I keep collecting links, so here are some more. As a side note, in a wild attempt at scheduled behavior, I’m going to try to store up my vintage-gaming related links and post every Monday.

Long time listeners will remember my very early review of M.U.L.E. Well, there’s another version out there, this time at http://www.planetmule.com/. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it looks like there are clients for Windows, Mac and Linux, and eventually Debian. You do register with the site, but I don’t think they have a central matchmaking server, as they mention using the forum for that. The one strike against them is they credit Dan Bunten, not Danielle Bunten, against her wishes, but it’s probably worth taking a look if you’re a M.U.L.E. fan.

In more D&D related content, we have a repeat of a series at GeekDad, where Ken Denmead reviews the Top Ten D&D modules he found while cleaning up his storage shed. I don’t see Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, but otherwise looks to be a good list of classics: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

In another GeekDad post (I need to get out more), Michael Harrison interviews Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, a memoir/rediscovery of the geek life. Plus, until January 13 (Wednesday), you can enter a contest to win a copy of the book. See the article for more details.

Finally, yesterday Terry Cavanagh’s retro platformer VVVVVV was released. I tried out the demo and it’s definitely worth it. It’s challenging and fun, and has a very nifty mechanic where you can switch the “floor” to either the top or the bottom of the screen. For a fuller review, check out this one by Anthony Burch on Destructoid.

Still trying to get my feet under me for the New Year — or the new year, however it’s spelled. In any case, here are some interesting vintage gaming links that have been sitting in my RSS feed:

First, James Maliszewski has a nice little article up at The Escapist, entitled “Founding Fathers.” In it, he covers the history of wargames, from von Riesswitz’s Kriegspiel to David Wesley’s Braunstein (the progenitor of Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign).

Related to this is Monte Cook’s most recent article at the aforementioned The Escapist magazine about the original supplements to D&D record the evolution of the rules. This is a follow-up to his previous post on D&D, already covered here.

Second, Greg Costikyan talks about the background for his new board game, Megacorps, and how he inadvertently created a future history through game design.

Greg also has a review of the Civil War tabletop game A House Divided (designed by Frank Chadwick in 1981). I haven’t played this one, but based on Greg’s review I think I’ll give it a shot as I’m a huge Civil War (or the “recent unpleasantness”) buff.

Finally, on the video gaming front, Nathan Barry on Geekdad reports that Tatio has released a remake of Arkanoid for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Many are the hours I spent playing Arkanoid on my Mac SE — as it was pirated, perhaps I should purchase a copy to balance the books. And you should too, because it’s tons of fun.

Hope your holiday season was a good one and you got to play lots of games! And if not, you’ve got a whole year ahead so get to it…

Looks like it’s D&D month at The Escapist. This time it’s an article by James Maliszewski, talking about how he figured out Basic D&D with his friends — or didn’t really.

My friends and I were only a few years older than he was, and I’m still not sure how we figured it out. Determination, maybe. Ah well, as he says, a lifetime of gaming ensued…

I had planned at some point to cover the original version of Dungeons and Dragons on the podcast. It’s pretty unlikely at this point that this will happen — I planned it all out and found that I really didn’t have much to add to the mass of critique and commentary that the game has received. In fact, I’d say it’s safe to say that this episode, which was to be the next one, has been a factor in the long delay of the podcast in general. I keep trying to rework it and it just doesn’t happen. So in the interest of moving on, check out Monte Cook’s brief critique of the original three books.

As a side note, I have to agree with Mr. Cook about the quality of the writing. After looking at my basic D&D rules (the blue book mit dem Dragon), I can’t figure out how I and my seventh-grade compatriots figured out how to play. While conversational in tone, it’s nearly incomprehensible and certainly incomplete, especially compared to today’s RPGs. But then, I doubt the original Basic D&D was meant to be complete. I believe that Gygax intended that Advanced D&D was the One True Path, and Basic D&D was nod to the past (a lot of the material came from the original three books) but ultimately a gateway drug to the New Shiny. But enough of the customers disagreed that we ended up with the odd case of two different flavors of D&D (AD&D and Basic/Expert) for many years.

But enough of that. I’m moving on. I think.

At long last, the annual Origins episode of The Vintage Gamer. As this is the third year, this officially makes it a cherished tradition. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) there was no podcasters panel so instead I went around and did some interviews at some of the small press booths. A big “Thank You” to all who participated — if what you hear interests you, please support them with your dollars.

For a fuller picture of the show, I recommend you check out The Spiel Origins episode for a lot more show floor interviews, and the Dice Tower Origins episode for more info and a nice interview with (Spiel des Jahres winner!) Reiner Knizia.

Featured interviews:

• Matt Duhan of Gozer Games discusses: Collateral Damage
• Rob Balder of many things discusses: The FUnny Music Project, Erfworld, Partially Clips, Get Nifty
• Peter Hansell of Tablestar Games discusses: Wealth of Nations, Martinis and Men, HeroCard Orc Wars
• Fred Hicks of Indy Press Revolution and Evil Hat Productions discusses: Heaven and Earth, Archaia Studios, Avenues and Alleyways, Solipsist, Spirit of the Season, Spirit of the Century, Don’t Rest Your Head, Don’t Lose Your Mind, Monsters and Other Childish Things, GODLIKE, Wild Talents, Dresden Files RPG
• Curt Covert of Smirk and Dagger Games discusses: Cutthroat Caverns, Run For Your Life, Candyman, Hex*Hex, Hex*Hex Next, Cutthroat Caverns: Deeper & Darker
• Greg Lam of Pair Of Dice Games discusses: Chopstick Dexterity Megachallenge 3000, Warp6, Knockabout, Marvin Marvel’s Marvelous Marble Machine

Pictures of my trip to Origins including most of these folks can be found on my flickr feed. You can also see the lovely new sewer line.

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[From Purple Pawn] Mongoose Publishing, current publisher of Paranoia and RuneQuest, has just released a new version of the classic space trading RPG, Traveller. I haven’t taken a look at it myself, but they have previews on their site, including looks at character creation (hopefully you can’t roll a dead character), combat, and world creation. They’re also planning to expand the settings supported to include other space opera, such as Judge Dredd and Starship Troopers.

For those who want to play the original Traveller, QLI/RPGRealms has a single book that reprints the first three “little black books”, plus many other reprints and Classic Traveller-related items. They also have a d20 version of Traveller, but really, why bother…

Link

After an even longer hiatus, I’m back — at least for the moment. This week I have an interview from GDC 2007 with another gaming luminary, Eric Goldberg of Crossover Technologies. We talked for forty-five minutes about his history in the gaming industry — covering wargames, tabletop RPGs, boardgames and briefly about his later work in online and mobile games.
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After a long hiatus, I’m back. This week I have an interview from GDC 2007 with gaming luminary Greg Costikyan of Manifesto Games. We talked for half an hour about his history in the gaming industry — covering wargames, tabletop RPGs, and his later work in online and independent digital games.
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[This is a repost, as my server died this week.]

Despite my earlier and unfounded skepticism, Matt Barton of the blog Armchair Arcade has posted the second of a series about the origins and history of the computer RPG. It’s currently up on Gamasutra, but he’ll be posting it on his own blog in a few weeks.

This installment features games from the time period that he calls the Golden Age of CRPGs: 1984-1993.