Lost Treasures of Gaming

In 1984, an 18 year old saw his dreams come true and Montezuma's Revenge was released into the world by Parker Brothers.  As one of our favourite games to ever grace the Commodore 64, we are thrilled to welcome the creator of Montezuma's Revenge, Robert Jaeger.  Robert takes us back to when he was only 11 years old and started creating video games. We learn of his early creations and what lead him to create Montezuma's Revenge and how it was picked up by Parker Brothers.

This week's Lost Treasures of Gaming take a bit of a twist with our coverage of a classic video game. While normally we would interview someone who was personally involved with the original development of the game, this week's guest is the Founder/Director of House Hold Games, formerly of Drink Box Studios.  Jason had nothing to do with the development of Wizard for the Commodore 64.  In fact, he was only 4 years old when he first played the game.  But that was a fateful moment in his life and Wizard began something in Jason that is still alive in him today. This week we explore the very real affect that video games can have on people and how an obscure Lost Treasure can change a life forever. Youtube: bit.ly/TheOMGHour Web: www.omgnexus.com

This isn't a normal episode of Lost Treasures of Gaming.  This week we are joined by Kristen Sych, a personal friend and High School buddy of Syd's.  Kristen is a cinematics director at Activision and has worked on Treyarch's Call of Duty Black Ops franchise.  While the original Black Ops isn't a lost treasure in the normal sense, we thought it would be nice to look at the development of games from a different angle. That of the animation and the cut scenes we see so much of these days.  Kristen is an artist and an animator and we talk about what it takes to create the amazing scenes for blockbuster games such as Call of Duty.

It's time to go back to where it all began. Our guest this week was instrumental in designing and bringing the original Atari 2600 console into our lives, as well as the pack in game, Combat.  Of course, we are talking to Joe Decuir this week.  Prepare yourself to take an amazing walk through history and discover what the Atari 2600 could have been.

Get ready for the longest episode of Lost Treasures of Gaming yet! We are pleased to welcome Lorne Lanning to the show this week to talk all about his Oddworld Inhabitants games, including Abe's Oddysee, Munch's Oddysee, Stranger's Wrath, and more.  In this interview we get some real, down to earth, behind the scenes goodness about the making of these games.  As a first for the show, we even had the pleasure to have Lorne answer some listener questions.  Sit down, relax, and enjoy!

We are excited to welcome a true Canadian Video Game Pioneer to the show, Chris Gray.  Chris Gray got his first big break in the video game business with Boulder Dash, released in 1984. This single game has become a cult classic and has found its way onto nearly every home console and continues to be remade today. Recently, Boulder Dash was even released in cartridge form for the Intellivision! Chris continues to work in the game industry at TapStar Interactive (http://www.tapstargames.com/) creating high quality mobile games. Including, you guessed it, Boulder Dash: 30th Anniversary Edition for iOS.

We are honoured to have industry veteran David Perry on the show this week.  If you don't think you know who David is, you do.  David has been programming games since the age of 15 and was the Founder of Shiny Entertainment and the programmer of Earthworm Jim.  He then went on to Co-Found Gaikai which is now found on your PS4 and Sony televisions as PlayStation Now.  David has been a pioneer in the industry and is still striving to bring us the future of gaming now.

This week's show is a little different as we will not be concentrating on just one game.  Our guest this week is one of the founding members of Activision, Steve Cartwright.  Steve was the 5th game developer to join Activision back in 1982 to begin working on Atari 2600 games.  We speak to him about his time at Activision and many of the "firsts" in video games that he was personally responsible for.  He is a legend in the gaming industry and we owe a lot of what we know today to him.

You may know our guest from such games as Ratchet and Clank, Sonice the Hedgehog 2, and even from companies like Naughty Dog.  Today, we are joined by the legendary Mark Cerny himself to talk about a true lost Treasure, 1984's Marble Madness.  Originally created for the arcade, Marble Madness made its way into the home on many home platforms and even inspired countless more games. Mark has a special midas touch when it comes to making games as everything he's involved in is simply fun.

Do you remember Remember Me or are your memories all mixed up?  Our guest this week is co-founder of Dontnod Entertainment and the Creative Director of 2013's Remember Me, Mr, Jean-Maxime Moris.  We dive into the inspirations of Dontnod's first game, and learn all about the creation process behind it, what made it into the game, what didn't. We even learn of a distinct link between this game and their next game, Life Is Strange.  It may not be an old game, but Remember Me is a lost treasure just the same. If you've never played it, you owe it to yourself to seek it out. For more information, visit www.omgnexus.com.

We have a first for you this week. Our first Lost Treasures of Gaming that features an arcade game.  Our guest this week is Mark Turmell who was the programmer behind the smash arcade hit, Smash TV.  If you were a fan of the game back in the day, you may have triggered a special "warp" that immediately teleported you to another level in the game. Did you ever wonder what you did to trigger that? The answer may surprise you.  We also get the true story behind the infamous Pleasure Dome level of the game and why it was not originally shipped with the game. Again, that answer may surprise you. Sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Interview with American McGee.You all know his name from the Alice games you've probably played. We sat down with American McGee himself to talk about his Alice series of games. We also discover the unique opportunity he was presented that actually got him into the gaming industry to begin with.  As one of the few developers we've had Lost Treasures who is still in the gaming industry, you can check out his current work at www.spicyhorse.com.  For more information and links, be sure to visit www.omgnexus.com.

This week we have the developer of, not one, but two of our Lost Treasures.  Chuck Sommerville joins us to talk about both Summer Games II and Chip's Challenge.  During Chuck's tenure at Epyx Games, he developed more than just these two gems, however, and we get the opportunity to touch on a few of them such as Winter Games and California Games.

Our special guest this week is none other than Warren Robinett, the man behind the classic Atari 2600 game, Adventure.  Warren regales us with the inspiration behind the game itself as well as what it was really like to be a game developer for Atari back in the late 70's.  If you weren't aware, what we now call Easter Eggs in game was actually started by Warren himself in this very same game. We also learn, however, that he did not call it an Easter Egg back then.  It is our absolute pleasure to have Warren join us this week and we hope you enjoy it too.

After a small hiatus, we return with special guest Paul Norman, the creator and developer of 1983's Forbidden Forest for the Commodore 64.  We speak to Paul and get an inside look at the development of this title and what made him make the game the way he did.  His true passions come through in the creation of the game and, as a result, it was a game like no other at the time.  It's really too bad Paul is no longer in the gaming industry as he really was a pioneer of the times.  For more, visit www.omgnexus.com.

It's a bit of a change in format as we're going the musical root for this week's episode.  Our guest is Jerry Buckner, of Buckner & Garcia, the artists behind 1982's Pac-Man Fever album.  This album featured 8 songs inspired by popular arcade games of the day.  To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Pac-Man, they even recreated the title track as Pac-Man Fever: Eat 'em Up 2015, available as a free download.  We are delighted to have Jerry as our guest this week as we reminisce about the creation of this classic video game album and some of his more recent work, too.  www.omgnexus.com

Sean geeks out a lot this week as we sit down with Ron Rosen, the man behind Sean's absolute favourite Commodore 64 game, Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory. We learn about the inspirations behind the game which, coincidentally, include a certain game we discussed a few weeks ago.  Could there be a future in store for this game classic game?  Time will tell.  For more information, be sure to visit www.omgnexus.com.

You might know him as the Donkey Kong Dad, the man who hacked Donkey Kong so that his daughter could play as Pauline and save Mario.  You may also know him as one of the geniuses behind the recent Social Media driven game #iDARB.  His name is Mike Mika, and we aren't talking to him about either of these feats.  Today we will be concentrating on a much different wondrous feat that Mike was a part of: the porting of the arcade game Dragon's Lair to the Game Boy Color.  Mike shares with us some of the complexities of such a thing and some of the haggling that had to be done with the publisher to get the game to where it ultimately ended up.  For links and show notes, visit www.omgnexus.com.

Since the nature of Lost Treasures of Gaming is an interview show, there's bound to be weeks in which we are unable to secure a developer's time.  This is such a week.  So instead of leaving you hanging, dear listener, we invited our Twitch streaming partner, Fred Rojas, over for some fun.  Fred runs Gaming History 101 and we talk with him about the origins of his site, his Twitch streaming, and what games he'd love to see us cover right here. We're proud to have a partnership with Fred and love watching him stream the very games we cover each week.  Don't forget to check out our other podcasts, including The OMG! Hour, at www.omgnexus.com

We're a little star struck this week as we speak with Bill Hogue, the creator and progammer of 1982's Miner 2049er.  Both Sean and Syd grew up with Miner 2049er as one of our gaming obsessions.  In today's episode we learn more about how the game came to be and what Bill was trying to accomplish by making this particular game.  For more information and links, be sure to visit www.omgnexus.com.

With a special link to last week's episode, Ken Rogoway joins us to talk about his work on Atari's Ghostbusters: The Videogame.  Ken has had a long and storied history in video games and we learn, not only about his work on Ghostbusters, but in some other great franchises he's had the privilege of working with.  You can follow Ken on Twitter @RogueProgrammer.  For more information about Ghostbusters and other notes, be sure to visit www.omgnexus.com

David B. Fox, one of the original employees at Lucasfilm Games Division, joins us this week to talk about the first game he developed there called Rescue on Fractalus!  We learn about how the Games Division got started, how the game almost didn't get made, and some of the firsts that this game brought to gaming.  We even learn about how George Lucas himself contributed to make the game more than it was originally designed to be.  For links to some of David's projects, visit the show notes at www.omgnexus.com

U-Boat was created in a day when software distribution was done through computer magazines and the user had to type the program into their computer themselves.  U-Boat was created by Mark Vittek in 1981 on the VIC-20.  This week we spend some time with Mark to learn more about his experience with U-Boat and where that eventually took him in the gaming industry.  You may even recognize some of the games Mark has worked on in the past.  For more information about Mark, U-Boat and our partnership with GamingHistory101.com, be sure to visit www.omgnexus.com. Tune in Friday, July 31st at 11:30EST to Gaming History 101‘s Twitch channel (twitch.tv/gh101) for a 30 minute stream of U-Boat.

Sopwith, developed in 1984, started out as a game that should never have been widely available.  It was just a demo.  Now it has a huge cult following.  We are joined this week by the developer of Sopwith, David L. Clark.  We get a behind the scenes look at why the game was made and the technology it was designed to demonstrate.  Sopwith may have been one of the first ever multi-player games made.  You can learn more about David at his website: https://davidlclark.com.

It's the very first episode of The OMG! Hour's first official spin-off show.  In this inaugural episode, your host, Sean Evans, and your Gaming Archaeologist, Syd Bolton, discuss the formation of the show, it's history on The OMG! Hour, and what we hope to bring you in future episodes.  In this episode, Syd tells us the history of his Personal Computer Museum, and discusses his vast videogame collection.