» Ultima, Part 1 The Digital Antiquarian

» Ultima IX The Digital Antiquarian

Years ago, [Origin Systems] released Strike Commander, a high-concept flight sim that, while very entertaining from a purely theoretical point of view, was so resource-demanding that no one in the country actually owned a machine that could play it. Later, in Ultima VIII, the company decided to try to increase their sales numbers by adding action sequences straight out of a platform game to their ultra-deep RPG. The results managed to piss just about everyone off. With Ultima IX: Ascension, the company has made both mistakes again, but this time on a scale that is likely to make everyone finally forget about the company’s past mistakes and concentrate their efforts on making fun of this one.

» The Game of Everything, Part 2: Playing Civilization The Digital Antiquarian

As a game designer, you have ultimate power. And with this ultimate power comes very little responsibility.

» Master of Orion The Digital Antiquarian

Given the shadow which the original Master of Orion still casts over the gaming landscape of today, one might be forgiven for assuming, as many younger gamers doubtless do, that it was the very first conquer-the-galaxy grand-strategy game ever made. The reality, however, is quite different. For all that its position of influence is hardly misbegotten for other very good reasons, it was already the heir to a long tradition of such games at the time of its release in 1993. In fact, the tradition dates back to well before computer games as we know them today even existed.

» The Game of Everything, Part 1: Making Civilization The Digital Antiquarian

If my gravestone says, “Sid Meier, developed Civilization,” I’m happy with that. It’s a game I’m happy to be known for.

» Starcraft (A History in Two Acts) The Digital Antiquarian

Great success brings with it great expectations. And sometimes it brings an identity crisis as well.

Art, Tech and other Nonsense

Errands in uncharted territory, by Max Liani

» The CRPG Renaissance, Part 4: …Long Live Dungeons & Dragons! The Digital Antiquarian

In December of 1997, Interplay Entertainment released Descent to Undermountain, the latest licensed Dungeons & Dragons computer game. It’s remembered today, to whatever extent it’s remembered at all, as one of the more infamous turkeys of an era with more than its share of over-hyped and half-baked creations, a fiasco almost on par with Battlecruiser 3000AD or Daikatana. The game was predicated on the dodgy premise that Dungeons & Dragons would make a good fit with the engine from Descent, Interplay’s last world-beating hit — and also a hit that was, rather distressingly for Brian Fargo and his colleagues, more than two years in the past by this point.

The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer – Holy Ghost Stories

In the early 80s, all it took to make a game was a computer, some graph paper, and a lot of determination.

Child’s Play, by Sam Kriss

Tech’s new generation and the end of thinking

Illustration of Harvard Mark III | Mastering the Game | Computer History Museum

Retro RPG Creator | Eldiron

Eldiron is a retro RPG game creator for 2D, isometric, and first-person adventures. Build your own classic RPG worlds with powerful tools and cross-platform freedom.

» The Last Adventures of Legend The Digital Antiquarian

The early days were the best. We had successes, we had fun, and we had a good business model. As the industry changed, everything became more complicated and harder.

» A Looking Glass Half Empty, Part 2: A Series of Unfortunate Events The Digital Antiquarian

Coming out of 1998, the folks at Looking Glass Studios believed they had pretty good reason to feel optimistic about their future. With Thief, they had delivered not just their first profitable original game since 1995’s Flight Unlimited but their biggest single commercial success ever. They had no fewer than four more games slated for release within the next fifteen months, a positively blistering pace for them. Yes, all of said games were sequels and iterations on existing brands, but that was just the nature of the industry by now, wasn’t it? As long-running franchises like Ultima had first begun to demonstrate fifteen years ago, there was no reason you couldn’t continue to innovate under a well-known and -loved banner headline. Looking Glass closed their Austin office that had done so much to pay the bills in the past by taking on porting contracts. In the wake of Thief, they felt ready to concentrate entirely on their own games.

Collections: Teaching Paradox, Imperator, Part IIa: Pops and Chains

This is the first half of the second part of our three part (I, IIa, IIb, IIIa, IIIb) look at Paradox Interactive’s Hellenistic-era grand strategy game Imperator: Rome. I had hoped to do this…

» The Journeyman Project The Digital Antiquarian

I find that it’s oddly difficult for me to tell the story of Presto Studios, the maker of the Journeyman Project series of cult-classic adventure games, without drawing a lot of parallels and comparisons to Cyan, Inc., the maker of the multi-million-selling mega-hit Myst. This is not only because Presto won the lottery after making their last Journeyman Project game, when Cyan awarded them a contract to make a single-player Myst III while they themselves pursued an online multi-player adventure game that was to be called Uru. It’s also down to other similarities, the same ones that must have made that choice of Presto as a Myst custodian seem like such an obvious one to Cyan.