Raaka-tu – Ready Player One Video Game Replay

A list of text-based descriptions and commands.

Raaka-tu is a text adventure game (we call it interactive fiction today) released by Radio Shack in 1981 for its TRS-80 and TRS-80 Color Computer. The game was written by Robert Arnstein. Despite playing a ton of text adventure games as a kid (such as Colossal Cave, Zork, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), I never … Read more

E.T. : The Extra-Terrestrial – The Ready Player One Video Replay

The title screen for the ET video game, with the text ET and a picture of the alien's head

Released in December 1982, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is a notoriously bad game. Based on the Steven Speilberg movie of the same name, popular gaming lore blames it for the collapse of the video game industry in 1983 and claims hundreds of thousands of E.T. game cartridges were buried in a landfill. There’s some truth to this … Read more

Starmaster – The Ready Player One Video Replay

A dogfight with an enemy. White stars appear on a black background. A green enemy starfighter appears in the upper left.

Starmaster is Activision’s take on the emerging first-person, star-fighter genre. Released in 1982 and written by Alan Miller, it features gameplay similar to Atari’s Star Raiders (without the complexity of the “Video Touch Pad Controller” add-on hardware). It plays a minor role in Ready Player One, appearing in a single line. Quote Beside the Atari was a shoebox containing … Read more

Yars’ Revenge – The Ready Player One Video Replay

An insectoid 8-bit character appears to the left of the screen. A colored band appears down the middle. A red swirl has just passed the colored band.

As a kids, Yars’ Revenge was always one of our go-to games on the Atari 2600. Despite not being a two-player game, my friends and I would spend hours trying to get the highest possible score … and see if we could catch a glimpse of the Ghost of Yar. Atari released Yars’ Revenge in 1982. Created by … Read more

Radio Active #100: The Golden Age of Online RPGs

Cover art for Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS, Brindlewood Bay

On Radio Active’s 100th episode I talk about Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, a shoot-and-loot video game based on the Borderlands franchise, go on a solitary, geeky retreat to work on RPG and podcast projects, and contemplate the golden age of online role-playing games. Nuketown News Radio Active’s 100th Episode It finally happened – Radio Active hit … Read more

Follow Me to Dice.Camp!

Two rows of different-colored twenty-sided dice.

With Twitter in a state of near-constant chaos thanks to Elon Musk’s chaotic neutral leadership style, many of my online friends have migrated to Mastodon-based social media alternatives. In particular, many in the RPG community have either moved or set up outposts on, Dice.Camp. Mastodon is an open-source social media application that anyone can use … Read more

Searching for Introductory Mothership Adventures

Mothership Role-Playing Game Logo

Mothership is a rules-lite, science fiction horror RPG inspired by the likes of Alien and similar creature features. The “Zero Edition” by Tuesday Night Games was available for years; the 2021 kickstarter saw 15,699 backers pledge $1,405,569 to fund its first edition. I backed it at the deluxe level, which should yield a very impressive boxed set. The target ship … Read more

Star Raiders – Ready Player One Video Game Replay

A first-person view out of starship cockpit.

Atari released Star Raiders for the 2600 in 1980. Somehow, someway … I never played it, yet based on Wikipedia’s accounting, it inspired many of the games I love including Wing Commander, and Star Wars: X-Wing. In the novel Ready Player One, it gets a single mention alongside such 2600 classics as Yar’s Revenge and The Empire Strike’s Back as well as the … Read more