The guys discuss Eric Barone still working on Stardew Valley, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 being confirmed for Xbox Game Pass, blackjack roguelike Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers, Kerbal Space Program developer layoffs, The Sims 4 launching a battle pass-like, and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
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.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Sony’s in the news again, but not in a positive way. Meanwhile, a classic game may be remastered and bitcoin fraud continues to be a problem.
Let us know what you think.
Welcome to the future, as Jonah, Scott and TJ ring in the new year, as this week’s Gaming Flashback reminds Jonah of what his favorite game of the decade was. (Spoiler: Mass Effect 2.) In fact, the game is so good Jonah and TJ talk about it for an hour before discussing the week’s generally weak news.
This week’s topics include:
Was 2010 the best year for games in the 2010’s? Let us know.
