Notices by David Fox 🌻🥸 (davidbfox@mastodon.gamedev.place)

SpsceCadetsForHarris event tomorrow, Thursday, 8/15/24
Starts at 8pm EDT / 5pm PDT
https://www.threads.net/@spacecadets4harris/post/C-qRMn_J4-m/?xmt=AQGzRp1yzwE2KWrlOf_VdOwtrWUqmNvvKqka1oO_YsJBjg

@thanius almost sounds like the elevator in Thimbleweed Park!

@thanius nice, but it wouldn’t be up to Ron. It belongs to Disney.

Game Unboxing
From 2020-2022 I had the honor of being Terrible Toybox’s Lead Game Programmer on the adventure game, “Return to Monkey Island”. Look what the publisher, #DevolverDigital, was willing to send to me!

#ReturnToMonkeyIsland #unboxing #gaming #adventuregames #LucasfilmGames #LucasArts #MonkeyIsland

I had a lot of fun talking with Roland Austinat for RetroGamer about #ZakMcKracken and the early days at Lucasfilm Games/#LucasArts. It's really fun when I get totally new questions in an interview. Since I had fun answering the questions, maybe you'll have fun reading it all.
https://www.retro-gamer.de/interview-david-fox/

@sayomgwtf oh, that’s so sweet Say! Thank you for the birthday wishes, the cake (Zake?) and for the wonderful art you create.

@sayomgwtf I lived in Studio City as a teen, not too far from the Hanna-Barbera studios. Once I stopped by there and went dumpster diving (it was unlocked, totally open to the elements), and came back with a large box filled of discarded Flintstone cels, most of them in sequence. Also a couple of indoor water color backgrounds. I set up my Super-8 camera and reanimated several of the sequences for fun.

Unfortunately, a few years later my mother did a Spring cleaning and tossed the entire box!

@sayomgwtf Pretty sure I was about 13 years old at the time, and rode my bike there (I had a basket in the front). I just checked Google Maps and it would have been about 4.5 miles each way.

@sayomgwtf Animating the stacks of sequential Flintstone cels was probably my first foray into animation. Taking the work of the masters and trying to reassemble it to see how it worked. Tedious but fun. Had to wait a week to see the results when the film reel came back from the film lab. I bet I still have that film somewhere in my garage.

@goatsarah @breadbin @Gamrok Good points! Or they could wait until it ends up in the £1 special rack!

@goatsarah @breadbin @Gamrok or wait until it’s on Netflix. Oh, wait, wrong era/medium.

Maybe we were a little heavy handed here? But it was only a few years since we experienced massive piracy of our first two games, Rescue on Fractalus! and Ballblazer, and some of that pent up anger/hurt/betrayal comes through in this cutscene. #LucasfilmGames #LucasArts #ZakMcKracken #Piracy

From: @Gamrok
https://mastodon.social/@Gamrok/111181816651416205

Wow, a friend just sent me this 1982 video, “Don’t Bother Me I’m Learning”, that includes a segment about our Marin Computer Center, and a brief interview with Annie Fox. I can be seen too but I didn’t talk. 41 years ago!
#Gamedev #retroComputers #Retrocompting

https://youtu.be/Yad9p5UKk1M?si=R_4IT03SdTbUPL8E&t=1092

From: @DavidBFox
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@DavidBFox/110050754383518155

@thomasfuchs @grumpygamer they also have bathroom sinks where you can hand wash like 3 pairs of socks at a time. But then you have to stay here long enough for them to dry. #ZakMcKracken would probably use a hairdryer, and catch the hotel on fire.

#ScreenshotSaturday shows my decade old "Rube Works: The Official Rube Goldberg Invention Game", and the WIP VR version. Originally funded/published by Unity Games in 2013. New version for Meta Quest 2 and later uses hand tracking for a more immersive experience. #GameDev #RubeGoldberg 1/2

@feditips Hope so!

In the meantime I’ll try the others. Thanks! Megalodon seems to be Android only.

@feditips I started using Metatext months ago and like it but it’s now missing important features. I’ll check out the ones you mentioned. Thanks!

@feditips What are your current favorites for iOS?

In 1977, my wife Annie and I opened the first public access microcomputer center. The Marin Computer Center was a nonprofit org in a library of a repurposed elementary school. We started with 9 Processor Technology Sol-20s and one Equinox. Eventually we had 40 micros (Atari, Apple II, TRS-80, Pet) people could rent for $1.50/hr. So many Marin kids got turned onto computers and went on to do great things. Jump to page 7 of this 1978 People’s Computers article by Annie
http://www.loopcntr.net/repository/1018.pdf

We couldn’t have created MCC without following in the footsteps of those who did essentially the same thing with the previous generation of computers. We spent time at the Lawrence Hall of Science (they had a room filled with teletype machines tied to a minicomputer) and Liza Loop and the LO*OP Center, a minicomputer and CRT terminals https://loopcenter.org/

Our timing was perfect to take advantage of the brand new standalone microcomputers.

Big question for us, Sol-20s or the new Apple II?