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
"It's like we're at the end of the 18th century, and we're realising that building cathedrals is really expensive. Can we continue to build these massive edifices to God for this incredible amount of labour and time? Or should we just build four walls and a roof, and that's a church, right? I'm afraid we've built AAA gaming into a kind of cathedral business, and it just can't grow any further. In fact, it's probably grown too far already."

https://www.eurogamer.net/there-comes-a-time-when-we-all-declare-the-war-is-over-former-playstation-studios-boss-shawn-layden-on-the-future-of-video-game-consoles

Richard Moss MossRC
This is my phone and homescreen setup from December 2017, right down to the latest emails I had the day I switched to a new device.

The rest of my apps were accessible via a left-edge swipe into a floating sidebar. Still one of my all-time favourite homescreens.
An old Xiaomi Android phone showing a multi-coloured homescreen with various icons and a Gmail widget with two unread messages dated 20 Dec 2017

ChipWits 🤖 Wishlist on Steam! chipwits@mastodon.social

ChipWits is featured in The Secret History of Mac Gaming by @MossRC and he is offering our fans an additional £5 off with the code CHIPWITS. This excellent book takes you back to the days of in 1984. @bitmapbooks https://chipwits.com/2024/11/27/chipwits-discount-for-the-secret-history-of-mac-gaming-book/

Richard Moss MossRC

I did an interview with Ludica about football games and A Tale of Two Halves [post is in Italian]. https://www.ludicamag.com/a-tale-of-two-halves-intervista-a-richard-moss-storia-videogiochi-di-calcio-bitmap-books/

Richard Moss MossRC
@RobeeShepherd I find it infuriating. I'm also saddened and frustrated by the marked rise in wood-fire heating and outdoor fire pits in Australia over the past 10-15 years, filling the winter air with smoke. When I was growing up we had really clean air most of the year in Melbourne. It's not like that anymore.

Richard Moss MossRC
One of the hidden horrors of life with asthma is having to hurriedly turn off my home's evaporative cooling on a hot evening, sending the indoor temperature rapidly upwards, because somebody in my street started burning something and smoke — a major trigger of asthma — was getting drawn in.

(Cooling is back on now, but we're in for a much warmer night inside because of the interruption.)

Richard Moss MossRC
Almost-three year old calls the back of a chair a leaner, and the more I think about it the more I wonder why we don't all call it that.

Richard Moss MossRC

For my American friends grappling with how to survive (and resist authoritarianism) through the next four years, this seems like good advice: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-donald-trump

Richard Moss MossRC
Also got a new review this week on Eurogamer Germany. https://www.eurogamer.de/a-tale-of-two-halves-wer-hatte-gedacht-dass-600-seiten-uber-fuballspiele-nur-bis-zum-jahr-2010-reichen

Richard Moss MossRC
This new review of A Tale of Two Halves is one of my favourites. https://www.gamesfreezer.co.uk/2024/11/bitmap-books-tale-of-two-halves-history.html

Richard Moss MossRC
All the fake birthdays I give on non-legal forms finally paid off with something fun. I got a personalised direct mail letter today offering me a free hearing test because the data broker who sold my info thinks I am in my 50s.

Richard Moss MossRC
My book on the rise of indie games in the 90s, Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet, is 50% off at Unbound for a limited time. https://unbound.com/books/shareware-heroes

Richard Moss MossRC

The moment where my worlds collided: legendary horror game composer Akira Yamaoka's brief remarks on doing a track for football game Winning Eleven 4 (ISS Pro Evo for those of us in PAL regions), in response to a question I snuck into our TerrorBytes documentary interview with him.

01:28:56.560 --> 01:29:06.280 I think it also applies to the sound design for Winning Eleven 4. What kind of sound did you create? 01:29:06.280 --> 01:29:25.220 At that time, Winning Eleven was very influenced by the popularity of Prodigy and Chemical Brothers, and there was a desire to create sounds like that. 01:29:25.220 --> 01:29:31.660 So, we incorporated the kind of music that was really popular at the time, like so-called acid techno and breakbeats, into Winning Eleven.

Richard Moss MossRC
I had a blast talking about football (soccer) games and my new book — and taking on a brutal football-themed name-the-game trivia challenge — on the latest episode of The SEGA Lounge podcast. https://www.thesegalounge.com/240-a-tale-of-two-halves-the-history-of-football-video-games-with-richard-moss/

Richard Moss MossRC
Here's the latest update on how we're progressing with making the five-part documentary series TerrorBytes: The Evolution of Horror Gaming.
TERRORBYTES THE EVOLUTION OF HORROR GAMING POST-PRODUCTION UPDATE The past three months have brought fantastic progress on TerrorBytes post-production. From tentative first steps with a segment about Night Trap, we've since completed two full rough cuts of the FMV horror episode - which is full of heart and passion and earnest talk about the highs and lows of the genre - and made big strides towards a first rough cut of the licensed horror episode. That one's got stories that run the gamut from pixelated chainsaws and bright purple-hued monsters to grim tales of Holocaust tortures, post-apocalyptic survival, unkillable nightmare creatures, and much more, all crafted into an hour-long narrative. And while Connor's busy with the edit, my attention is now split between writing the big doozy - the survival horror episode - and overseeing the musical score for the FMV episode. I'm thrilled to announce that we're working with the talented composer Steve Drieman, who is doing a fabulous job creating a score that guides you through the emotional ups and downs of an episode filled with laughter, horror, heartbreak, and masses of passion from our contributors about the art and craft of horror-infused interactive storytelling. He's hitting all the right notes so far for a moody, touching, and memorable score that beautifully supports the stories on the screen. As for me, I can only hope that I make it back to the safety of the save room for another round of scripting before the stalking demon that is time catches up to me. Richard Moss, Writer/Director TerrorBytes: The Evolution of Horror Gaming

Richard Moss MossRC
I shared some stories and insights from my Tale of Two Halves book with game design professor Rudolf Inderst on the New Books in Game Studies podcast. https://newbooksnetwork.com/tale-of-two-halves-the-history-of-football-video-games-bitmap-books-2024

Richard Moss MossRC

Here's a German-language review of my new book, noting that it goes beyond nostalgia to [also] provide a sound analysis of the cultural and technical evolution of football video games. https://gentlegamer.de/2024/10/a-tale-of-two-halves-the-history-of-football-video-games/

Richard Moss MossRC
11 years after I first wrote about the Championship Manager 01/02 fan community keeping the game up-to-date with the latest in world football — https://www.eurogamer.net/keeping-the-game-alive — they're still going. The October 2024 data update just landed.
https://champman0102.net/viewtopic.php?t=6453

Richard Moss MossRC

Directing a horror gaming documentary is weird. Sometimes I'm trawling through archival records, other times I'm puzzling out how to craft a compelling story from ~50 interviews. And then there are moments where I'm a digitised Keanu Reaves getting beaten up by flying books. (And I wouldn't have it any other way.)

Richard Moss MossRC
Excellent review of my new book about the history of football (soccer) videogames. Big takeaways are "The end product is a glorious reminder of when times for football games were simpler" and "a must-have for any football and video game fan". https://www.mirror.co.uk/gaming/soccer-stars-oddballs-tale-two-33915889

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