Blog
CFP: Special issue of Convergence – Videogames and Hollywood in the 1990s
The Dame was Loaded (1996) Beam Software, DOS Call for Papers. We are inviting submissions for a special themed issue of Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. It will explore the synergies that emerged between Hollywood...
The Disc CD-ROM Magazine
“It’s about time my PC spoke with an Aussie accent!”
Aussie Racing Games
From adapting Australian championships like V8 supercars to including iconic brands like Holden, the videogame industry, both domestic and abroad, has sought to tap into Aussie car and racing culture.
Australia’s Equestrian Games – An Interview with Riding Star creator Andrew Niere
IR Gurus’ Andrew Niere shares insights into Australia’s homegrown equestrian games.
The making of Bad Street Brawler by Andrew Davie
I recall distinctly when the first Famicom (Japan version of the NES) arrived at Melbourne House/BEAM. Fred Milgrom had directed them to reverse engineer it. Nintendo, at that stage, wanted a significant fortune and your first-born child for the rights to program games for it – and Fred wasn’t going down that pathway. The Famicom was actually a 6502-based machine. I was a 6502 guy (as opposed to the Z80 people). It’s not that I really wanted to program the machine, but more that I realised that if it was any good, then I’d have an easy time of it. Little did I know.
How Nintendo threatened to destroy the early Australian Game industry
How Nintendo threatened to destroy the early Australian Game industry and Beam Software became an accredited developer for the NES. In 1983, when the Famicom was first released in Japan, Beam Software co-founder and CEO Alfred Milgrom travelled to Japan and acquired some machines. He brought them back to the South Melbourne offices of Beam where Adrian Thewlis, disassembled them.
Nintendo arrives in Australia
The NES arrived in Australia around July 1987 to a lacklustre reception. Mattel had prepared for the levels of success seen in Japan and the USA – including the pre-ordering of tens of thousands of units. But its marketing of the console as a toy, rather than a video game, saw the console straggle behind its major competitors.
Play It Again: Preserving Australian videogame history of the 1990s
This web portal forms part of Play it Again 2, a game history and preservation project focused on collecting and preserving Australian videogames of the 1990s. Learn more about the projects aims.
Veronika Megler on Storytelling – Luke C. Jackson interviews the designer of The Hobbit
In 2015, while undertaking a PhD in which I examined the role of a writer in creating narrative-driven games, I was fortunate enough to speak to four expert writers, each a pioneer in video game narrative design. One of these experts was Veronika M. Megler who, in her...
Why write a Commodore 64 game today?
July 12, 2015 is the release date of my first ever computer game named ‘Jam It’ – an arcade-style 2-on-2 basketball game. What’s unusual is that it’s for a computer which was very popular in the 80s – the Commodore 64. I have been asked many times why even...
From Melbourne House to Czechoslovak Clubs
Czechoslovakia of the 1980s was a country behind the so-called Iron Curtain. Its economy was in a dire shape and its citizens were either oppressed or annoyed (or both) by its conservative totalitarian regime. It required considerable personal connections to be...
4Mation: A British/Australian Box of Treasures
For many British children growing up in the 1980s, the theme tune and sight of the witch in the educational game Granny’s Garden will often evoke a nostalgic response. Following the release of the BBC Micro schools across Britain started to purchase the machine as government initiatives drove to educate a population about the microcomputing revolution.
Collector – Rob MacBride
At one point I was collecting anything and everything I could safely store, cart or console, now I’m far more picky and exclusive. If collecting for long enough, you develop a mental encyclopedia of all the rare stuff and begin an exclusive long term hunting expo.
Collector – Michael Davidson
Collector Michael Davidson – I’ve always had an interest from a young age in computers and videogames and I’m old enough to have grown up during a period when both were new and exciting. I own several items of interest from a New Zealand point of view.
Collector – Andrew Stephen
Collector – Andrew Stephen – I was lead into collecting by nothing more than misty-eyed nostalgia. My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81. In the early 80s, at 10 or 11 years old, I taught myself to program a ZX81 which was on display in a local electronics shop and eventually convinced my parents to buy one. In 1997 I realised I could use the Internet to try to find a ZX81 again …and play my favourite game of its time – Mazogs.
Microbee – Alan Laughton
Collector Alan Laughton. “Back in the 80’s I was also a stamp collector, so collecting came natural. But for computer games, there was a scarcity of games for the Microbee at the time, so one collected everything you could, be it a type-in, public domain, downloaded from a RBBS, swapped with a friend, etc.”
Sega Survivors – Nick Hook
Collector – Nick Hook -I think most collectors have their own nostalgic reasons for doing what they do, or at least that is how it starts. In my case, the Sega SC-3000 was my first computer. It was 1984 and I was 9 years when Mum and Dad brought it home for Christmas. I can still remember the excitement of seeing it plugged in and running for the first time on the little 12″ NEC colour TV they bought to go with it, and the thrill of listening to the Star Jacker theme music.
Sega Survivors – Andrew Kerr
Collector Andrew Kerr _ I was an avid reader as a child and you could argue that my original game collection consisted of all the Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy books! My personal interest reached the next level when I was gifted a SEGA SC-3000 computer. I became addicted to learning as much as I could about the computers capabilities because I found I wanted to create games instead of just playing them and that became the driver behind me collecting computer games.