Tag: games

The Power of the C64

It’s rather astonishing to think that with all this computer power at our disposal in the 1980s, we used it to play Pac-man and Seven Cities of Gold.

I let a Commodore 64 run for three and a half days straight. 87 billion instructions, 303 billion clock cycles, 5.9 million candidate settings tested. It cracked an Enigma message in German without knowing a single character of the plaintext.

On the other hand, what were we going to do with a few messages sent by U-boat commanders to the German naval command forty years beforehand?

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The Return of Appendix N

I would be remiss if I did not let everyone know that Jeffro Johnson’s excellent APPENDIX N: THE LITERARY HISTORY OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is available again on Amazon, in hardcover, Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and audiobook.

APPENDIX N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons is a detailed and comprehensive investigation of the various works of science fiction and fantasy that game designer Gary Gygax declared to be the primary influences on his seminal role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons. It is a deep intellectual dive into the literature of SF/F’s past that will fascinate any serious role-playing gamer or fan of classic science fiction and fantasy.

It even features a lovely introduction by John C. Wright.

Imagine if you had lived in a house for decades, as had your father before you, and grandfather, and you thought you knew all its halls and chambers. Idly, some rainy day, or when the snow has covered all the roads, you take up a lantern and go to see what is stored in those old boxes in the cellar, or where that one small door you never opened before leads.

You pry the door open, and it groans on rusted hinges, and beyond are caves of wonder, heaped with treasure. Here, like a column of fire, stands a strange genii and other spirits bound to serve your family. They are willing to carry you whirling through the air like an autumn leaf, in less time than it takes to gasp in awe, to far and fabled lands beyond the cerulean ocean, to elfish gardens of dangerous glamor, to jeweled mountains, alabaster cities, or perfumed jungles dreaming in the moonlight where ancient fanes to forgotten gods arise. The genii explains that all these things are yours, your inheritance. You have merely to claim them.

Or, to make the image more true to life, let us say that you are exploring the attic, and you find a handcrank connected to an orrery, worked by a silver key you have always worn but never heretofore found to fit any lock. Turning the crank, you move the model of planets on their epicycles back to an earlier position: trumpets blare and lamps blaze, and now parts and opens the dome of what you had, until now, thought was the sky above your house.

You find yourself in the middle of larger heavens than you knew, with gem-bright suns of many colors, constellations rearing, moons and worlds like colored ornaments, and bearded stars in the high depths of space like runners with torches. And there are worlds beyond those worlds.

Here you find your grandfather, in armor of gold with a sword of white fire, still young and strong, and discover him to be a sorcerer prince, or a dark elf, or a warrior angel, whose ichor runs in your veins as well. All this explains that strangeness that has haunted you all your life.

So it is with all readers and fans of science fiction and fantasy, weird tales and amazing stories who have never looked at the older books from which the younger books spring up. These are tales from beyond the shelves you know, realms unexplored yet oddly familiar.

Jeffro Johnson was the man with that silver key to unlock the older heavens or call up the genii you inherited from the past. It started simply enough: he wrote a series of columns taking as his theme the books listed in Appendix N of the older rules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons written by Gary Gygax.

And the list is nothing exceptional: nearly anyone alive in those days (as I was) and was familiar with fantasy or science fiction reading of the time (as I was) asked to compile a list of the essential books and authors would, no doubt, have issued nearly the same list. The world was smaller in those days, and we who read science fiction were a breed apart, in our own quarter, and a bookish fan could have read or been familiar with all the talented writers in the field, and the many of the untalented.

But like the man who explores his own basement and find a treasure trove, or opens his ceiling and finds the heavens rolled back like a scroll, Jeffro Johnson made an astonishing discovery: the things he had been told about the old books, the old pulps, the old days were misleading, or even false.

Because there was good stuff here!

Like a single spark in the dry leaves, other columnists and other readers began to reread the Appendix N books, and find that sense of wonder some writers seem willfully to wish to extinguish. Some modern books, sadly, are like a Xerox of a Xerox, and the freshness of the original is lost. Some are written in rebellion against ideas and themes in older works, but the nature of the rebellion is hidden from any reader to whom the old worlds are closed.

The genres were not demarked so clearly then, and the guards at the borders separating one kingdom from another were wont to nod and sleep, or wave through the wonder-hungry traveler without checking his papers. Works written in established worlds, Star Trek and Star Wars or Warhammer backgrounds, were utterly unknown.

Now imagine that there are some (they are rare, but they are real) whose mission is to bar you from those books, and see to it that you never enjoy the luxuries of your inheritance, or drink from the winebottles your grandfather laid down in his cellar long ago. All fashion of sneering accusation spills from these Grand Inquisitors, most of it senseless, telling you either that the artistic tastes or the personal flaws of those writers or those times render their work unfit.

Ignore the Thought Police. Read. Decide. Learn to enjoy what you enjoy. Because the heritage belongs to us all. And who knows? You may find the books that your favorite author read as his favorite books when he was young. All these worlds are yours. You have merely to claim them.

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Victory Lap

After embracing diversity and inclusion, Bounding Into Comics is no more:

John F. Trent founded Bounding Into Comics over a decade ago to provide a Christian and conservative alternative to the corporate shills at CBR, Screen Rant, Kotaku, and IGN. While those outlets pushed DEI initiatives and woke activism disguised as journalism, Trent built something different with truthful, hard-hitting coverage that actually held the entertainment industry accountable.

The site exploded in popularity, reaching three to five million views in peak months. Trent became the most important investigative journalist in pop culture, uncovering activist statements and industry malfeasance that everyone else either ignored or actively covered up. Geeks and Gamers, Friday Night Tights, Yellow Flash, and The Quartering built entire YouTube channels reading Trent’s research aloud. His work formed the backbone of alternative pop culture commentary.

Then the company was sold. In 2023, The Publisher Desk acquired Bounding Into Comics and immediately began gutting what made the site successful. The new owners demanded Trent tone down rhetoric against LGBTQ activism, stop criticizing the replacement of white characters in films and comics, and eliminate negative commentary about Disney to appease advertisers.

The Publisher Desk wanted to transform Bounding Into Comics into another corporate mouthpiece indistinguishable from the sites it was created to oppose. They told Trent to remove his Christian viewpoint from articles and eliminate his anti-LGBTQ stances. The message was clear: conform or leave.

Trent chose his principles and left a month later.

And somewhere, John Trent is smiling…

Be sure to support Fandom Pulse. It’s got the best culture war commentary anywhere. If you’re one of those people who complains that “there is no media on our side” while subscribing to Netflix, YouTube, and the Disney Channel, while you don’t read, subscribe to, or support Fandom Pulse, then you’re actually part of the problem rather than the solution.

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Now It’s a Problem

It’s fascinating to see how SJWs think real reviews are “harasssment” and a serious problem that requires addressing when the public is allowed to play the role that the SJW gatekeepers usually do:

According to developers who spoke with the Guardian, abuse – particularly directed towards transgender creators – is a fact of life on the platform. “Everyone is at one another’s throats all the time in reviews, discussions, forums, anywhere you can possibly find it on Steam,” says content creator and Steam curator Bri “BlondePizza” Moore. “It ensures no one is safe on the platform; developers and consumers alike.”

Aside from the content of Steam’s forums, sources pointed to two main causes for concern: bigoted reviews posted on games’ Steam pages, which can hugely affect sales for their developers; and Steam curators (self-appointed taste-makers on the platform) directing campaigns against games they perceive to lean left or pursue inclusion.

“I’m not new to online harassment,” says designer Nathalie Lawhead, who spent two years trying to get reviews removed from their games’ pages. Both reference allegations of sexual assault that Lawhead made in 2019. “I assumed reporting Steam abuse might have its own issues. But when people suggested that I open a ticket, I did have hope that this would be the way to get it resolved.”

Never mind that the whole reason these campaigns exist is that they are a direct reaction to the campaigns waged against the game journos since #GamerGate originally kicked off twelve years ago.

Why shouldn’t gamers be free to say what they think about games, and inclusivity, and transgenderism if the game journos are permitted to do so. At least the gamers usually tend to play the games before reviewing them, unlike the journos.

Convergence is always and inevitably about control.

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The Convergence of D&D

Fandom Pulse chronicles the last futile thrashings of the onetime role-playing giant:

RPG Pundit’s assessment of Wizards’ current design team was devastating: “You’ve got like they just hired another chick. Gez, I wish I remembered to have checked her name before starting this video. This woman, who is basically connected to young adult science fiction stuff, like basically the entire industry of publishing has been taken over by feminist women, millennial women who worked on young adult novels.”

He described how this takeover occurred: “They took over the mainstream publishing and then, in turn, went on to only put their people everywhere, right? And now it’s being expanded to other areas. That’s what’s basically happened with fifth edition is that it became it it was taken over by YA publishing people right that were that are that are the same you know the the feminist intersectional trans bloggers right and uh vegans and all that they’re they’re a cabal they’re a sect and now they’ve expanded into here right and those people know nothing about anything right and they ruin everything they touch.”

It always ends the same way. It’s astonishing that no one, from the churches to the game companies, is capable of recognizing the pattern. Especially since it was all laid out back in 2015.

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Immigration and Outsourcing

Immigration and outsourcing are not the answer to greater profits over time. To the contrary, they are a certain path toward destroying the very organization for which they are supposed to be generating increased profits.

Ubisoft is on the verge of complete collapse due to terrible decisions like trying to develop the new Prince of Persia in India, as legendary WoW producer Grummz explains:

Prince of Persia, why it was REALLY cancelled. Insider tells all. “The game is so bad…” This from my Ubisoft sources:

  • 90% developed by Ubisoft India.
  • Project was a disaster.
  • Transferred last minute to Ubisoft Montreal to “fix” it.
  • Game unfixable.
  • Cancelled.

Note that Ubisoft Montreal spent FOUR YEARS trying to fix it and they couldn’t. I can attest that my one experience working with Indian developers for 3M on a sales training software project was an absolute and utter catastrophe. They couldn’t implement even the simplest, most basic features with any degree of reliability, and as far as the graphics went, they appeared to be limited to the stick-figure level.

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The US Defeat in Ukraine

There is no way to avoid the conclusion that 2023’s disastrous counteroffensive was a test of the USA’s ability to go toe-to-toe with Russia’s generals. Or that it was a test that they failed badly.

● Ukrainian, U.S. and British military officers held eight major tabletop war games to build a campaign plan. But Washington miscalculated the extent to which Ukraine’s forces could be transformed into a Western-style fighting force in a short period — especially without giving Kyiv air power integral to modern militaries.
● U.S. and Ukrainian officials sharply disagreed at times over strategy, tactics and timing. The Pentagon wanted the assault to begin in mid-April to prevent Russia from continuing to strengthen its lines. The Ukrainians hesitated, insisting they weren’t ready without additional weapons and training.
● U.S. military officials were confident that a mechanized frontal attack on Russian lines was feasible with the troops and weapons that Ukraine had. The simulations concluded that Kyiv’s forces, in the best case, could reach the Sea of Azov and cut off Russian troops in the south in 60 to 90 days.
● The United States advocated a focused assault along that southern axis, but Ukraine’s leadership believed its forces had to attack at three distinct points along the 600-mile front, southward toward both Melitopol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov and east toward the embattled city of Bakhmut.
● The U.S. intelligence community had a more downbeat view than the U.S. military, assessing that the offensive had only a 50-50 chance of success given the stout, multilayered defenses Russia had built up over the winter and spring.

The massive distance between the wargamed results and the real-world results demonstrate how absolutely inept the current state of US military wargaming is. Keep this in mind when contemplating what the military wargames predict about the inevitable conflict in the South China Sea and in the Middle East.

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Epic Beats Google

I’m not even remotely surprised that Epic won its case against Google over the Play Store. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that the game developers are smarter than the Big Tech guys and all their Silicon Valley lawyers:

A federal appeals court has upheld a jury verdict condemning Google’s Android app store as an illegal monopoly, clearing the way for a federal judge to enforce a potentially disruptive shakeup that’s designed to give consumers more choices.

The unanimous ruling issued Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivers a double-barreled legal blow for Google, which has been waylaid in three separate antitrust trials that resulted in different pillars of its internet empire being declared as domineering scofflaws monopolies since late 2023.

The unsuccessful appeal represents a major victory for video game maker Epic Games, which launched a legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store for Android apps and Apple’s iPhone app store nearly five years ago in an attempt to bypass exclusive payment processing systems that charged 15% to 30% commissions on in-app transactions.

This is good news. It should make it a lot easier to get apps on the platforms that people prefer to utilize on their phones.

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RIP Julian LeFay

Legendary Elder Scrolls creator Julian LeFay passes away at 59. Julian LeFay, the designer largely credited with helping shape the vision of fan favorite Elder Scrolls franchise, has passed away at the age of 59.

This is a hard one to hear. I was friends with Bennie for years, and it will probably surprise a lot of people to learn that we even worked together for 18 months on what was supposed to be a launch title for the Sega Dreamcast.

He left Bethesda to come work for Fenris Wolf after we signed a $1.5 million deal with Sega to provide its first RPG for its new Katana system after our original producer at GT moved to Sega of America and made signing us one of his first orders of business. I’d licensed the rights to Traveller from Marc Miller, and Julian was not only tired of working at Bethesda after his friend Vijay had left for Microsoft, but was very excited to take his innovative design concepts into a science fiction space for the first time.

And, of course, he liked the idea of working with me and my partner, as we’d hung out together at various CGDCs and E3s for four or five years by that point. He, Vijay, Bobby Prince from id, and Carter from Spectrum Holobyte were the people I spent the most time with at the Westin and the various other locations outside of the CGW crew.

Unfortunately, Sega of Japan eliminated Sega of America and cancelled all ten launch titles that SOA had in development, including ours, about one year prior to the launch of the Dreamcast, in favor of spending the $100 million that had been budgeted for those games on putting the Dreamcast logo on the front of the Arsenal FC jerseys. This was, of course, a terrible decision that was much-mocked in the industry, and helped contribute to the failure of the Dreamcast to compete with the original Sony PlayStation despite its technical superiorities.

I still remember Julian, Kurt (from SOA) and I laughing about the fake headline in a parody newsletter given out at CGDC that read: “SEGA REFUSES TO REVEAL PLANS FOR SELF-IMMOLATION” or something to that effect. It wasn’t quite so funny when I got the phone call from Kurt telling me that a) he had been let go, b) SOA was being shut down by SOJ, and c) Traveller was canceled. In retrospect, that was the beginning of the end for my time in the game industry, as GT’s collapse followed Sega of America’s by about 18 months.

So Julian and I never finished our game. We talked once or twice about possibly working together, and I think he ended up getting back together with Vijay toward the end, but things never managed to quite work out. It’s truly a pity, because I think that what we could have – what we WOULD have – achieved would have been truly epic, in fact, more epic than Epic.

It is truly the end of an era. Julian LeFay is gone, but he should never be forgotten by the gaming community. He never received the plaudits of Richard Garriott, John Romero, or Sid Meier, but he was genuinely one of the great designers of the era. He always imagined things on a larger scope than most of us were able to conceptualize. He set the standard for complex randomized environments and laid some of the conceptual foundations for both the MMO and all modern games that incorporate random elements as part of their design.

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