Exidy

So I had a really cool visit to the local Bank of America yesterday. I was talking to a personal banker there and we finally got around to talking about the game industry and she said that her husband is the guy who founded Exidy!

Super cool. She was there with him every step of the way, too, from 1975 to 1994 when they finally shut 'er down. I told her the mobile market is just sitting there ready to have their games licensed for platforms like BREW, Symbian and J2ME but her husband hasn't done anything in this area.

There are many compilations of classic games emulated on newer hardware but Exidy's games haven't been seen outside of the arcade cabinet! This is a prime opportunity for some of you biz guys out there to score a classic game compilation - just contact me and i'll get you in touch with her.

Any of you remember Venture? I loved it (in fact, I have a mention of it with my game Crazy Dunjun). The game Chiller was totally boycotted by arcade operators as being too bloody so most people never saw it - in classic game circles it's very rare. Death Race, Mouse Trap, Targ, Cheyenne, Circus, etc. are all great, classic fun. Exidy even released a home computer called the Exidy Sorcerer.

UPDATE: A mobile publisher has struck a deal with Exidy! This blog actually has some use!

Dio

So I'm in my car and listening to XM41, the metal channel, and an oldie by Rainbow is playing and Dio's singing. Hmm...song sounds familiar.

Oh, that's because Dio really likes about 20 different words. And i've heard them over and over and over through the years and i think it's just time to STOP. Put down the rainbow in the dark and back away. Lock up your FOOLS and EVIL and WITCHES in the DARK and let them be.

I truly love Dio's work, but fella, there's a limit to the number of times you can talk about LIGHT and DREAMS and GYPSIES. Good NIGHT!

By the way, if you haven't heard the song "When A Woman Cries" off Dream Evil, check it out! It r0x0rs!

Ambrosia

I'm talking about the 80's group, you silly, not the hidden area in Ultima III that you access through a whirlpool!

I have all of their albums and they're just great stuff; the style is early 80's with lots of 70's influences. Some of their top songs are "How Much I Feel", "You're The Only Woman", "Holding On To Yesterday" and "Biggest Part Of Me".

More overlooked songs, which are excellent, are "Lover Arrive", "Art Beware", "Heart To Heart", "Nice, Nice, Very Nice", "Not As You Were", "Life Beyond L.A.", "Angola", "If Heaven Could Find Me", and "Livin' On My Own".

I used Napster for a little bit but had problems with their stupid licensing scheme so I switched to Virgin Digital and they're much looser with their DRM handling and their client is really great. And only $8 a month.

So get on Virgin Digital, hop into the Red Pass section and check out Ambrosia.

Gamedev-wise, today was spent reading resumes, writing recruiters, talking to an interviewee after he had 2 hours with my co-founders and then having to work on getting our file server OS reinstalled. That was kinda frustrating but i won't go into it because it's way too much tech crap.

First Post

I've wanted, for a while, to convert my front page to a blog format, so here it is! My main concern was keeping the icon links to the different sections of the site so i figured it out and got everything laid out nicely. Now the only problem is that i'll be posting more often!

I also added a link to the WIKI that's been growing behind the scenes; it's time to reveal its little self to the world.

The reason i wanted to convert to a blog format was because i didn't want to always hop into dreamweaver every time i wanted to post something. And if i'm at work and want to post something, forget it - it's too much of a hassle. But with a blog it's nice and simple.

Rhaluka and i spent some time in San Francisco today walking along Embarcadero and eating at Houston's (*amazing*). It was a great time and we'll be getting back to the city to visit more places as often as we can!

We also went to a Christmas party that my boys had at their house on Saturday. They had a really fun White Elephant Gift exchange game where everyone had to bring a gift, get assigned a number, then from the last to the first number someone would either pick a gift from under the tree or steal one of the gifts that someone else already got. It was pretty fun and when my turn came around I stole a Jackie the Jokeman joke-telling toy.

Unfortunately it was a kid version. GRRRRWWWWOOOOOAAAAAA! :)