Apple II Bits

In the Austin Grossman novel You, our hero is asked, "So what’s your ultimate game?

"You know, the game you’d make if you could make any game at all," the long-haired designed explained.

"Forget about budget," the short guy added. "You’re in charge. Just do anything! Greatest game ever!"

"The Ultimate Game," I said, "I can do just… anything?”

They nodded. I felt ridiculous. Was the Ultimate Game the one in which I ride a hundred-foot-tall pink rhino through the streets, driving my enemies before me? The one where the chess pieces come alive and talk in a strange poetry? Is it just a game where I always win?

"So… okay, okay. You’re playing chess, right, but all the pieces are actual monsters, and when you take one you have to… actually fight… it?" Why were they looking at me that way?

"You mean like in Archon? For the C64?"

"Um. Right."

Archon, a Greek word that means "ruler" or "lord"¹ — also a monster in Dungeons & Dragons² — was a multiplatform action-strategy game distributed by Electronic Arts in 1983. I played it on the NES, but it was also available for the Apple II. Players took turns moving pieces across a board that fluctuated through a spectrum of light and dark, with each extreme favoring a different team. The game pieces had different strengths and capabilities, from shapeshifting to spellcasting, that they brought into combat. I loved playing Archon with my older brothers, as its mix of fast-paced battle with more thoughtful tactics played to my jack-of-all-trades nature. Some of my brothers were faster than me, and others were smarter, but needing having to be both leveled the playing field more than other games did. (The Super NES game Actraiser would later take a similar approach, to great — and inimitable — success.)

A 1984 sequel, Archon II: Adept, was also published for home computers but never got ported to game consoles, thus escaping my notice.

But I did get to revisit the concept almost two decades later. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2003, my last year attending the still-ongoing event, I visited the LucasArts booth, which had more than just Star Wars games:

I briefly left a galaxy far, far away to observe Wrath Unleashed, an action-strategy game. It struck me as bearing a slight resemblance to another game, but the more I saw of Wrath Unleashed, the less slight the resemblance became, until I had to ask the LucasArts rep, "Have you ever played an old game called ‘Archon’?” Rather than profess ignorance or extort the differences, he simply nodded and said, "Exactly."

But somehow, the core mechanics hadn’t aged well. Perhaps it was because my brothers had grown up, leaving video games (and their gaming sibling) behind. But I didn’t find the same engagement and tension in Wrath Unleashed that I did in Archon. (Sibling rivalry was likely a factor in Austin Grossman’s affair with Archon, too: his brother Lev included it in his list of the ten greatest games for the Apple II.)

Is Archon the ultimate game? No. That title would likely belong to Zork, or The Legend of Zelda, or something equally revolutionary and genre-defining. But what Archon has in common with those games is timelessness: even today, playing the ruler of a shifting battlefield is still fun.

For a more thorough review of Archon, including a "Where are they now?" of the game’s programmers, read The 8-Bit Game: Digesting Archon | 8bitrocket, by Jeff Fulton. (Hat tip to Blake Patterson)

Mary Hopper began making waves this August when she announced her intention to found a computer history museum in Boston. News of the Digital Den was picked up by Open Apple, the Retro Computing Roundtable, the Boston Globe, and Apple II Bits.

The museum continues to evolve into a extant institution, as evidenced by the launch party held on October 20. As a backer of the museum’s Indiegogo campaign, I received an invitation to the event, where I was pleased to make the acquaintance of Dr. Hopper, Adam Rosen of the Vintage Mac Museum, and Ian S. King of the Living Computer Museum, as well as catch up with fellow retrocomputing enthusiast Dave Ross. On-hand were classic computers such as the Apple II, TI-99, and Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as newer tech like the Oculus Rift. It was an encouraging occasion for a museum that continues to seek a permanent home.

My photos from the event are posted below and are available under a CC-BY-NC license. The book featured below, Gordon Bell’s Out of a Closet: The Early Years of The Computer [x]* Museum, is available online as a PDF. For more photos from the event, including a silly one of me by Rus Gant, see the Digital Den’s first exhibit photos.

Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Wozniak is said to have created the Apple because he wanted to play arcade games at home. But the Apple wasn’t Woz’s only game machine; he was highly addicted to the Game Boy, Nintendo’s handheld that came packaged with the puzzle game Tetris. For as long as the official Nintendo Power magazine printed gamers’ high scores, Woz reigned supreme as Tetris champion.

Now you can watch him tell the story himself as he revisits his favorite game. The digital edition of latest issue of Game Informer magazine features a video of Steve Wozniak getting his Tetris on while he recounts his encounters with the game and his evangelization of the Game Boy to world leaders of two decades ago.

From Woz’s repeated exclamations of "Uh, oh — I’m in trouble here!" and the lack of direct screen capture, it’s hard to tell if Woz is still the Tetris master he was in his youth. But it’s nonetheless fun to watch his boyish amusement with the world continue to shine.

I am not an artist — at least, not in the sense of having skill at design, drawing, or painting. I can write elegantly, exhibit comic timing in a British farce, even sing a tune or two. But being able to draw something that is immediately recognizable is a skill I have not yet acquired.

I thus have difficulty expressing myself on the Wii U. Nintendo’s latest video game system combines traditional and tablet gaming by using a controller that features a touch screen. Gamers can use the included stylus to draw black-and-white art that is then shared with other denizens of the "Miiverse". Nintendo must approve every drawing, ensuring a family-friendly art exhibit.

I’ve compiled slideshows of hundreds of amazing sketches that baffle me in their complexity; I am astounded at how much these players can do given so little. But until recently, none of the artwork that impressed me was meant just for me.

That was until Wii U inhabitant OverNiven sent me this message:

As stunning as the art is that I’ve seen on the Wii U, none has made me happier than this confident expression: an old friend who hasn’t been in KansasFest in years, if not decades, will finally return.

See you at KansasFest 2013!

Apple II emulators are most broadly used on modern platforms, such as Sweet16 for Mac OS X or AppleWin for Windows. But the Apple II inspires a hacker’s "can-do" spirit, and for the novelty if no other reason, the Apple II has been emulated in a variety of non-standard environments.

Video game consoles are likely targets for emulation, as unintuitive as that may seem. WiiApple was released for the Nintendo Wii back in 2009. It unfortunately hasn’t been updated. It supports a USB keyboard as well as GameCube and Wii controllers as a substitute for a standard Apple II joystick. Similarly, Soul Captor for the now-defunct Sega Dreamcast was released in 2002. It too requires a physical keyboard — no iOS-style virtual keyboards here.

But perhaps most interesting is this Apple II emulator for the Fossil Wrist, a Palm OS-based PDA that was sold 2003–2005. This Dick Tracy watch featured a 160×160 B&W touchscreen and could run most Palm software. Using the program Appalm ][ (formerly PalmApple), the wristwatch could could be turned into a portable Apple II.

Karateka is everywhere!
Photo by Don Dula.

There are many more details about the Fossil Wrist on DonDula’s blog post. And, of course, there are many other unusual emulators out there, which I cannot begin to attempt to catalog here. Suffice to say that, chances are, if it’s a computer, you can upgrade it to an Apple II.

(Hat tips to Sayt and Javster)

In February, I shared the news that Jordan Mechner‘s original Apple II game, Karateka, is being relaunched. But as discussed in the September episode of Open Apple, the direction this reimagining is taking could leave traditionalists perplexed.

When an iOS port of the new Karateka was confirmed, Touch Arcade reported this summary of the game:

In this rhythm-fighting game, players assume the role of three Japanese warriors attempting to rescue a kidnapped princess from an evil warlord. Players engage in frenetic one-on-one battles with various enemies, using timed martial arts moves (i.e., punch/kick combos) to stun opponents and drain their health meters. Matches are highlighted by battle cries, colorful light flashes, and slow motion effects; when players’ character is knocked out, a brief cutscene depicts him falling down the side of a mountain.

A rhythm game? One in which players time their input to match the game’s soundtrack — like PaRappa the Rapper?

At the time of PaRappa’s release for the original Sony PlayStation in 1997, I gave it a score of 8.0 out of 10 — not terribly compelling in today’s competitive video game market. But PaRappa has stood the test of time better than I expected, and most gamers who knew this quirky little title look back on it fondly. It’s often considered the first modern rhythm game, a genre that grown in popularity thanks to titles such as Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and Elite Beat Agents.

So yes, rhythm games can be fun — but I’m having a hard time envisioning the hero’s ascent of Akuma’s fortress to rescue Princess Mariko as a music-based game. What sparse soundtrack the original Karateka featured was not central to the gameplay experience, so to introduce a core mechanic absent in the series origin strains the continuity of the franchise.

It’s also possible that Touch Arcade was fed inaccurate infomration. We’ll find out when the game is released for Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii U, and other platforms later this year.