Apple II Bits

I love presenting at KansasFest. Speaking at such an esteemed gathering of Apple II aficionados reaffirms that I nonetheless have something to contribute to this community, despite not having extensive knowledge of Apple II hardware or software.

In brainstorming this year’s presentation, I emailed KFest schedulemeister Andy Molloy for ideas. He suggested:

How about something like “10 influential Apple II games” and then you talk about them, demo them and show how they are cool. There’s certainly a segment of the audience (i.e., me) who loves to watch old Apple II games, which is why I liked Bruce’s stuff. Or something like “here are 10 Apple games that were later remade on modern systems”.

It was a great idea — so great, that it’d already been done: I presented "Classic Gaming Inspirations" at KansasFest 2009 and "Classic Gaming Inspirations, Part Deux" in 2010. In each, I demoed modern games for Mac, PC, and iOS that were reminiscent of classic Apple II games. Despite being a familiar theme, I enjoyed giving those talks and felt that enough time had passed, so I decided to dust off the theme for 2016.

This year’s constraint: all the games had to be available for Steam, the digital distribution platform for games. And they had to be available for Mac, PC, and Linux. Fortunately, even given these limitations, I was not wanting for ideas, as I’d discovered many such games through IndieSider, my biweekly podcast where I interview indie game developers. Most KFesters know my podcasting efforts in the vintage computing realm, specifically on Open Apple and the Retro Computing Roundtable, but were not aware that I host gaming podcasts as well. It was fun to share this other side of myself with the audience.

Here are the Apple II genres and games I started with and the Steam games in which a modern gamer might find an echo of the past.

Genre	Classic game	Steam game	IndieSider?
Point and Click (First Person)	Shadowgate	Shadowgate	Yes
Point and Click (First Person)	Shadowgate	Read Only Memories	Yes
Point and Click (Third Person)	King's Quest	King's Quest	No
Point and Click (Third Person)	King's Quest	Kathy Rain	Yes
Point and Click (Third Person)	King's Quest	The Blackwell Legacy	No
Survival	Oregon Trail	Organ Trail	No
Platform	Dangerous Dave	VVVVVV	No
Platform	Dangerous Dave	Plangman	Yes
Platform	Impossible Mission	Master Spy	Yes
Action	Pac-Man	Pac-Man 256	Yes
RPG	Wasteland	Wasteland	No
RPG	Wasteland	Wasteland II	No

Thanks to Jason Scott’s speedy turnaround, a video of the presentation is already available online:

I had so many games in mind for this year’s talk that I had to keep many in reserve. Expect to see more Steam games at KansasFest 2017!