The Digital Antiquarian

Fair Warning: this article contains plot spoilers for Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge and The Curse of Monkey Island. No puzzle spoilers, however… The ending of 1991’s Monkey Island 2: L...

https://www.filfre.net/2024/04/the-curse-of-monkey-island/

The years from 1991 to 1998 were special ones in which to be a Star Wars fan. For during these years, more so than during any other time in the franchise’s existence, Star Wars truly belonged t...

https://www.filfre.net/2024/04/jedi-knight-plus-notes-on-an-expanded-universe/

We don’t have a strategy to do a $200 game console that is a direct competitor to what Nintendo, Sega, and Sony are doing… — Bill Gates, June 1996 It’s hard to overstate the scale of the ...

https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/age-of-empires-or-how-microsoft-got-in-on-games/

Just as the Ultima Online beta test was beginning, Electronic Arts was initiating the final phase of its slow-motion takeover of Origin Systems. In June of 1997, the mother ship in California sen...

https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/the-rise-of-pomg-part-4-a-world-for-the-taking/

While the broth of Ultima Online was slowly thickening, not one but two other publishers beat EA and Origin Systems to the punch by releasing graphical persistent virtual worlds of their own. We ...

https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/

To carry our story forward into the next phase of persistent online multiplayer gaming, we first need to go backward again — all the way back to the days when tabletop Dungeons & Dragons was ne...

https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-2-multima/

No one on their deathbed ever said, “I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer!” — Dani Bunten Berry If you ever want to feel old, just talk to the younger generation. A few years...

https://www.filfre.net/2024/01/the-rise-of-pomg-part-1-it-takes-a-village/

When we finished Broken Sword, the managing director of Virgin called me into his office and showed me a game from Argonaut called Creature Shock. He said, “These are the games you should be ...

https://www.filfre.net/2024/01/televising-the-revolution/

Fair warning: this article includes plot spoilers of Final Fantasy VII. Historians and critics like me usually have to play the know-it-all in order to be effective at our jobs. My work flow begi...

https://www.filfre.net/2023/12/putting-the-j-in-the-rpg-part-3-playing-final-fantasy-vii-or-old-man-yells-at-jrpg/

From the Seven Hills of Rome to the Seven Sages of China’s Bamboo Grove, from the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to the Seven Heavens of Islam, from the Seven Final Sayings of Jesus to Snow...

https://www.filfre.net/2023/12/putting-the-j-in-the-rpg-part-2-playstation-for-the-win/