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.
» Myst (or, The Drawbacks to Success) The Digital Antiquarian
Robyn Miller, one half of the pair of brothers who created the adventure game known as Myst with their small studio Cyan, tells a story about its development that’s irresistible to a writer like me. When the game was nearly finished, he says, its publisher Brøderbund insisted that it be put through “focus-group testing” at their offices. Robyn and his brother Rand reluctantly agreed, and soon the first group of guinea pigs shuffled into Brøderbund’s conference room. Much to its creators’ dismay, they hated the game. But then, just as the Miller brothers were wondering whether they had wasted the past two years of their lives making it, the second group came in. Their reaction was the exact opposite: they loved the game.
» 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.
» Choose Your Own Adventure The Digital Antiquarian
The first and most iconic of all the Choose Your Own Adventure books involved spelunking, just as did the first and most iconic of all computer-based adventure games.
» The Last Days of Zork The Digital Antiquarian
If you follow the latest developments in modern gaming even casually, as I do, you know that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard recently concluded the most eye-watering transaction ever to take place in the industry: the former acquired the latter for a price higher than the gross national product of more than half of the world’s countries. I find it endlessly amusing to consider that Activision may have lived long enough to set that record only thanks to Infocom, that humble little maker of 1980s text adventures, whose annual revenues — revenues, mind you, not profits — never exceeded $10 million before Activision acquired it in 1986. And just how did this David save a Goliath? It happened like this:
The Qatsi Trilogy
A singular artist and activist, Godfrey Reggio is best known for the galvanizing films of The Qatsi Trilogy. Astonishingly photographed, and featuring unforgettable, cascading scores by Philip Glass, these are immersive sensory experiences that meditate on the havoc humankind’s obsession with technological advancement has wreaked on our world. From 1983’s Koyaanisqatsi to 1988’s Powaqqatsi to 2002’s Naqoyqatsi, Reggio takes us on a journey from the ancient to the contemporary, from nature to industry, exploring life out of balance, in transformation, and as war, all the while keeping our eyes wide with wonder.
» 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.
» Retro No More: Interactive Fiction of the Early Comp Era The Digital Antiquarian
In 2002, Paul O’Brian, a prolific author, reviewer, and commentator on the contemporary interactive-fiction scene, attempted to compile a list of those people who had done the most to help text adventures live on beyond the death of Infocom. Among the names he listed were those of Mike Roberts and Graham Nelson, the creators of TADS and Inform; Andrew Plotkin, who contributed crucial technical innovations of his own and authored a number of perplexing, intriguing games; and Adam Cadre, who wrote the single most-played text adventure of the post-Infocom era. None of these names will come as a surprise to anyone who has been even a casual tourist of the interactive-fiction scene over the years. But another of them very well might: that of Gerry Kevin “Whizzard” Wilson. And yet one can make an argument that his skill set was the most unique and thus the most essential of them all.
» 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.
» 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.
Planar Pioneers (Video Game) - TV Tropes
Planar Pioneers is a Construction and Management/Idle Game hybrid by The Paper Pilot made in Profectus and released in 2023. At first, you use a mine …
» Ultima, Part 1 The Digital Antiquarian
When we left Richard Garriott, California Pacific had just released his first game, Akalabeth, a substantial windfall for the 19-year-old university student. In between classes and SCA events, he spent his sophomore year at the University of Texas writing a new, much more ambitious game, which CP published just as the spring semester of 1981 was wrapping up. I think we can best proceed by just diving right into the game that retroactively came to be known as Ultima I.
GameSpot's SIMply Divine: The Story of Maxis Software
GameSpot action adventure driving puzzle role-playing simulation sports strategy hardware
Collections: Teaching Paradox, Imperator, Part IIb: Built in a Day
This is the second half of the second part of our three part (I, IIa, IIb, IIIa, IIIb) look at Paradox Interactive’s ancient grand strategy game Imperator: Rome which covers the broader Medit…
» 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.
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…
» Mr Roberts Goes to Hollywood, Part 1: A Digital Anvil The Digital Antiquarian
What I’d really like to do is a game where you could travel from planet to planet — and there would be hundreds of planets — with full 3D action. You could go down and explore each planet in detail and interact with all sorts of live-action characters. Plus you could retool your ship with lots of different guns and engines.