Newsletter
Wow, so the holidays left me feeling like I needed a break to recover from the “break,” and the national news hasn’t helped. But I tried to power through it, and finished several projects for different people that are just waiting for release. February will be an exciting month.
Let’s see, what can I show for Janurary?
Over at Half As Interesting, I designed the thumbnail images for “The Legally Stolen Plane” and “France Made Its Trains Too Wide,” where I’ve been enjoying the age-old comic book tradition of overlapping (or smashing) the title text. I wasn’t even thinking about it at first, it just kind of happened.
A few Twitter threads:
Also this month, I received responses from a few more former employees at Broderbund. At this point I’ve talked to every living person who worked on the first Carmen Sandiego game except a couple contributing writers.
If you’ve ever read more than one History Of Carmen article on the internet, you might notice that the story seems to change every time it’s told. It almost feels like how each case in the game was randomized! But I’ve been trying to nail down as close to the definitive version of the story as I can.
Letternews
A lot of good history developments around the internet this month:
BOOK: They Create World Vol. 1 (1971-1982) by Alexander Smith
This is a book I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Every history book has errors (it's an unavoidable human thing), but Smith is so meticulous in his research that I promise you will not find a video game history book more thorough and accurate than They Create Worlds. This is the new go-to reference manual.
MAGAZINE: Game Machine Archive
The language barrier makes it tough to research early Japanese game history, but Game Machine covered Japansese arcade games mostly in English, and goes all the way back to 1974! This archive is invaluable.
THREAD: Good Morning From The National Archives
Norm the Gaming Historian is uncovering some fascinating tidbits at the National Archives.
TRANSLATION: Road To Dragon Quest Manga
For years and years I’ve been wanting to read this manga that tells the behind the scenes story of Dragon Quest, and couldn’t believe it’d never been translated. It’s finally happening!
VIDEO: How Myst Almost Couldn’t Run On CD-ROM (Ars Technica)
A fantastic short documentary on Cyan and Myst.
That’s all for now. And as always, you can support my research on Patreon.