Best Shareware Podcasts (2024)

1
PAX Panel: Shareware Downunder 1:08:57

1+ y ago1:08:57

1:08:57

I was on a panel about shareware games at PAX Australia in October, with Halloween Harry / Alien Carnage co-creator John Passfield, indie developer and bookshop owner Terry Burdak, and ACMI games curator Arieh Offman. This is the full audio from that panel. You can find a PDF of my slides from the panel at this Dropbox link. I've also got John's sl…

1
Soundbite: Home of the Underdogs founder Sarinee Achavanuntakul on abandonware vs piracy 8:56

2y ago8:56

8:56

I'm still a ways off of finishing the next full episode, but here's something to fill the void in the meantime. When I spoke to Home of the Underdogs founder Sarinee Achavanuntakul, we had a long segue into the broken world of copyright and its connections to the abandonware scene in games. I'm not sure how much of it will make it into the main sto…

1
If Monks Had Macs (Ludiphilia re-release) 36:27

2+ y ago36:27

36:27

To wrap up the year I wanted to revisit one of my old favourites: a story I made for my other (currently-inactive) podcast about one of the strangest and most thought-provoking programs ever created. This is the story of If Monks Had Macs. Original description It all started with a Macintosh ad: 'You too can be a knowledge worker.' This is the stor…

1
The Tomb Raider grid (remastered) 1:01:12

2+ y ago1:01:12

1:01:12

To celebrate the 25th birthday of my favourite game franchise, I thought I'd pull out the old Tomb Raider grid episodes from Season 1 and merge them into one. I also put some time into cleaning up the audio, though it'll still sound rough compared to newer episodes — given the lower-fidelity recordings I was using then. Here's the original episode …

1
33 - MobyGames, the IMDB of Video Games 56:19

2+ y ago56:19

56:19

There was no encyclopaedia nor fleshed-out database of video games in 1999. There were barely even any reliable or comprehensive lists of video games. Not until Jim Leonard decided he needed to build one. He called it MobyGames, and 22 years later it's the de facto source for credits, screenshots, and other general information about video games. It…

1
Interview: Kate Willaert (A Critical Hit) 1:34:10

2+ y ago1:34:10

1:34:10

I speak to games historian and graphic designer Kate Willaert about her research and current projects, as well as her efforts to turn this work into a job. We also voice our complaints about Google's Usenet archives, discuss the horrible world of YouTube publishing, the struggles of getting your work seen/read/heard as a content creator today, the …

1
32 - Flight Control, the simple little iPhone game that helped redefine an industry 42:10

3y ago42:10

42:10

How a game designed in a week helped to change everything — for the company that made it, for a local industry in turmoil, and for a global industry in transition. Features interviews with Defiant Development co-founder Morgan Jaffit and Firemint founder / Flight Control creator Rob Murray, along with a clip of former Touch Arcade editor Eli Hodapp…

1
Interview: Andrew Borman (Strong Museum of Play, PtoPOnline) 57:39

3y ago57:39

57:39

The Strong Museum of Play's digital games curator Andrew Borman describes his deep passion for uncovering and preserving cancelled, unreleased, and prototype games. This is so much more than a vocation for him, and here you get to hear all the stories and insights he shared with me when I interviewed him for the season 4 finale, The Ghosts of Games…

1
Soundbite: Chris Crawford on thinking in processes vs facts 10:00

3y ago10:00

10:00

When I interviewed the legendary game designer and GDC founder Chris Crawford for episode 30, on his famous Dragon Speech, I asked him if he'd have pursued this dragon had he known he'd still be chasing it three decades later. He admitted that he probably would have not. He'd have instead put his energy into making more simulations, teaching people…

1
31 - Ghosts of Games That Never Were 41:00

3y ago41:00

41:00

What about the games that never make it to market? Do they have stories worth telling, or lessons worth learning? These are the ghosts of games that never were. With help from The Video Game History Foundation's Frank Cifaldi, The Strong Museum of Play's Andrew Borman, Games That Weren't author/curator Frank Gasking, Tomb Raider superfan Ash Kaprie…

1
Soundbite: Chris Crawford on how to give a great speech 11:02

3+ y ago11:02

11:02

If you've listened to episode 30 of the show, even if you weren't previously aware of his work, you'll know what a brilliant orator Chris Crawford is. The Dragon Speech, that famous moment where he charged out of the games industry — by literally charging out of the room — was arguably his magnum opus. And it was only possible thanks to Chris's mas…

1
A Christmas gift from meow to you 11:11

3+ y ago11:11

11:11

Given the hellish year we've had in 2020, I thought it'd be fun to close the year with a touch of levity...in the form of my cat, interrupting me, and just generally wanting to be podcast famous. Happy holidays. May your 2021 be blessed with joy and happiness and dreams fulfilled. Or at least better tidings than this year brought. Thank you to my P…

1
Interview: Sam Dyer (Bitmap Books) 1:15:00

3+ y ago1:15:00

1:15:00

I speak to Bitmap Books founder/publisher/owner/designer Sam Dyer about the hows and whys of publishing visually-led, high-quality books about games history, including why he loves to publish them and why they are so much more than just "picture books" — indeed, as we cover in the interview, there's both a huge amount of care and craft that goes in…

1
30 - The Dragon Speech, and Chris Crawford's improbable dream 38:26

3+ y ago38:26

38:26

It was "the greatest speech he ever gave in his life", and it marked a turning point in his pursuit of his dream, but it had the note of a eulogy. This is the story of how — and why — the legendary designer Chris Crawford left the games industry in an opening-day lecture at the 1993 Game Developers Conference, an event that he had founded just six …

1
Soundbite: Don Daglow on life at Mattel in the early days of the Intellivision 10:45

3+ y ago10:45

10:45

Utopia and Intellivision World Series Baseball designer Don Daglow, one of the original five game programmers in Mattel's Intellivision group, describes his years spent at the company dodging forklifts, dumpster diving, listening to toys being smashed, and sharing a space with the rest of the electronics division. To learn more about Don Daglow and…

1
29 - Utopia, and the teacher who made a game of its impossibility 38:28

3+ y ago38:28

38:28

When Don Daglow pitched management at Mattel on an Intellivision game about trying to build a perfect society, he thought he was just creating a "line filler" in their product calendar. Instead he made one of the most important games of all time. Don wrote a book in 2018 about the business and design insights he's gained from his long career making…

1
Indie Spotlight: Richard Bannister (Retro Games for Mac Collection) 32:07

3+ y ago32:07

32:07

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…

1
28 - Transport Tycoon (aka the great optimiser, Chris Sawyer) 36:10

3+ y ago36:10

36:10

On the rise and, um...fade out(?) of Chris Sawyer, the genius creator of bestselling, critically-acclaimed simulation games Transport Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon — who made a career out of working at the cutting-edge, in bare metal assembly code that he wrote and optimised (and optimised again) on his own, until the cutting-edge left him behind…

1
Soundbite: Vance Cook on inventing new control mechanics for virtual golf 10:28

3+ y ago10:28

10:28

Former Links, PGA Championship Golf, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour lead Vance Cook explains how and why his team(s) created new ways to swing a virtual golf club — beginning with the C-shaped gauge in Links and leading into "TruSwing" on Front Page Sports Golf and PGA Championship, and then ending with the motion-controller (Wiimote) swing in Tiger Wood…

1
27 - Links 40:01

3+ y ago40:01

40:01

In 1990, in a bid to move ahead of their rivals, Access Software reinvented virtual golf. Their game Links set the template for golf games over the next decade, with a technological tour de force, and along the way it dominated bestselling PC games charts month after month, year after year. Until suddenly it didn't. This is the story of Links and t…

1
The Life & Times of Video Games trailer 1:27

3+ y ago1:27

1:27

An 87-second promo trailer for The Life & Times of Video Games, encapsulating the essence of its form, style, and content over three seasons and counting. Have you ever wondered about the stories behind your favourite video games? Like, how they were made and why they were designed a certain way? The Life and Times of Video Games has the answers to…

1
26 - The Nostalgia Box 38:58

3+ y ago38:58

38:58

I go inside Australia's only permanent video game console museum and find that what makes it special is more than just the size of its collection — or the fact that it exists. Links The Nostalgia Box website The Nostalgia Box is @nostalgia_box on Twitter And @nostalgiabox on Instagram Jessie Yeoh interview snippet taken from this WAtoday article Th…

1
Interview: Kelsey Lewin (Video Game History Foundation and Pink Gorilla Games) 1:34:35

3+ y ago1:34:35

1:34:35

I speak to Kelsey Lewin, a video game historian and collector, retro games store owner, and self-proclaimed Wonderswan enthusiast, about the challenges — and also the merits — of researching and archiving the artefacts connected to games development and culture, both past and present. She also shares her insights on how the growth in retro gaming h…

1
Soundbite: a one-stop shop for (shareware) games 4:15

4y ago4:15

4:15

Glenn Brensinger, former sysop of Software Creations, talks about how his then-boss Dan Linton's "Home of the Authors" Software Creations bulletin-board system (BBS) served as a sort of prototypical Steam. The interview was done as part of my research for my upcoming book Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet, which is on …

1
Interview: The CRPG Addict 1:25:39

4y ago1:25:39

1:25:39

The man behind The CRPG Addict, a blog dedicated to playing through the entire history of computer role-playing games in roughly-chronological order, discusses his decade-long (and counting!) conquest and the roots of his passion. We also explore how his approach has changed as he's learnt more about the genre's history, the merits and failings of …

1
25 - Pimps at Sea 39:48

4y ago39:48

39:48

It began as an impromptu April Fools' Day gag, but Pimps at Sea was the joke that kept on giving. This is the story of how a chance encounter on the streets of Chicago led to a semi-annual tradition, an industry/fan-favourite insider joke, and a cult classic multiplayer game. As you'll hear in the episode, Pimps at Sea went through many iterations …

1
Interview: Phil Salvador (The Obscuritory) 1:44:02

4y ago1:44:02

1:44:02

I speak to librarian, games critic, and blogger Phil Salvador about his website The Obscuritory and his research and writing on games unplayed and unknown. In a far-reaching interview, conducted in late February, 2020 (and thus before the full brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the West), we explore the challenges, rewards, and lessons we've each f…

1
Soundbite: Gail Tilden on working at Nintendo of America in its early years 6:55

4y ago6:55

6:55

Nintendo Power founding editor and former Nintendo of America marketing executive Gail Tilden remembers her beginnings at the company — before the NES, before Nintendo Power, and even before desktop publishing. Head to https://lifeandtimes.games/episodes/files/soundbite-gail-tilden for a full transcript of the soundbite. This interview was conducte…

1
24 - Bully (Canis Canem Edit) 27:43

4y ago27:43

27:43

How 2006 PS2 hit Bully (aka Canis Canem Edit) showed an alternate future for Rockstar and the open-world genre, with its compromised-yet-brilliant schoolyard satire — here I dive deep into the game, not for its overblown controversies but rather for its struggles against technological limitations and its triumphs in world-building, satire, and focu…

1
Interview: Alex aka Blackoak from Shmuplations.com 1:35:26

4y ago1:35:26

1:35:26

I speak to the creator of Shmuplations.com, a large repository of translated interviews with Japanese game developers, about his approach to doing the translations, his insights on the Japanese games industry, and the highs and lows (and struggles) of running a time-intensive side hustle. This is the second entry in a new series of interviews I'm r…

1
23 - The Fog of War 28:00

4y ago28:00

28:00

In war, no information is complete. No intelligence absolute. No view of the enemy unobstructed. There’s no such thing as perfect knowledge. It is a realm of uncertainty, where decisions are made on flawed and often outdated data — as though looking through a fog. Hence the term, the fog of war, a military phrase with origins in the musings of a 19…

1
Soundbite: Bruce Shelley's "inverted pyramid of decision making" 4:08

4+ y ago4:08

4:08

Here's some great game design wisdom from one of the legends of the business. This interview excerpt is plucked from my set of Age of Empires history interviews that I did while putting together an oral history on the AoE series for Ars Technica a while back. Bruce Shelley has been in the industry for some 30-odd years, with credits including co-cr…

1
22 - Wololo 24:13

4+ y ago24:13

24:13

The sound designers from Age of Empires I and II, brothers Chris and Stephen Rippy, tell the story behind the iconic "wololo" priest chant — for converting enemy units to your side — that's since become a popular meme, as I delve into its strange legacy. All sound effects in this episode come from Age of Empires or Age of Empires II, except when ot…

1
[Bonus] The Rise & Fall of Ambrosia Software, '90s Mac Legends - PAX Aus 2019 talk 1:00:48

4+ y ago1:00:48

1:00:48

While I'm away on my honeymoon, here's my complete talk from PAX Australia 2019, on the rise and fall of legendary shareware publisher Ambrosia Software — the most underrated of the '90s indie publishing giants. You can find accompanying slides at https://tinyurl.com/paxausambrosiatalk as well as my full script on the accompanying blog post at life…

1
21 - Pitfall Harry, the Jungle Runner 33:39

4+ y ago33:39

33:39

It’s strange to think of a time before jumping was a standard video game action, to be expected whenever and wherever you have control over an individual character. A time before you could hop onto enemies’ heads and not die, or swing on ropes, or move back and forth across a vast level — many times wider than the screen. But these ideas were rare,…

1
20 - RealSound™ and Voice Characterisations 36:39

4+ y ago36:39

36:39

How a quest to put sound in a couple of games in the mid-1980s led to a revolution in computer game audio design and production. *** These are, in a sense, the sounds of a revolution in video game history, the sounds of a change so profound that it opened the door to entirely new genres. They’re digitised audio samples, a recorded analogue waveform…

1
Interview: Tom Lenting (Games History of the Netherlands) 44:17

4+ y ago44:17

44:17

I interview Gamegeschiedenis van Nederland 1978-2018 (Games History of the Netherlands) author Tom Lenting about his book and the history of the Dutch games industry. This is the first in a new series of interviews I'm running alongside the main show — every month I'll talk to a different person who's exploring games history, in one way or another,…

1
19 - Premier Manager 30:21

4+ y ago30:21

30:21

On the rise and fall of the Premier Manager series of soccer management games — a former PC gaming juggernaut that lost its way amidst a shuffle of developers and publishers — and the part it played in the broader consolidation/homogenisation of sports games (of all kinds) over the past 20 years or so. All music and sound effects in this episode we…

1
Soundbite: Former Sega CEO Tom Kalinske on telling the US Senate games aren't "just for kids" 4:24

4+ y ago4:24

4:24

When the United States Senate held congressional hearings on video game violence in 1993 and '94, Sega CEO Tom Kalinske went to bat in defence of the industry — and the medium. But he faced major obstacles just getting the senators to understand that the audience for video games was much broader than teenage and pre-teen boys. In this excerpt from …

1
18 - Hogs of War 26:53

4+ y ago26:53

26:53

Far from a mere "Worms in 3D", Hogs of War was its own breed of madness. Hear the story of how it evolved from a concept of "Command and Conquer with pigs", what made it such a well-designed satire, and how this underrated PlayStation game saw the funny side of serious global conflict. All music and sound effects in this episode were composed and p…

1
17 - Super Mario Kart 25:29

5y ago25:29

25:29

How Nintendo and its mascot created a genre, and a combat-racing franchise heavyweight, and in the process gave us a masterclass in game balance, with the best-selling 1992 Super Nintendo game Super Mario Kart. All music and sound effects in this episode were composed and performed by me, except for the bits that I lifted out of Super Mario Kart. I…

1
16 - Sega Rally Championship 21:49

5y ago21:49

21:49

Sega Rally Championship changed everything for the racing genre, and the 1995 off-road arcade hit was an incredible game too. This is the story of its development, critical reception, and long-term legacy. If you're keen to grab one of the Sega Rally games on Amazon, please use my affiliate link so that I get a small portion of the sale price. The …

1
Soundbite: Henk Rogers on randomness and dilemmas in Tetris 5:26

5y ago5:26

5:26

For the 35th anniversary of Tetris' original Russian version, I pulled out this clip from my interview with Henk Rogers — co-founder of The Tetris Company and the dude who got Tetris handheld and console publishing rights back in the 1980s (and also creator of what was arguably the first JRPG, The Black Onyx). Listen for Henk's memories about the s…

1
15 - The Boss Button 22:24

5y ago22:24

22:24

Before computers had proper multitasking support and quick shortcuts for changing apps, playing games when you're not supposed to be could be super risky. But if there's one thing that's been a constant in technology, it's that wherever there are computers, there are also games. And for a while, in the 1980s and 90s, many game developers actually p…

1
14 - Lode Runner 24:33

5y ago24:33

24:33

The story of how a terrible description of the Donkey Kong arcade game led to the creation of Lode Runner, one of the greatest games of all time and one of the earliest games with a built-in level editor. Lode Runner Legacy is available for Windows and Nintendo Switch. An official remake of the original game is also available on Android and iOS. Th…

1
Soundbite: Scott Kim shares a few secrets of puzzle design 4:47

5y ago4:47

4:47

Legendary puzzle designer Scott Kim discusses the process and principles of puzzle-making for games. This is excerpted from an interview I conducted while researching my book The Secret History of Mac Gaming.Support The Life & Times of Video Games Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

1
Bonus: Game devs on the impact of the original Mac 1:03:43

5y ago1:03:43

1:03:43

For any of you who aren't aware, last week was the 35th anniversary of the release of the original Mac. I published a Medium article to celebrate the milestone, and here now you can listen to an audio version of that. It's 14 current and former game developers talking about the early Macintosh computer and how it inspired them to make something ins…

1
Episode 13 - Girl Games, Inc. 40:08

5+ y ago40:08

40:08

On the 90s girl games movement, and its assault on the status quo of the video game market, featuring Girl Games Inc founder and former filmmaker Laura Groppe. Support comes from my Patreon and PayPal backers, with special credit going to Wade Tregaskis, Simon Moss, and Vivek Mohan. Thanks fellas! Original scoring and sound design by me. These days…

1
Episode 12 - Microsoft Games 35:27

5+ y ago35:27

35:27

Before something like the Xbox could ever hope to exist, Microsoft first needed to learn how to be a successful games publisher on the PC. This is the story — or part of it — of how Microsoft got games, featuring input from four key Microsoft Game Studios people — Ed Fries, Stuart Moulder, Ed Ventura, Jon Kimmich — and Age of Empires co-creator Ric…

1
Soundbite: Spotting "the magic" (Jon Kimmich, ex-Microsoft Games) 5:51

5+ y ago5:51

5:51

I've been having some trouble finishing the script for episode 12, on Microsoft's pre-Xbox games efforts, so while you wait I thought I'd release some bonus material. First up, here's a new soundbite.This is from my interview with Jon Kimmich, who worked as a "product planner" and "program manager" in Microsoft's games group in the late 1990s and t…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Shareware Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide