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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 18h

Anybody remember when Sonic Team's next big franchise after the hedgehog was... Billy Hatcher? (Here's a teaser ad from 2003, in case you forgot...)

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Reposted by Video Game History Foundation

Stephanie Brownback @osu16bit.bsky.social · 1d

My October random magazine from @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social is this 1996 issue of PS Extreme. I have no memories of this magazine and I was reading everything back then. 🤷‍♀️

Highlights include a baffling ad for Reloaded, declaring Tomb Raider “the adult Mario”, and GIVING BUBSY 3D A 93%! “

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 1d

Has the VGHF archived original Bubsy 3D art from a press CD provided to GamePro magazine? Yes. Do you want it? No? Well you're getting it anyhow... archive.gamehistory.org/folder/0119a...

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 1d

This comes from a press CD we digitized for WCW/nWo Revenge. We're working on getting the next batch of ~100 CDs from the GamePro art collection into our digital archive!

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 1d

It's Macho Man Monday

Macho Man Randy Savage in his nWo costume, posing dramatically.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 3d

Legend Of Zelda magazine covers? Expected! A Link's Crossbow Training magazine cover - from Tips & Tricks Video Game Codebook back in 2008? Not so much...

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 4d

Sounds like someone's legs are gonna have to get broken

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 5d

The latest Video Game History Hour podcast talks to Dr. Stephanie Harkin, lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, about her research on video games in girls’ lifestyle magazines like Girl Gamer & Total Girl: gamehistory.org/episode-141-...

Episode 141: Hidden Advertising of Feminine Games | Video Game History Foundation

Phil Salvador interviews Dr. Stephanie Harkin, lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) School of Design Games Program in Australia, about her research on femininity in gaming, p...

gamehistory.org

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 6d

There's so much interesting material in the Volk papers. Thanks to this spreadsheet, now we know who was developing two unreleased games for SNES:

River Raid: Mission of No Return - Beam Software
Kaboom: The Mad Doctor's Revenge - Sculptured Software

archive.gamehistory.org/item/f7a609c...

A development timeline for various projects, including "River Raid" and "Kaboom." Both projects were canceled in mid-June 1993.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 6d

We've fixed an issue that affected search results in this collection. If you haven't checked out the William Volk papers yet, now's a great time to dig in!

archive.gamehistory.org/folder/2cc8f...

150 search results for "zork." The "Show uncatalogued files" box is checked.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 6d

archive.gamehistory.org/folder/8c15f...

Quan Chi, looking at you like you just took the last piece of cake and he hadn't gotten a slice yet.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 7d

FYI: We're aware of an issue where many items in this collection aren't coming up in search. We're working on it!

Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

Introducing the William Volk papers, a new digital collection in the VGHF Library!

Explore thousands of documents, developments schedules, and memos from the early history of Activision.

Read more: gamehistory.org/william-volk...

Discovering Activision's early history | VGHF Library Highlights

YouTube video by The Video Game History Foundation

www.youtube.com

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

We didn't catch that! In his report from Winter CES 1993, William Volk speculated about porting MechWarrior II to the SNES using the Super FX chip. The idea probably didn't go any further than that, but could you imagine?

3. Nintendo FX Chip. As used in Skyfox. Allows for excellent 3D drawing of polygons and shapes. We might want to start planning a Mechwarrior II for SNES that uses the chip.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

We can't wait to see what connections you make from the materials in this collection!

The William Volk papers are now open for research access in our digital library: archive.gamehistory.org/folder/2cc8f...

A graph showing the projected prices of technology from 1990–1998. Notable events include "CD-i lives or dies" and "Windows in home."

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

William Volk would also do research on competing titles. When Volk was working on Return to Zork, the team kept a document with every comment they could find on Compuserve about The 7th Guest.

Like this review from 1993... by 14-year-old Geoff Keighley.

archive.gamehistory.org/item/5e5d44a...

Message: #345881, S/12 *HOT*/Timequest
Date: Sat, May 1, 1993 7:33:20 PM
Subject: T7G REVIEW
From: Geoff Keighley 71044,412
To: All
Reply: #346403 (1 reply)

Well I would like to post my feeling on this game, and see what you guys have to say about it.

Last night when I started to play it, I was amazed at the quality of the graphics and sound. I actually enjoyed the first puzzle.

Then after the initial "WOW" of the graphics/sound wore off, I became bored with the puzzles. They all seem pretty impossible, and not very fun at all.

So all in all, I'd say the graphics/sound are the best I have seen on a PC, but it is a shame the puzzles are so "dull".

I think Trilobyte should be very proud of their first effort. I hope they plan on producing another game with these amazing graphics/sound, but try to make it a little more fun to play and include some more original puzzles.

COMMENTS on my review?

-=GEoFF=-

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

Volk also saved *weekly* development schedules for games in development at Activision!

You can learn what happened to games like Death Track for the Game Boy, which was canceled because Activision wanted to attach the Mad Max license to it.

archive.gamehistory.org/item/af600d7...

A status item for Death Track (previously "Trail Blazers.")

"trying to get MAD MAX license but doesn't look hopeful
more changes are being made. the product is looking better .
SHOULD WE CANCEL IF WE GET NO LICENSE!!!!!!!!!!!"

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

Volk and his team traveled to events around the world to see the latest in the game industry.

You can read write-ups about events like the 1993 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, where Volk expressed some skepticism about the new 3DO.

archive.gamehistory.org/item/68f231f...

B. Hardware:

1. 3DO. Programmers are ga-ga over the system. Producers and other industry folks are cautions (myself included). It did look like they had real prototype hardware at the show. One cautionary note, just like Microsoft and Windows they are doing everything possible to prevent you from using your own image, audio, and video formats. It "trust us, use our operating system" all over again. My guess is that their digital video is around the same compression ratio as ours, but requires a lot of the CPU. They were running "banded" video (half height) and with the power of the 3DO, we should do better. Also I'm worried about operating system problems and have a basic mistrust of using "their code" for all of our animation. I'm also sure EA will get access to the hardware "some how."

2. Pioneer Laser Interactive. A Laser Video Based player with a "overlay" plane of interactive graphics. The interactive portion can be provided by a Sega or NEC "video game system in a cart" plug-in. Looks great, but suffers from the "Interruptable Media" syndrome.

3. Nintendo FX Chip. As used in Skyfox. Allows for excellent 3D drawing of polygons and shapes. We might want to start planning a Mechwarrior II for SNES that uses the chip.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

William Volk was the VP of technology at Activision from 1988–1994. He was in charge of managing their new tech, engines and hardware.

Volk kept hundreds of memos related to upcoming platforms, like this very early writeup on the "Sony PS-X game machine"

archive.gamehistory.org/item/65c7b6b...

RE: Sony PS-X Specifications
To: Interested Activision Staff
From: Bill Swartz
Date: November 24, 1993
------------------------------------------------------------

The following is a brief technical summary of the Sony PS-X game machine. This summary did not come not from Sony, and may be subject to error. However, I believe it to be very accurate.

Main CPU
Modified R3000 RISC chip. Features a 33MHZ clock, through put of 30 MIPS, a 4 MB instruction cache and a 1KB data cache. Bus band width is 132 MB/sec.

Geometry Engine
Specialized processor.
66 MIPS throughput
Can calculate 1.5 million polygons/second maximum through put for each of three separate triangular vertices [flat], or
500,000 polygons/second while doing shading, texture mapping and light source calculations.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

Introducing the William Volk papers, a new digital collection in the VGHF Library!

Explore thousands of documents, developments schedules, and memos from the early history of Activision.

Read more: gamehistory.org/william-volk...

Discovering Activision's early history | VGHF Library Highlights

YouTube video by The Video Game History Foundation

www.youtube.com

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 8d

We're opening a new collection of developer material tomorrow! Sign up for our email list to get the news directly gamehistory.org/email

A spreadsheet showing the status of various game development projects.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 11d

‪The founders of MAGFest attempted to promote the event guerilla-style at E3 2002, which meant handing out t-shirts to random attendees and hitting up gaming celebrities on the show floor

Seen here: MAGFest founder Joseph Yamine with visibly confused Working Designs president Vic Ireland

Joseph Yamine and Vic Ireland posing for a photo in front of a large fern, which takes up most of the frame.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 11d

We love providing *context* for video game history, and this mini-collection is choked full of context.

Specifically, it shows you how the first MAGFest was founded by anime nerds in Roanoke, VA, who modeled the event after anime conventions

A flyer for RoAnime Club, which confusingly states "No admission with membership."

The opening page of the program for MAGFest 1, featuring an anime mascot character for MAGFest who has not been seen in decades.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 11d

Today is the 23rd anniversary of the... Mid Atlantic Gamers Festival?

With help from @magfest.org and @kohler.bsky.social, we've assembled a collection of archival materials that tell the story of the first MAGFest event from 2002!

archive.gamehistory.org/folder/198d0...

A flyer for the Mid Atlantic Gamers Festival at the Holiday Inn Tanglewood in Roanoka, VA, September 27-29, 2002.

"2000+ square feet main game room. Guest video game voice actors. Industry insiders. Game developers. The first video game convention by fans for fans that is non industry, non trade show."

A promotional booth for the first MAGFest, titled the Mid Atlantic Video Game Festival. They're playing Devil's Crush on a Commodore monitor.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 12d

...folks we have bad news

We're missing one more issue. Volume 5, Issue 6, March 2005.

Our nightmare never ends

A message from Frank Cifaldi. "Sorry to be pedantic but I think we're missing the last issue of original PSE2. Pretty sure we're missing 5-6"

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 12d

On Patreon for our paid members: We have a preview for a new collection coming very soon to our digital library!

For researchers who want to spend the next month going through spreadsheets and memos to find new information about game history... this one's for you

Preview of the William Volk papers | The Video Game History Foundation

www.patreon.com

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