Current plan involves a trip to the LEGO House and LEGOLand and various museums, parks, gardens, castles, etc, based on a bit of web and Lonely Planet research, but we'd love to know if there's any great stuff that you won't find in a tourist guidebook.
Jennell Jaquays is one of the most influential dungeons designers for D&D and fantasy RPGs since the 70s and 80s, and a really great person. She's been hospitalized with major health issues and heavy medical bills, and her wife Rebecca Heineman has set up a gofundme
https://www.gofundme.com/f/jennell-jaquays-has-a-long-road-back
I think they said to me it'll get put on YouTube at some stage, too, but no sign of it there yet.
really excited that this #macintosh #hypercard treasure came in today
while most people remember Myst, fewer remember cyan's earlier first-person hypercard adventures like The Manhole, Spelunx and Cosmic Osmo.
spelunx has a unique and wonderful art style - robyn's 1-bit black/white paintings are crisp, imaginative, and delightful. but what surprises me the most is that *colour* sprites are mixed in at specific places. i do not know of other games that feature both colour and b+w support simultaneously during gameplay. (fwiw, if your macintosh was 1-bit, it would show 1-bit art in its place)
this is the launch edition of the game, ca. 1991. two years later, after the success of Myst, #cyan would re-release Spelunx with repainted 256 colour art. robyn himself isn't a fan of the repainted art, and i can understand why. the originals are incredible examples of what macpaint and hypercard are capable of together.
i especially like that the game includes a Hypercard 2.1 diskette, because there were no guarantees that macintosh owners would have a copy of their own.
attached is the receipt I found in the game. it appears the Colbert family of Fayetteville, Georgia bought this for their kids a few days after christmas '92 - one can imagine santa brought the family a new mac for christmas a few days earlier :)
if you're interested in cyan's untold history, i highly recommend @MossRC's wonderful interview with robyn miller on the b+w adventure series:
Back from framing, my #NerdStitch recreation of the original Mac Finder about box.
https://www.twitch.tv/apogee_entertainment
So I make do with a Unihertz Titan Pocket and its deeply-compromised experience (excellent keyboard and nifty programmable buttons notwithstanding), desperately hoping that either they'll eventually make a small phone with at least mid-range specs or some other company will do the same.
https://www.theverge.com/23913658/best-small-phone-dead-iphone-mini-z-flip-pixel-8
Today is a huge day for Apple II software preservation. With the help of Antoine Vignau and @txgx42, we have managed to recover, make playable, and archive renowned game designer Dani Bunten's first game, Wheeler Dealers. Released in 1978/79 and published by Speakeasy Software, a small Canadian developer, Wheeler Dealers is a multi-player stock market simulation that only sold ~50 copies. It is the first (known) computer game to have been sold in a box. The game was considered lost until now.
Wow what a perfect piece of writing. https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/17/1081194/how-to-fix-the-internet-online-discourse/
If you're interested, please look at our synopsis and fill out our survey — both available via the link below — to help us validate the concept and refine its creative direction.
https://www.creatorvc.com/terrorbytes
If the letters "m199h" mean anything to you, you should read this:
https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2023/10/m199h-new-findings-both-solve-and.html