S2 E18: The Wild History of Minecraft
This episode we get into the cultural history of Minecraft with the explosion of let's plays and creepy pastas. Then we talk through our experiences playing and struggling to survive on our shared server, our terrible luck, and our feelings on the game. Finally we...
S2 E17: Minecraft
Minecraft asks you to return to the days of yore, before modern conveniences and commodities. The days when a man had to build his own wooden pickaxe. So what better time to discuss the Romantic era's own Mary Shelley, her marriage to playboy Percy, Frankenstein and...
S2 E16: The Legacy of Quake
Hot Doom Summer is coming to a close on Gameography, but we have one more episode on Quake to give you your last fix of the Johns. This week we get into the level design, similarities to Mario 64, the mod scene, and the Quake engine's continued influence on video...
S2 E15: Quake and the Breaking of Id Software
While today it appears to be little more than a 3D retread of Doom, Quake broke new ground in 1996 with its fully 3D rendered first person gameplay and internet networked deathmatch. Perhaps surprisingly, John Romero, the lead designer of the game didn't want Quake to...
S2 E14: Doom, the Modfather
John Carmack's fateful decision to create a standalone file format for Doom's levels and other data rather than bundle them with the game's code let others create new levels without overwriting the original Doom data. Carmack opened the path to a modding culture to be...
S2 E13: Doom, the Legacy
This episode is a bit all over the place, talking Lennon and McCartney, Halo, the legacy of Doom, and where shooters went after it. Notes Roots: The Evolution of Doom Level Design Lilith
S2 E12: Doom, the Let it Be of PC Gaming
Id Software put out one ad for Doom in a single enthusiast magazine. Within a few years the shareware version of Doom was on more computers than Windows. Doom defined first-person shooters for over a decade with its fast paced transference of arcade action to an...
S2 E11: The Origins of Id Software
Arguably video gaming's one and only true rock star programmers, John Romero and John Carmack road computers from lives as juvenile delinquents to worldwide fame and success. This week we look at Romero and Carmack's turbulent lives up until they created Doom at Id...
S2 E10: Ultima Underworld
Paul Neurath took a look at the dungeon crawling landscape and knew he could do better. He wanted something immersive and fluid that you could lose yourself in. What he and his team ended up creating was the first texturemaped 3D first person game. Not only that it is...
S2 E9: SimCity
When Will Wright pitched SimCity, a game where you watch a city grow under your guidance, game publishers saw it as an unmarketable product. How could you sell a game you couldn't win? But Wright self-assured, or obsessed enough with his virtual simulation, built on...