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
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
On this episode of Radio Active, I talk about returning to model rocketry, one of my all-time favorite hobbies, and then run down some of the great sci-fi shows I’m watching. The bulk of the show is dedicated to my trials and tribulations with getting enough sleep. It’s always been hard for me, but it got so much harder during the pandemic.
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
The Long, Dark, Winter is upon us, and in this episode, I talk about some strategies for dealing with it. I also talk about my family’s new Seeing Eye puppy, catch up on what’s been happening over the last year or so, and geek out about my new RPG campaigns.
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
I started bullet journaling in 2018. Periodically, while working on my journal in public, people will say “I always wanted to bullet journal, but I’m afraid of messing it up.” Or “I have the perfect notebook at home, but I’ll never use it because I don’t want to ruin it.” I tell them … it’s ok … Read more