Lemmings: rescuing Stoppers

I am still playing Psygnosis' Lemmings on my Amiga from 1991 - so here are a few more news from Lemmings: I've found it fairly sad all along, that for some abilities that you can give your Lemmings, you will have to leave them behind. The game design doesn't allow for all Lemmings to be … Continue reading Lemmings: rescuing Stoppers →

Age of Empires – I remembered it wrong

Now that Age of Empires is more than 25 years old, I thought it was about time to play it once more. After I had played the original game for a while, and after, Age of Empires II and III, I had last played the "Definitive Edition" a few years ago. One of the things … Continue reading Age of Empires – I remembered it wrong →

Level reuse

I continue to play Lemmings. During the "Tricky" set of levels, occasionally, Levels start to repeat. Well, only on first sight. The level layout is the same there as in the very first level in Lemmings: While the level layout is the same, the Lemming abilities differ - while you have diggers in the first … Continue reading Level reuse →

Annoying levels in Lemmings

Okay, I have been playing Lemmings recently - the original version on the Amiga. I uncovered a few shitty levels that I couldn't quite figure out right-away, but found they're very well designed. Look at this beginning - the goal is one screen to the right, but that's less complicated - the beginning is the … Continue reading Annoying levels in Lemmings →

Upgrading an Amiga 500, WHDload and disk trouble

With a little more time on my hands, I finally decided to plan and progress with some of my old and retro hardware and put them to meaningful and fun use. I have had two Amiga 500s for a while now, both in fair condition, and decided to keep one was pristine as possible, with … Continue reading Upgrading an Amiga 500, WHDload and disk trouble →

Game disk archiving

I am collecting the hardware and software from my past to preserve and show-display them in my home office for my personal pleasure. I have grown up with an Amiga 500 and an Amiga 2000, then later a 486/60MHz and later a Pentium with 200MHz. Especially the Amiga 500 has gotten me to start playing … Continue reading Game disk archiving →

Playing on real retro hardware

I've asked ChatGPT what it thinks about playing games on retro/old hardware vs. emulation: Playing retro games today is super easy: for many games, there are remakes that still run on modern computers or consoles - you can find them on your favorite gaming platform, like steam, which has a "Retro" tag for search, or … Continue reading Playing on real retro hardware →

Guiding a user through a story

I am playing Maniac Mansion on my C64 at the moment. After I've successfully found and purchased it off of ebay, in a very good condition with all of its original big box, including its contents: Box Manual Poster of announcement board Response card for purchasing merch The 5.25" disc - still working! …I wanted … Continue reading Guiding a user through a story →

Upgrading how video from the Amiga 500 is displayed

I have been looking into improving the video output on my Amiga 500 that I use for playing, capturing screenshots and capturing video. Not that the video quality was bad, but you could notice that there were distortions in the screenshots and the captured videos. It was more noticeable on my 1080p monitor that I … Continue reading Upgrading how video from the Amiga 500 is displayed →

Learnings from Maniac Mansion

Ron Gilbert talked about Maniac Mansion in a classic game postmortem at GDC. I've watched the recording for a second time now. Aside from the obvious fact that Ron is an excellent story teller, there's a few learnings and notes that I took away again. Some of the things he learned and mentioned were processed … Continue reading Learnings from Maniac Mansion →