRAN and utilized only ASCII character graphics (the most basic of characters).

In September of 1982 Smith was able to port it to the Apple II+ (in assembly language) and renamed it to Miner. In October of that same year he submitted a rough copy to Broderbund and he’s said to have received a one-line rejection letter, “Sorry, your game doesn’t fit into our product line; please feel free to submit future products.”

The original title had no joystick support and was developed in full black and white…not exactly exciting. So, Smith then borrowed money to purchase a color monitor and joystick and continued to improve the game. Around Christmas of 1982, he submitted the game, now renamed Lode Runner, to four publishers and quickly received offers from all four: Sierra, Sirius, Synergistic, and Brøderbund.

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