Episode 681: Valve and the Number 3

Lots of Resident Evil 4 remake and Cyberpunk 2077 discussion as well as the following news items:

  • Report: Sony’s next PlayStation handheld is called the Q Lite, features 8-Inch touchscreen and requires constant internet connectivity
  • Portal writer Erik Wolpaw still wants to make Portal 3
  • ‘Gamers’ Lawsuit’ returns for another swing at Microsoft/Activision sale

Let us know what you think.

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Gaming Podcast 137: BeateratorGaming Podcast 137: Beaterator

This week’s gaming podcast covers a bunch of topics you’d expect to hear in a gaming podcast. What? Yeah, we’re flashing back to Master of Orion and taking a little look into the background of Stephen Barcia all while covering a bit of news and community comments. This weeks news includes:

This week’s question of the week is pretty simple: what, in your opinion, is the best generation of consoles from the earliest until today’s consoles?

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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