An award-nominated documentary and narrative audio series about video games and the video game industry — as they were in the past, and how they came to be the way they are today. History doesn't just vanish into the distance behind us; it casts a very long shadow that affects everything that comes after it, and so with The Life and Times of Video Games journalist and historian Richard Moss draws those through lines to tell fascinating stories about the past that link right back to the present.
https://lifeandtimes.games
Indie Spotlight: Richard Bannister (Retro Games for Mac Collection)
This is a sponsored post, but don't let that turn you off. I made a point of doing the interview as I would any other — and Richard Bannister has some fun stories to tell.
Richard Bannister is best-known for his Mac-native emulator ports of BSNES, Nestopia, Genesis Plus, and Boycott Advance, plus some two-dozen others, which he built and maintained through the 2000s and returned to relatively recently after a long hiatus. But he also has a fantastic game music player called Audio Overload (with Mac and Windows versions) that supports more than 30 console/handheld/computer file formats.
And this year, during a period of unemployment, he decided to flex his creative muscles and make some games. He's up to 20 in all, each inspired by a classic arcade game or early home computer puzzle game — and very often by multiple variants of a particular game — and he's selling them on the Mac App Store. He's got his own version of Mr Do — via Amstrad CPC clone Fruity Frank — called Fascinating Fruit, and a Snake/Pac-Man hybrid called Wacky Snake, plus a Crystal Quest reimagining called Space Diamonds and a JezzBall/Barrack clone called Little Green Balls that I can personally attest feels just like the original. And many others, available individually or in two discounted bundles.
In this interview we discuss his Retro Games for Mac collection — its inspirations, design, development, cheat codes(!), and future plans — as well as his 90s shareware games and his contributions to the emulator scene.
Interview notes:
- His Breakout-style game is called Shaded Bricks
- It's inspired by Commodore 64 game Crillion
- 1992 Mac game Diamonds
- Fascinating Fruit is based on the arcade game Mr Do
- But also on Amstrad CPC game Fruity Frank
- cheat codes include "drfauci" to give your character a mask and "fiveaday" to swap fruits and vegetables out for junk food (see below for how they change the appearance)
- I covered the rise and fall of Ambrosia Software in a PAX talk that you can read/listen to here
- Ambrosia Software's Pengo clone Bubble Trouble is no longer available, except via abandonware sites
- Ice Squishing
- His shareware games included Smashing Windows and Star Chaos
- Pang aka Buster Brothers arcade game
- Crystal Quest is available on modern systems (Mac, Windows, Xbox 360) thanks to the company co-founded by its creator Patrick Buckland
- There was indeed a Game Boy port, though the game was never going to work well with d-pad controls
- Richard Bannister's original shareware clone was called Space Debris
- His new version is Space Diamonds
- Richard Bannister's emulators
- Audio Overload
- You can find some of the games and emulators John Stiles made at the Macintosh Garden
- Frodo C64 emulator (and Richard Bannister's Mac port)
- French-territory-only computer, the Thomson MO5
- RB's emulators of them: Thom, TEO, MO5
- Cities Skylines
- Wacky Snake - Pac-Man/Snake hybrid
- You can send RB feedback via the form at bannister.org/email or from inside any of his games
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