Pleroma

Pleroma

Richard Moss | @MossRC@social.mossrc.me

Author of *Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the Internet* and *The Secret History of Mac Gaming*, as well as two upcoming books — one on the creation of #AgeOfEmpires and the other about the history of football (soccer) games.

Writer/director on TerrorBytes: The Evolution of Horror Gaming, an upcoming five-part docuseries about horror games. Producer/co-writer on FPSDOC, a 4.5-hour documentary film celebrating the first-person shooter genre (with an emphasis on the 90s/early-2000s golden age) that's guided by the developers themselves.

Creates The Life & Times of Video Games and Ludiphilia podcasts.

He/him.

rich@mossrc.me
@MossRC on Twitter and @mossrc.bsky.social on Bluesky.

Posts mainly about #gamedev and #indiegames histories and stories, #retrogaming/#retrogames, #retrocomputing, #classicmac, #shareware, #tombraider, and #videogamehistory.

Richard Moss MossRC
@MichaelKlamerus @greg I'd say the Mac and Windows versions are the best ones I've tried, as they have better sound and higher-resolution graphics, but they're also lacking the original custom menubar font and textured background used on the DOS/Amiga/Atari ST versions — which might be a big deal to some folks.

Richard Moss MossRC
@flargh
We've had a mandated "gamble responsibly" disclaimer at the end of every ad for years, but gambling addiction is still a huge problem here. They're introducing a on ban credit card payments for "in-play" matches now, though, so that's something at least. (We have a casino here that was somehow allowed to keep its licence despite flagrant illegal activity they themselves sanctioned, too. Yay for gambling tax revenue.)

Richard Moss MossRC
@flargh Here in Australia you can't watch anything on TV or an ad-supported streaming service without coming across betting ads (usually involving a celebrity or famous current/former athlete). They're even on bus stops sometimes. The betting companies keep getting into trouble with regulatory bodies for going too far, though, so reform to the advertising rules for gambling is on the way.

Damiano Gerli damianogerli@mastodon.social

Unique and interesting look at Iran's first ever video game, clearly inspired by Prince of Persia, courtesy of the efforts of Arash Hackimi. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/culture/the-history-of-iran-s-very-first-video-game

Richard Moss MossRC
@parisba I've gotten to the point where I monitor my notifications and tweet key work announcements (eg new book releases), but nothing else. I'm happy with that compromise.

Richard Moss MossRC
@Gmatom I hope you are indeed having a peaceful birthday.

Steve Streza stevestreza@indieweb.social

8/16-bit sprite style indie games and boomer shooters are played out, someone bring back the vibes of old 90s Macintosh shareware games

Screenshot of the game Pizza Rush Screenshot of the game Factory: The Industrial Devolution Screenshot of the game Taskmaker Screenshot of the game Glider Pro

Richard Moss MossRC
@vga256 I used to do that with Police Quest 1. Never got around to playing the third one, for some reason.

Glenn Fleishman glennf@twit.social

Back in 2020, I published Six Centuries of Type & Printing, a concise book – 64 pages – that actually starts centuries before Gutenberg, with Chinese and Korea printing, and then digs into 1450 to 2020, covering ~600 years of technological advances. Set in hot-metal type (Monotype Bembo) in North Yorkshire, printed in London, and bound in Germany with a foil-stamped cover & slipcase, I still have copies available for shipping worldwide! https://glog.glennf.com/tiny-type-museum-time-capsule-and-more/six-centuries-letterpress (ebook edition available)

Interior spread of book Six Centuries of Type & Printing showing it standing and slightly splayed open. The book traces the development of type design, type manufacture, presses, and printing through the present digital era with many stops along the way. Endpapers of book Six Centuries of Type & Printing. The book traces the development of type design, type manufacture, presses, and printing through the present digital era with many stops along the way. Cover of book Six Centuries of Type & Printing showing its green cloth cover with its title, including By Glenn Fleishman Interior spread of book Six Centuries of Type & Printing showing it standing and slightly splayed open. The book traces the development of type design, type manufacture, presses, and printing through the present digital era with many stops along the way.

Richard Moss MossRC
@RobeeShepherd @danielcrocker What do you think of it so far? I didn't realise it was out yet; been curious about it since I saw a gameplay teaser last year.

Richard Moss MossRC
@raygan Having switched to a ThinkPad after years of using Apple laptops (albeit with past TrackPoint-ish experience via my brother's old Satellite Pro), I think the only people who hate the TrackPoint don't understand the TrackPoint. It's a brilliant input device, more precise and convenient than a trackpad in so many use cases.

Richard Moss MossRC
@wildweasel Glad to hear/read it! I'm writing two new books at the moment (one's a genre history, the other on the creation of Age of Empires, both to be manuscript-complete this year), but the indie games book is on a shortlist of several options for the next book after those.

Richard Moss MossRC
Just found out that the delightful Hogs of War, one of the most underrated games of the late PS1 era, is getting a remaster, and you can follow the developers on here at @HogsofWarLardcore

If you're not familiar with the game, look it up. It's like Worms in 3D, with pigs, but redesigned to be a satire of the First World War. I once did an episode of my Life & Times of Video Games podcast on its design and development: https://lifeandtimes.games/episodes/files/18.html

Daniel Crocker danielcrocker@mastodon.social

Hello and friends, this one is literally for you!

Debug is a brand new high quality print magazine focused entirely on indie games, from solo devs right up to the so called triple-i studios.

Got something you’re working on and want to share? https://www.teamdebug.com and let us know!

Please share to help spread awareness amongst the developer community. We love you 💜

Richard Moss MossRC
One day I'll write a book on the post-2000 indie games resurgence, but in the meantime there's now a cool free ebook by Ben Latimore (creator of the excellent Flashpoint preservation project) about the heyday of Flash games. https://archive.org/details/flashpoint-a-tribute-to-web-games/

Richard Moss MossRC
@fluffypuffin That reminds me of the mental gymnastics I had to go through to convince myself to buy it during the Kickstarter, despite what was at the time a brutal exchange rate to AUD. I feel vindicated for talking myself into it, though, now that I see how much book — and how many stories — I got for my money.

Richard Moss MossRC
New games history book. This one's a hybrid of memoir and game company history, written by one of the co-founders of Revolution Software and self-published via Kickstarter.

It's really dense, too — heaps of text and loads of images make it even thicker than my Mac gaming book. I won't have time to read it until July, but as a Broken Sword fan I'm really looking forward to digging in. (cc @johnpassfield)
Front cover of the limited edition version of the book Revolution: The Quest for Game Development Greatness, by Tony Warriner. Back cover of Revolution book. The first part of (a very long) blurb reads "From one of the makers of the highly acclaimed Lure of the Temptress and Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse (and everything in between) comes a brand-new book of epic proportions." Contents page of Revolution book. It contains 35 chapters and three appendices, amounting to over 600 pages.

Richard Moss MossRC
@llamasoft_ox @vampiress Games in general have been devalued slowly over the past 20-ish years, likely due to digital distribution and too many sales promotions, but mobile games specifically went through rapid devaluation over around 4-5 months from late 2008 to early 2009 during a race to the bottom that was all about visibility on the App Store charts.

Nobody batted an eyelid at prices of several dollars per game on mobile before that brief period of chaos. I made a podcast documentary episode about it years ago.

Cosmic Void cosmicvoid@mastodon.gamedev.place

Twilight Oracle's Kickstarter campaign is LIVE! 🔴

Back Twilight Oracle, a fantasy comedy point and click adventure: https://bit.ly/twilight-oracle-campaign

Demo available!

Pls boost and spread the news! 🥰🙏

Jordan Mechner jmechner@mastodon.art

Ma nouvelle autobiographique REPLAY est maintenant en librairie ! 📕

I'm thrilled to share my new graphic memoir REPLAY. French edition is now in bookstores 🇫🇷: https://www.jordanmechner.com/fr/books/replay

UPDATE: English edition is out now! 🇺🇸https://www.jordanmechner.com/en/books/replay

My blog post explains how my family's 20th-century journey through two world wars is connected to my own history making Prince of Persia, Karateka🥋 and The Last Express🚂.

Page of Jordan Mechner's graphic novel REPLAY (French edition) about making Apple II games in the 1970s. Jordan Mechner shows graphic novel REPLAY to his brother David, who appears in its pages. Stack of copies of Jordan Mechner's graphic novel memoir REPLAY (French edition) Page of Jordan Mechner's graphic novel REPLAY (French edition) in which his dad, Francis Mechner, talks about his childhood as a refugee in France in 1940.

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