Apple II Bits

Last month I blogged about classic gaming inspirations, a session I presented at KansasFest 2009. It’s a pretty simple setup: I present to the audience a self-running YouTube video of an Apple II game, after which they watch me play a few minutes of a Mac game that’s similar, with my narration consisting of comparisons and contrasts. Each year, I prepare to draw far more parallels than the time allows, which is great, because it gives me fodder to revisit the topic next year.

This year gave me the opportunity to address many of the games I’d planned for 2009 as well as add several new ones that have been released since then. I still focused on Macintosh gaming, but this year also listed at least one PC-exclusive game and presented no online Flash equivalents. Click the checkmark to visit the Web site that offers that game for download.

Apple II	Equivalent	Mac	PC	iOS
Lemonade Stand	Lemonade Stand	✓	✓	✓
Arkanoid	Phoenix Ball	✓
Arkanoid	Ricochet Infinity	✓
Asteroids	Maelstrom	✓	✓
Asteroids	Argonaut 2149	✓
Rampart	Castle Combat	✓	✓
Ultima III	Ultima III	✓
Ultima IV	xu4	✓	✓
Ultima V	Ultima V: Lazarus	✓	✓
Akalabeth	AkalabethApp			✓
Adventure	Adventure	✓	✓	✓
Bubble Bobble	Bub & Bob	✓
Dark Castle	Return to Dark Castle	✓
King's Quest	The Silver Lining		✓

As before, I ran the session without Internet connectivity or emulation; all Apple II games were represented using previously downloaded YouTube .FLV video files. Those files are compiled into this playlist:

I also captured a video of the session itself. It’s available on Vimeo, but the sound isn’t great — especially when the audience’s enthusiasm for my topic requires me to ask if I can have my session back!

I still have more games to present next year, if anyone is interested. If you enjoy these sessions or have titles you’d like to see demonstrated, please comment here!