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Text of the page (random words):
ve posted before about the influence myst has had on game history and now i m helping preserve its history i ve also been involved in a push for copyright reform for video game preservation last year you might ve seen a study making the rounds that says that only 13 percent of video games are still in print i was the author of that here i am talking about it on marketplace next month i ll be testifying to the copyright office about the study and hoping we can change the law to improve the state of game preservation long time readers will know this is a topic i m passionate about and it s incredibly exciting to be taking a role in trying to push it forward i ll actually be testifying alongside dragan espenchied from rhizome who was in charge of the streaming restorations of the theresa duncan games nine years ago that inspired me to get into game preservation professionally which is amazing elsewhere i ve been getting to flex my curation muscle this month vghf ran a game history exhibit at the game developers conference where we showed off a gallertof titles from designers that came outside the game industry you might recognize puppet motel and simtunes two games i ve featured at different times while doing the obscuritory for fun i ve also been running a new sideblog called final fantasy viii is the best which is about well you can imagine that has been a fun experiment that s helping me break through my writer s block because it gives me an excuse to write with zero self editing or standards the goal is that eventually this will get my writing chops back in shape so i ll start posting here again in the meantime i m continuing to stream on most wednesdays which is allowing me to keep visiting interesting and unusual games i ve been wanting to try the list of to write posts keeps getting longer and longer i have no intention of abandoning writing for streaming the written word is my favorite way to express myself but this has been a fun way to keep exploring while i m still easing off of writing basically even though there hasn t been a post here in about a year i haven t gone anywhere i m still active and doing game history still writing and still digging through interesting old titles the maxis book is slowly coming along after taking some time off to take care of myself and i still still have a bunch of unfinished drafts on this blog that i keep eyeing but rest assured things are going well when you least expect it i m going to publish one of those drafts 6 comments events history myst obscuritory preservation wrapping up a quiet year december 16 2022 phil salvador screenshot from motor city well hello it s continued to be quiet over the last seven months and for good reason this summer i relocated from the east coast to california for work which has been more disruptive than expected even after taking a few months to deal with the logistics of the move i m still adjusting to living out here that s taken most of my time and energy lately to say nothing of the actual work i ve been doing and non blog related projects that have been occupying my time but i m still here a week doesn t go by that i don t think about this blog and getting back to it it just hasn t been the time or place yet in the meantime though there s some other places you can find me over at the video game history foundation i recently posted an article about simcopter 64 a long lost nintendo 64 adaptation of maxis 1996 flight sim game if you ve liked my previous maxis articles on here you might like this one too it s a deep dive into a game that multiple different companies thought was going to be the key to their futures but the developers themselves didn t have faith in it come for the lost maxis game stay for the exploration of game industry dynamics i m also once again doing a charity fundraiser for trans lifeline this saturday this year for every 5 i will be forced to play one minute of one of the dizzy games a series of 1980s british computer games from the 1980s which have been haunted me this year i ll be joined by my friend molly for this all day marathon it s gonna be a blast please stop by and donate this saturday i ll also be at magfest again this year after taking a few years off for pandemic reasons i ll be triumphantly returning to super magfest 2023 to talk about the work we re doing at the video game history foundation magfest is an event that s close to my heart and i m excited to come back as a full fledged guest this year i can t wait to see so many folks in person again i m hoping finally for real this time that i can get back to the blog more seriously next year one of the motivating factors is frankly the instability of twitter which is rapidly falling apart under its new ownership i put a lot of value on having my own space to write and express my thoughts and i ve been thinking more about how to reprioritize it hopefully the holiday break will give me an opportunity to recharge in the meanwhile i m still here still busy and still poking at weird things to see what happens 6 comments events links to elsewhere obscuritory spring check in may 13 2022 phil salvador as you might ve noticed the obscuritory continues to be in a bit of a quiet period which i wanted to address briefly like last year i ve been continuing to take things slowly now that i work professionally in video game history i m deliberately making more time for myself my friends and my other hobbies which naturally means that posts will be less frequent here but the other very good reason this blog has been less active is because i ve been quietly working on a huge game history project which i m not ready to talk about yet in previous things are slow here posts i ve alluded to a secret project i ve been chipping away at it s going full steam now and that s taking most of my energy for writing and research i m still a long way from being able to share anything about it so thanks for being patient while i m keeping busy out of sight i promise it s going to be extremely cool once it s ready in the meantime i m still making a commitment to post here at least once a month i have a draft in progress that i need to finish maybe this weekend plus plenty of other ideas in the queue for future posts i m also active on twitter if you want to hear more about my work with the video game history foundation and recently a lot of thoughts about deep space nine but either way you ll hear more from me at some point 3 comments obscuritory clockwiser april 26 2022 phil salvador title screen from the amiga version of clockwiser courtesy of lemon amiga a few months back while i was revisiting a game i ve written about previously on this blog lighthouse the dark being i had to think once again about 15 puzzles if you ve played an older adventure or puzzle game you ve probably run into a 15 puzzle it s a 4 by 4 grid of numbered tiles that have been mixed up and need to be slid back into their starting positions it s a stock puzzle type that gets repeated frequently in these types of games and it s almost never interesting solving a 15 puzzle is more of an endurance test or a sponge meant to soak up the player s time even though it s not an inspiring puzzle format 15 puzzles do have a hypnotic sort of logic if you want to slide a specific tile back into place you need to move the pieces around on the board in a circular motion making a long chain that you can slip another tile into like a car merging into traffic and gradually circling them into place it s surprising how quickly your brain can slip into these patterns making and breaking loops as you try to finesse that one last tile into position playing clockwiser reminded me of 15 puzzles again but for a positive reason it s a puzzle game built entirely around the idea of moving tiles in a loop and it shows what else can be done with that basic idea read more about clockwiser 2 comments 1994 90s amiga amiga cd32 dos international developer netherlands rasputin software sliding puzzle team hoi vga updates to the resources pages march 27 2022 phil salvador screenshot from museum madness the resources section is one of my favorite parts of the obscuritory researching and playing old games can be difficult if you re not well immersed in that world and i love being able to share some of my favorite reference resources and tools for others to use it s been a while since i ve updated the resources pages so this weekend i went through and added about three dozen new links that i ve been collecting for the last couple years here are a few of my favorites the crpg addict the author of the crpg addict is attempting to play every computer role playing game chronologically starting in 1975 the blog is exceedingly thorough as he works his way through every year fmv world interactive movie style games old and new are cataloged here with almost clinical accuracy records for each game include release information platform and cast and crew the interactive fiction archive run by the interactive fiction technology foundation the if archive is a long running directory of interaction fiction games tools discussion and community history kliktopia kliktopia is a project that tries to collect as many freeware games made with the suite of clickteam game creation programs klik play click create the games factory and multimedia fusion that were popular in the late 90s and early 2000s lemon 64 one of the largest and longest running commodore 64 fansites lemon 64 benefits from over 20 years of user submitted screenshots and reviews for its large collection of information on commodore 64 games psx datacenter psx datacenter is the definitive index of games for the original playstation console the site includes release date information serial numbers and technical specifics for every edition of every playstation game in all publishing regions the rarest gamer the rarest gamer shares videos with no commentary of unusual unknown games from the 90s and early 2000s there s a particular focus on tiny homemade games and ephemeral games superkids during the educational game boom in the 90s superkids was a notable source for educational games reviews as well as an index of educational games organized by subject i hope these are useful i m so happy that in the 14 years since i started the obscuritory there s more and more great resources like curated collections and tools for working with old software that people can use to get into historical games leave a comment obscuritory undo game history in the undo jam february 17 2022 phil salvador one of the best things about february is emilie reed s writing jam an annual event where writers get to explore a unique angle on game criticism and history every year reed selects a new prompt like lost game histories making lists or speculation about the future of games and lets everyone go wild with it it s a great exercise that helps me get out of my head and write without inhibitions expectations or proofreading even if i m not completely satisfied with the results it gets me jazzed about writing again after a long and always unproductive winter this year s prompt is undo going back into video game history and undoing one thing then seeing how it plays out in the future it s basically a chance to write about an alternate history of video games what would happen if you could change one minor event how would it ripple out throughout game history and video game culture i m sharing this here to encourage people to participate i m still adjusting to my new job at the video game history foundation so the obscuritory will be going through another slow phase but in the meantime there s lots of fun to be had with game history and this jam is a great opportunity i m working on a submission that might be one of my first at length pieces about nintendo which is fun and different for me since i usually steer elsewhere in my writing it s probably going to be a mess but that s the point of a writing jam shake off the dust let the words flow through you submissions are open through sunday i can t wait to see what everyone submits one comment events history joining the video game history foundation january 20 2022 phil salvador folks it s time for some big news i am overjoyed to share that i m joining the video game history foundation as their new library director the video game history foundation is a non profit organization in oakland ca dedicated to preserving video game history since 2017 the vghf team has been tackling the biggest questions in game preservation working with everyone from private collectors to major developers to help save archival materials that tell the story of video games the vghf has built an extensive collection of video game related items including magazines press kits development documents and source code that s currently in their office in oakland and as library director my job will be to transform that collection into a world class video game history research library i ve been a supporter of the video game history foundation for years because they re helping bridge the gap between the game industry researchers and the community to help fix the future of video game history preservation i am proud to bring my years of professional experience in libraries and archives to the cause it is a privilege and a challenge and i m ready for it the obscuritory has been instrumental in getting me to this point every project every panel every article whether it was a massive essay about simrefinery or a random late night post about aaargh condor has prepared me to become a professional video game preservationist if you ve been to any of the events i ve mentioned on this blog you might ve seen me on panels with vghf co directors frank cifaldi and kelsey lewin well we re in business together now we met in person doing panels together at magfest and our paths have been on a collision course ever since then so what does this mean for the obscuritory well not a whole lot is actually changing i ll still be writing about weird old games and doing history research it s possible that bigger history or preservation projects might now happen under or in conjunction with the video game history foundation but i m still going to be exploring cd roms and incessantly writing about maxis software on here realistically the biggest change i can imagine is that working full time on video game history might burn me out on games and push me into non gaming hobbies for a while i ve been getting back into playing trombone again maybe i ll join a ska band i feel like i always end announcement posts like this by thanking everyone for reading but seriously sincerely thank you for the 13 years i ve been running the obscuritory it s grown from a lark i ran out of my dorm room at 2am to a full fledged career in a field that didn t exist when i started your support has encouraged me to take this seriously and now i get to help build something that s going to ...