Blog:3
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Contents
"Great Donkey Kong Ripoff" or "Greatest Donkey Kong Ripoff?"
Dr. Micro (by our "friends" at Sanritsu) is better than Donkey Kong (not that it means anything in 2008)! And someone finally put up a video on YouTube...
It also wins the award for "Best Use of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as Background Music in a Video Game."
New Interview, YouTube Favorites
My interview with contract programmers Bob Halliday and Chase Sebor is now up! Don't mind the mess - We are currently experimenting with putting interviews on static pages instead of on the wiki itself.
I've still heard nothing more from Qix creator Randy Pfeiffer, but my great interview with Mindware (formerly MNM Software) president Mikito Ichikawa should be coming soon. I had to do it through a Mindware employee, who is still translating the answers as I type.
Finally, why don't you subscribe to my YouTube favorites? Plenty of interesting video game and non-video game-related videos. As for the game-related ones, here's some that tie in nicely with American Game Developer Appreciation Month:
- Into the Valley of the Space Invaders - Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 - 1982 documentary produced by the now-defunct Field Communications, which owned various broadcast TV stations in the US. Includes interviews with people from Atari.
- Atari Games 20th Anniversary - Part 1 | Part 2 - Originally produced for Atari Games employees eyes only. Too bad the company didn't last another 20 years. User "gdstark" (actually former Atari/Atari Games programmer Gary Stark) has more great stuff like promo videos for T-Mek and Guardians of the Hood.
Upcoming Interviews
Stay tuned to GDRI for exciting interviews like these:
- Bob Halliday and Chase Sebor, who did contract work for Parker Brothers, talk about their games, including an unreleased one featuring the lovable Q*bert.
- Mindware (formerly MNM Software) president Mikito Ichikawa tells us about his company, pinball, and how he met legendary game musician Yuzo Koshiro.
And in the "maybe" category:
- Randy Pfeiffer, the man behind the original Qix. He replied to my first e-mail in a timely manner. Then I sent him some questions, and I have yet to hear back from him.
Jerry Lawson Interview
If there's one reason the decade-old RetroGaming Radio is the best retro gaming-related audio program on the Internet, it's host Shane R. Monroe's interviews at Classic Gaming Expo (too bad there won't be one this year). We've been given permission to post one of his best featuring Jerry Lawson (right) from CGE 2005. Not only is Lawson funny, but he has plenty of interesting stories (and I'm all about interesting stories). In case you didn't know, Jerry Lawson was the chief engineer behind the Fairchild Channel F, one of the first systems to use programmable ROM cartridges, and started a development company called Videosoft (which I started an entry for last week as part of AGDAM), among other things which you'll hear about. I only plan on having this up for the next 30 days, so download it now.
Courtesy of
http://www.retrogamingradio.com/
AGDAM Continues
In my haste on Friday, I failed to mention it was the 4th of July. I hope all our American visitors had a good holiday. American Game Developer Appreciation Month rolls on just the same, though. We looked at Designer Software and WayForward Technologies over the three-day weekend. That turned out to be a bit of a mess. Hopefully, we'll at least have a WayForward entry soon.
I've tried to contact three Americans since last week. I'm still waiting for a reply to the first e-mail, the second one bounced back, and the last one I just sent this morning. In the same timeframe, I've received somewhat-substantive responses from two Japanese people.
On an unrelated note, I've started the Credits Dump, so plop your staff rolls and credits in there if you got 'em.
Behind the Scenes at Sega Midwest
I came across this last November when we were talking about Sega Midwest Studio at the Sega-16.com Forums. It's a public access-cum-Internet show called Rox. A young Jim Reichert, who programmed World Heroes for the Sega Genesis, appeared on several episodes including this one entitled "Head Jobz," which tackles the subject of jobs - as in the things people do for a living. One segment features Reichert at his job as a programmer at Sega Midwest. He mentions a 32X game called AfterShock, which was never released, and you'll get to see footage from it. However, it looks more like a proof of concept than actual gameplay. I don't know the exact time the segment starts, but it's early in the show.
