tl;dr - share your fav women/non-binary or non-US/UK/Aus shareware game devs from the 1980s/90s so I can highlight them in a blog post

I sometimes see critiques of my Shareware Heroes book complain that it didn't cover enough not-men or feature enough games from beyond the US, which is fair enough but there's a reason for that. It was skewed towards men and US games because that's the reality — the shareware market was overwhelmingly US-dominated and male-dominated in both revenue and development, and Shareware Heroes focused on illustrating the stories that drove the software distribution and business revolution that shareware games ushered in (and the ones that tried but failed).

But I spent weeks searching for ways to integrate more non-US and non-male (and non-white and non-cis) stories into the book and did so wherever I felt I could get it to work within the core narrative flow of said biz/distribution revolution (eg the stories behind *Oxyd* and *Grandad* and *Caper in the Castro*, stories involving various UK/Aus devs, mentions in nearly every chapter of works involving women/non-binary people, a chapter on the UK/EU licenceware scene, the story behind a key UK-based shareware distributor, etc). I tried to find out more about shareware in Japan, too, but got trapped behind a language barrier.

I believe the book is representative of the shareware scene, at least in a big-picture kind of way, *BUT* there are loads of things I missed due to space/narrative constraints or ignorance (or, in a couple of instances, not wanting to be too Apogee and Epic-heavy), so what I'd like to do is publish some blog posts at https://sharewareheroes.com that highlight/celebrate some of those people and things missed. So if there's a shareware game creator you'd like to celebrate or recognise from the 1980s or 90s who is a) not cis-male or b) a cis-male who's not American or British or Australian, regardless of whether I featured them in the book, tell me here. It doesn't matter if they were "notable" or popular or influential or not. I'll boost your reply and add them to one of these blog posts.

@hypertalking Excellent! Thank you. I wanted it to be a much speedier and lighter read than Secret History of Mac Gaming but to still retain depth and detail wherever needed, which was a fun challenge in the writing process.

@suprjami There certainly weren't many women in shareware (though hopefully I can find some with this callout), but thanks for the tips on a couple of ladies in PC gamedev at the time who I hadn't heard of before. I've been meaning to try Bloodnet and Bureau 13 for years; I love a bit of top-notch world building.

@SpindleyQ I was hoping/waiting for someone to mention Pickle Wars. I came very close to approaching Karen for an interview late in the project but couldn't think of how it'd integrate into the narrative if she agreed.

@cyborgurl
@SpindleyQ I'll be sure to mention that in the blog post when I write it.

@SpindleyQ
I think I've seen a few projects like that involving shareware games, and a couple of hacks of the same sort based on commercial titles too. It's amazing what talented Eastern European devs did to hone their skills.

@zwol Thanks! Just sent David a message to ask.