Twenty years ago, the Temple of Elemental Evil rose, Oerth fell, and the Elemental Apocalypse began. Vortexes of power – unleashed by factions loyal to the four elemental princes – devastated the world with concurrent apocalypses; city-shattering earthquakes, nation-drowning tidal waves, forest-consuming infernos, and punishing hurricanes. Gods died, slain by the ascendent Elemental Princes who … Read more
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
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 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
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
On this special edition of Radio Active, we venture to the Zine Scene, that mystical, half-remembered place of photocopied pages and hand-stapled booklets, in its 2023 iteration.
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
Dice.Camp is a Mastodon-based alternative to Twitter built around role-playing games. With Elon Musk’s chaotic neutral leadership style playing havoc with Twitter on a daily basis, many of my online friends have migrated to this and other Mastodon-based social media alternatives. You can find me there as @nukehavoc. I also post frequent updates for the … Read more
Mothership is a rules-lite, science fiction horror RPG inspired by the likes of Alien and similar creature features. I backed the 2021 kickstarter, and while I wait for the boxed set to arrive, I searched for introductory Mothership RPG adventures to run with my friends (or at my local convention, MEPACon). Thanks to the Mothership RPG Discord, I … Read more
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