The Tudor Kings

I’ve had a running joke with my wife Dorte for almost as long as we’ve been a couple. I reasoned back in the day that, since she was going to be a doctor — a more reliable source of income than writing about computer games — she should be expected to buy me the Porsche […]

Rehabilitating Richard

Looking back from the vantage point of today, it’s hard for even me to believe, but it’s true all the same: I used to be a full-blown car guy. I bought my first car, a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle, for $800 in 1989, when I was sixteen years old. The bad thing about a Beetle was […]

Richard Goes to the Movies

This article tells part of the story of Maxis Software. I don’t think people realize how much tactical and strategic forethought goes into their daily lives. There’s a whole subconscious time-efficiency layer in our lives. In essence, real-time strategy is our lives. — Will Wright On the morning of October 19, 1991, two weeks after […]

Hi, folks… I’ll have the last article in the series on Maxis Software for you next week. Today, I’m happy to say that the new ebook, covering the historical year 1999, is available, and on a far more timely basis than the last one at that. My thanks go to Richard Lindner, for developing the […]

Opus 5: Richard III

This article tells part of the story of Maxis Software. Maxis came into 1994 riding high on the wings of SimCity 2000, the hit of the previous holiday season. They followed up that success with… SimHealth: The National Health Care Simulation. This may sound like satire, but it was all too real. To be clear, SimHealth was […]

Opus 4: Henry VI, Part 3

This article tells part of the story of Maxis Software. I’m still to this day just blown away by continental drift and things like that, stuff that most people think sounds pretty boring. — Will Wright Gamers are both extremely dedicated to and really good at preserving the history of their hobby. Seldom has a […]

Opus 3: Henry VI, Part 2

Although I’ve played way too many games for way too many hours over the way too many years I’ve been writing these histories, it’s safe to say that I haven’t spent more time with any one game than Heroes of Might and Magic II. Partly this was down to circumstance. Heroes II showed up on the […]

This article tells part of the story of Dungeons & Dragons on the tabletop and on computers. Usually if you choose the longest dialog option, that’s the best option. — Chris Avellone Quite some years ago now, I briefly interviewed Brian Fargo about Interplay’s 1988 adaptation of the William Gibson novel Neuromancer. He was plainly busy […]

This article tells part of the general story of Dungeons & Dragons on the tabletop and on computers, which includes the more specific one of the Infinity Engine games. My power fantasy when playing a role-playing game is to confront a villain, explain point by point why his master plan is flawed, and then get […]

This series of articles chronicles the history, both real and pseudo, behind Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. It is possible to trace the Plantard family tree a fair ways back without relying on the Lobineau dossier, but not as far back as the time when the Merovingian kings ruled […]

This series of articles chronicles the history, both real and pseudo, behind Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was published by Jonathan Cape in Britain on January 18, 1982. Delacorte released an American edition five weeks later, under the punchier title of simply […]

This series of articles chronicles the history, both real and pseudo, behind Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. Henry Lincoln promised at the end of “The Priest, the Painter, and the Devil” that he would continue to investigate the case of François-Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château. He proved as good as […]

This series of articles chronicles the history, both real and pseudo, behind Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. Rennes-le-Château enjoyed its first watershed moment as a media phenomenon when Albert Salamon wrote his newspaper articles in 1956. Its second came when a documentary about the village was aired on French […]

This series of articles chronicles the history, both real and pseudo, behind Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. Believe that there is a secret and you will feel an initiate. It doesn’t cost a thing. Create an enormous hope that can never be eradicated because there is no root. Ancestors […]