Gamers Over 50 Podcast

The world wide phenomenon of Pokemon Go happened starting in 2016 and is still going today! BB and I discuss our "unofficial rules of Pokemon Go", talk about our experience with the game and give reccomendations!

Directional keys in gaming have been around from the arrow keys to WASD (What A Silly Direction) and now that you can use the mouse and keyboard it gives PC gaming a new levl of control! This is also BB's first game review as she adds on to Gamers (see episode 83) for Stardew Valley!

For a while I have been doing this podcast on my own, and changing the format to reviews has been great but it needed something. I found that something in my new podcast partner Bibi! This is an introduction to BiBi and we will be doing addendums to the first few game reviews and then playing games together going forward!

Fortnite is not just a shooting game with Battle Royale but it is 5 more game modes! It is also one of the hottest games out there since 2017! It is also one of the first shooter games I have reviewed!

Mario Kart has been around forever, well since the SNES and it has become one of the big games that is developed for new Nintendo platforms. It may be the greatest racing game ever created and I loved going down memory lane when doing this review!

Madden NFL or just Madden is the cornerstone of sports video games. John Madden was an icon in every facet of football and he brought his charisma and passion to everything he did in football and life. If you love the NFL then this is the perfect companion to your weekly subscription of games, your fantasy football roster and all of your team gear/clothing! It will definitely get you through the offseason and let your team win the super bowl (try Rookie mode first)!!!

The first game review is Stardew Valley, one of the greatest games ever made! Developed by Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone, and still getting updates, enjoy the review!

Gamers Over 50 has been a lot of fun researching and learning about games and genres of games. Then I hit a wall on developing content...so I just played a lot of games! I started to think about games, then specifically games for us over 50. Should I play this game, do I need better hardware or different hardware? Is the pace of the game too fast or slow, do I have enough time to play the game or other factors. I also realized some games have me sitting and clicking way too much. Do I need to sit in front a monitor to the point I get eye strain, or I sit way too much! I put together some factors and am going to take some of the games I have played and put these factors in play to help give a better view of games for those over 50!

The interesting and obscure of the Christmas holiday was on my mind today and I took to the interweb to find some fun facts you can tell others any year, but especially this year. I also tried to track Santa with NORAD while recording!

So I am traveling like a majority of people this holiday season and while I may not go over an ocean or continent to continent and get stuck on a deserted island. I could get stuck in an airport or at our rental without electricity! I thought about grabbing a book to read or reread or a movie to watch or rewatch and some of the games I can travel with that would be great in an airport, at the house without power or along the way!

So there is a holiday coming up this week in the US and you may have some extra time with a couple days off or you work with folks in the US and they are all gone and not driving you crazy (I am very sorry for everything I do to drive my coworkers crazy) and you also have some extra time as well. In my first ever game review podcast I am going to review three of the biggest games this year and a couple other games I really liked and give my first, on a scale of 1-10, Gamers Over50 ratings!

Need a movie recommendation for this years Halloween or Samhain? Well I have a set of non-slasher type movies, Freddy do not visit me tonight, you either Michael or Jason, we already have a goalie for street hockey! I chose some of my favorite all time supernatural and monster movies that are classics and some that may not be considered classics but I love them! Some of the greatest actors and directors are in here too!

Halloween is not just about candy, but it has some really historical references attached to it that have been based on the lore and traditional stories around the Supernatural. The Supernatural is a great genre for everything not 100% SciFi or Fantasy but based in fiction or partial fact, and it's soooo cool! In this podcast I go in to that genre with one particular universe that has crossed gaming, entertainment, literature, LARPing and many other areas!

After a game is developed and produced, distributed and on the shelves or ready to be downloaded there are a bunch of ways to make money! In this episode I go through a lot and I mean a lot of ways to make some money, maybe not enough to live on or maybe you hit it big (don't trust that). Through this podcast I haven't advertised and don't plan on it for at least 24 more episodes, but I did start trying in another way and it has evolved in to a christmas ornament! (link below) Anywho, you can take your joy of video, board, card, dice, mobile games and make some extra money if you have the time! Meet Snowey Snowcone, who was brought together through my 3d modeling and printing podcasts! https://www.etsy.com/listing/1556361218/snowey-snowcone

PAX 2023 had so many great games and in this episode I discussed 11 that are were definite winners if you are looking for a great game to play now or put on your wishlist!  I was so very very very impressed with the diversity of games this year, so many genres, game types and the subject matter of the games was again so diverse and really a breath of fresh air! 

In this episode, I recap PAX West 2023 and give my Top 10 Favorite parts of the game convention and also give my 5 things I would change in all conventions! PAX West utilized the new Seattle Convention Center space aka Summit and the original space Apex this year and delivered one of my favorite gaming conventions ever! Huge thank you to Kate, Wayne and Heather for joining this podcast and sharing their perspectives on PAX West 2023!

In this podcast we will talk about where to find 3d models created by others, either for pay or for free.  I will also go through my experience with 3d printing, this is mainly to show you that someone with zero experience in all of the 3d printing concepts can 3d print and a few tips on what I have learned! Also while prepping for this episode, I downloaded Autodesk Fusion, created my very own 3d model and have successfully printed it several times!

This podcast may a bit longer than normal, the subject matter is pretty expansive! We jump in to the WABAC machine (thank you to Mr Peadbody and Sherman) and discuss 3d Modeling's origins, history, innovations and some programs to 3d Model!

I apologize for not checking the recording, first terrible mistake in 71 episodes, unless you count all the terrible pronounciations, but we are friends right? By 2023 I bet you have heard, are an enthusiast or maybe you are or know a professional 3d printer. If not, then this is a podcast for you, but it's really for everyone because there are some incredibly obscure factsabout 3d printing, the Hugo Awards and even a terrible Jimmy Stewart impression!

I really can't believe it has taken this long to talk about Pinball!  Pinball machines are so insanely cool and the history around this is even cooler!  To paraphrase Outkast, it is Ice Cold! Pinball is an iconic part of our world and the advent could be discussed as a mythos and everyone has most likely played a pinball machine if not sat and watched others. This episode also allowed me to discuss one of my favorite print, tv and cinema genre's too! (have to listen to hear about it!)

It has been almost 14 months since the last podcast was recorded. Simply I hit a wall and started finding myself getting in the weeds of topics and I was worried this was becoming less fun and more a have to do. So I went on a quest, well a lot of quests and am really excited to share what I have seen, learned and done! Including! 3d Printing Dioramas Models Conventions Other Podcasts Games and Games and more Games Books A new language! Still looking for the Obscure I am looking forward to include some videos, pictures and maybe streaming some topics as well! Thank you as always for listening!

To set the stage for this podcast, I want you to think of something from your childhood to say 18 years old which you thought was amazing and maybe never owned or only saw the commercial. For me it was the game Dark Tower. This podcast is everything Dark Tower and I mean everything! It's also some great facts from 1981 when Milton-Bradley released the Dark Tower electronic board game.

This is a hugely complicated topic as my knowledge base on the subject is big but in some areas of video game development I am going to bet it will expand and I hope anyone listening learns something too.

Prior to the creation of Game Engines, every part of a video games for consoles or PC's was created by the development team. A game engine can hold the basic concepts for a game, or be a template that can be built upon. Let's jump in to what a Game Engine is and then the pieces and a few examples of game engines with maybe a few games developed for each!

One of my goals this year was to learn a language and I looked at programming languages, then I looked at programming languages for games. There is a rich history from Assembly as a first language built to run cabinet games to many other languages. This is not the comprehensive list of programming languages but I tried to pick some from the last 5 decades and then also jump in to API's as well! This is the first in a series on Game Development.

Virtual Reality is one of the most interesting topics in technology/gaming and the thought of it has been around for "(have to listen to hear when!)" and it is still evolving today! In this episode there is history, hardware, software, use, context and of course Obscure Facts! I was unable to enter the Matrix (Thanks Morpheus....) but I did put on a VR Headset and researched the heck out of the subject! Enjoy!

Back behind the Mic! I finished out 2021 and started 2022 with a ton of fun including getting crafty (not the Beastie Boy type), reading (woo that is not boring, unless it's what I am reading!), having a really fun time with family for the holidays and playing a couple games so much that I should get a patch for my jean jacket! Looking forward to a bunch of topics for 2022 and even some special guests!

“Patience's design flaw became obvious for the first time in my life: the outcome is decided not during the course of play but when the cards are shuffled, before the game even begins. How pointless is that?” David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas One of the first card games I learned was Solitaire also known as Klondike, my grandmothers both played it to pass the time and challenge themselves and others in our family. The history of Solitaire is so cool and definitely worth a look, listen and play a few of the over 300+ version of Patience or Solitaire!

Buying games can be very easy, you can jump on Amazon or head to Target, Walmart, Game Stop or another big company. In this episode I share some other places to shop and find items that your gamer or yourself will enjoy!

The last 5 games to get to 25 for the Holiday Game Gift Guide! Mazescape Azul Happy Little Dinosaur Warhammer 40,000:Battlesector Machinarium This was a lot of fun doing research, playing, reading and learning about all of these games!

5 more games for a total of 20! (5 more to go!) Gorinto King of Tokyo Shindig TOEM - A Photo Adventure Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2

The next five games! One Night Ultimate Werewolf Mountain Goats Fantasy Ranch Lost in Random Among Us 10 more games to go!

The next 5 games in the Holiday Game Gift Guide episode are!!!! Raccoon Tycoon Dinosaur World Gonuts for Donuts The Artful Escape Valheim 10 Games down 15 to go!

The first 5 games in the Holiday Game Gift Guide episode are!!!! Gloomhaven Dice Miner Guess in 10 Animal Planet It Takes Two Chicory: A Colorful Tale

Very short podcast, giving the details of the next 6 episodes! I checked out, read, watched videos and even bought and played some of the 25 games that I think would be awesome for holiday gifts! There are 15 board/card/dice and 10 video games, they range all over the age spectrum and the cost is between $20 - $$$! Enjoy these next 5 podcasts and then the 61st will be where to buy these games! And away we go!!!

From the dawn of time humans have loved there heroes, from Gilgamesh the first recorded hero up to the Avengers and Justice League. They can fly, swim, run fast, bend metal, read minds and always save the day! In the last podcast we celebrated Batman day, but the Bat as the great Kevin Smith (please put me in the next Jay and Silent Bob, Clerks or Toxic Avenger movie!!!) calls him is just one of thousands of heroes! Super Heroes normally get their start in a comic book or graphic novel, which are modern works of art and some times the inspiration for everything in between. Super heroes are the embodiment of us wanting a better world and to help others, their antagonists on the other hand are just a bunch of stinkers, my grandmother would have called them that just like she called Rick Flair when he was a heel in tv wresting growing up! But we love them too and love when they make the switch to good. This is the first of a lot of podcasts, not in order but I will follow up because no content base for games is bigger than heroes, the super ones especially!

It is hard to not like Batman, unless you have committed a crime in Gotham City or the DC Universe. Batman is also huge in video games, pick a platform any platform. From the early PC days to the latest consoles and mobile devices the caped crusader is everywhere! I try really hard to provide cool facts in the podcasts so let's dive in to the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, Mr. Wayne, Bruce or The Batman!

Kate Edwards (of IGDA, Global Game Jam, Take This board member) joins me to discuss our visit to PAX West 2021! It was surreal to get to a convention but the folks at PAX West did a fantastic job delivering! Thank you to to the Companies, the PAX Enforcers and fellow attendees for making PAX West awesome!

I am excited to announce that I will be attending PAX West 2021 in Seattle. It is exciting and it will definitely be different for me to go to a large gathering of people in doors. So with this I am prepping for the convention! If you want to take something from this episode, it can be a good way to prep for a convention, so you get to do as much as possible and especially enjoy the parts of the event you choose to enjoy!

The title of this episode is a tribute to the movie Head of State by Chris Rock, anytime they say Security you get a WAAAAHHHH after and it cracks me up anytime I hear the word Security. I started reading and learning about computer security when I was 8 with the Enigma project and have worked in the Security industry, this podcast is not too technical but gets in to the social and technical areas of security with games.

My personal commentary in life is winning is not everything, but in games it kind of is? You want the achievement or the high score or the super cool items. Now you can win by spending hours and days grinding away at a game, buying the game guide, meticulously searching for items to build the item to get the item or achievement. Or you can use an easier way, cheating or eluding or sidestepping or skirting or eschewing?

By now you have either donned a set of headphones, earphones, a microphone and speakers or used your cell phone to connect to a voice chat application during a game. In gaming like life communication is key and being able to talk to people you are playing with is really important. Maybe during a video or board or dice or card game?

Getting back to more informational with some opinion subjects as I get closer to 50 episodes, this topic is going to be all about money, well money spent after you install/download a game.

One of my favorite parts of researching C64 software was the trip down memory lane. It wasn't all games but I would be remiss again to mention how much we used Print Shop and AceWriter in our home. Now again we had an Apple but a lot of the software that was created for the Apple was first created for the C64. I used a statistic of .08% titles of software per C64 sold. Now I also said 12,500 titles were created but I just said 23,000 titles well those 11,500 titles were created by programmers, and uploaded, sneakered or shared in magazines, books or printouts! You can still find a lot of these titles available and if you have a C64 Mini you can download a lot of these titles or if you have an old programming magazine you can even type in one of your own!

If you are over 50 then you remember hearing about the first personal computers, it could have been from Radio Shack/Tandy, Apple, IBM or one of the coolest computers and yes a computer can be cool ever made. The Commodore 64 has a following like the Grateful Dead, the McRib or my favorite Primanti Brothers and if you don't know Primanti Brothers you might be missing out on true food love, look it up.

In the last episode I talked about some historical video games you can play, relive the past and maybe learn something (hopplites!!!) In this episode it is all historical board games, Trains, Culture and Landscapes!!! Landscapes can be cool? So here are some additional ways to talk about these board games, Roads, Industry and City Boundaries!

Who doesn't love a future sci-fi game with Terminators walking down the street or a Romeo and Juliet style romance between extra-terrestrial families? I do, however I do love historical games a bit more! In this podcast I talk about games that are fun to play in 5 minutes, 30 minutes or you can spend a weekend (don't do that, go outside and wear a mask!). World of Tanks, World of Warships and Age of Empires franchise are just a few of the historical games and I spent the last 3 weeks playing and getting back in to each of them! Next podcast is historical board games!

There is an awesome movie that details the personal computer revolution, The Pirates of Silicon Valley. If you ever wondered what might have been happening between Apple and Microsoft, great cast and a really good representation of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. In the movie Anthony Michael Hall who plays BillG is having a discussion with Noah Wylie who plays Steve Jobs, where he talks about Xerox and how both companies took tech/ideas from Xerox and used them in their hardware and software. Well Intellivision, in my humble opinion, is the Xerox of video game consoles.

Atari was my first video game console, like all of our firsts, except that first time someone suggested I try chewing tobacco, Atari still holds a special place in my memories. It was the start of the home video game revolution and if you are over 50, chances are you knew someone with or had an Atari 2600/VCS yourself. The history of Atari is interesting, sorted and sometimes sad as it was the first all of the "pitfalls" were not good. Atari also had what is considered the worst video game title ever, which created an urban legend and gave the game more fame! I am being coy about the games I talk about but not combat-ive to give some clues for Atari nostalgists like myself. One thing, if you had an Atari and can get your hands on the new versions with a large number of games on them, go out and beat your kids one afternoon and relive your childhood a bit!

In this episode I research Emulators or how to play games you may not have access to play anymore. Well they are available with an emulator like Stella, AppleWin, Visual Boy Advance and/or Archive.org! I spent a ton of time playing games from the 70's, 80's and 90's and you can too! This will not be the last emulator episode but it sure was a ton of fun to research.

In this episode I have a special guest, 11 year Old Lucy! We talk about simulation games and how much fun they are and what we enjoy about them. I have to be straight forward, I did not think that simulation games would be as exciting to me a year ago, it is getting close to what I play mainly now. They are fun, easy to play, not a lot of commitment and mistakes are expected and easily corrected! Even Oxford University has done studies on how good simulation games are for happiness and reducing stress and anxiety. The other really cool thing about simulation games are you can play them on any device or platform! This was a really fun episode to research and fun to record with Lucy, we hope you enjoy it!