After dinner on Friday night we drove into Rome to do a little family shopping and to pick up my entry form for the Holiday coloring contest. Going to the Zayre Department Store was part of our Friday night routine for us. As always, we walked through the automatic doors at the front of the store as a family, then promptly splintered off into departments that catered to our particular needs. Mom went to Housewares and Ladies Wear; dad went to Automotive; my brother went to Sports or Toys; I, naturally,…

As a regular reader of Computer Land magazine, I was aware of the fact that I would need to learn a special programming language called “machine language” in order to make/program my videogame about baby sea turtles being attacked by dingoes and vultures. The idea of learning this cryptic, new language–a language that purportedly could make computers do anything you wanted them to do; a language that only the most elite readers of Computer Land magazine could speak–was, of course, very enticing to me.  (more…)

Once I’d mastered the art of the fire-prevention poster–and landed first-prize three years in a row, which consisted of a satin blue ribbon and a hand-crushing handshake from the chief of the volunteer fire department–I grew restless as an artist and began looking for new challenges. I got wind of another contest being held in the nearby city of Rome at the Zayre Department Store. I decided to investigate. (more…)

Now that I had my videogame concept in place–baby sea turtle must get from Point A (his birthing pit in the sand) to Point B (the open sea) while enduring waves of increasingly vicious predators (dingos, raccoons, vultures, etc.)–the next step was execution. My first inclination was to draw concept art for the game. At the time, I had enjoyed an unprecedented string of wins in the annual fire-prevention poster contest at school. My always-artful fire-prevention posters were, to my mind, more than dopey slogans informing fellow students to “Stop Fires Before They Start!” or to “Check Smoke Detector Batteries…

[It’s day 75 of my grand “Man Vs. Donkey Kong” experiment. Only 26 more days to go. Why am I playing a level of Donkey Kong (Game Boy, 1994) each day for 101 days? Find out by starting back at the beginning.] One afternoon while watching television with my father, a nature show came on describing the plight of baby sea turtles. The mother turtle, the show explained, buried her eggs in the sand on a beach. Cue footage of a mother turtle, looking slow and mopey, burying her eggs with her fat flippers. When the babies hatched, they emerged from the sand,…

One final digression, then I’ll get to my game-making attempt, promise. There are two landmark gaming moments from my childhood/teenage years. There was “The Night I Beat Mike Tyson” (Punch-Out!!, NES). And there was “The Night I Killed Dracula” (The Count, VIC-20). Both nights were significant, because gaming–which was something that I typically did alone, apart from the rest of the members of my family–became, at least for a scant few minutes, a family affair. On “The Night I Beat Mike…

When I was 15, I purchased a subscription to Computer Land Magazine. I’d read articles that I rarely understood, always puzzling over the science fiction-like jargon. I’d study the photographs of men who had grown elaborate displays of facial hair, and who were always hunched over their keyboards the same way that I enjoyed hunching over the VIC-20. At the back of every issue was one of those “No Postage Necessary” postcards that I could fill out, ticking off the names of the magazine’s advertisers who I was interested in receiving more information from. I would check every last box…

A brief but relevant digression before I get into my game. I had a Commodore VIC-20 computer growing up. It was probably designated as a “family computer,” but no one ever really used it or showed any real interest in it except for me. The VIC-20 was stored in my parents’ room, hooked up to their tiny black-and-white bedroom television that they watched The Tonight Show on each night before falling asleep. (more…)

Remember the old Hollywood saw about how everyone in Los Angeles–gardeners, cashiers, accountants, short-order cooks, etc.–is writing a screenplay in their spare time? These days it feels like the exact same thing is happening in the videogame industry. Everyone, it seems, regardless of one’s station in life, has an idea for a can’t-miss videogame pitch. Not all that long ago, videogames were these impenetrable, mysterious objects. Case in point: old-school arcade cabinets. The few times in my life when I’ve had the opportunity…