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driving. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance

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Company in affiliates Northbrook, Illinois. Coming up

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on this week's show, the Sega Neptune

0:33

is getting revived. The One

0:35

Button Handheld Gaming Console. And Dali

0:37

Lacy Talks, Disney and Dragon's Land.

0:49

And the Retro Hour podcast is brought

0:51

to you each and every Friday with

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our incredible mates at Bitmap Books. Now

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have you seen the art of the

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box? Celebrating the days when we walked

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1:52

Hello and welcome to The Retro,

1:54

our podcast, episode number 435, your

1:57

weekly dose of retro gaming and technology news.

2:00

with me, Dan Wood, me, Ravi Abbotts and

2:02

me, Joe Fox. And a very, very warm

2:04

welcome to the podcast every single Friday. Takes

2:07

you back in time to the classic age

2:09

of video games. And of course, brings you

2:11

up to speed on what's been happening over

2:13

the last seven days in the wonderful world

2:16

of retro gaming and technology and brings you

2:18

a veteran of the industry onto the podcast

2:20

in the second half to tell us their

2:23

story. And we've got another amazing guest for

2:25

you this week. Before we do that, I'm

2:27

hoping that this show is going to go

2:29

right. We're not going to drip any sweat into our

2:31

mixes or anything like that. And I will. Lovely image

2:34

to start the podcast with, Dan. We don't do video

2:36

lookalikes. I think that's probably a good thing being that

2:38

we are probably in our pants and desk right now

2:40

because it is very warm here in the UK. A bit of a

2:42

heat wave going on. But that does mean that actually

2:45

it's going to be nice weather this weekend,

2:47

fingers crossed, for the big events. I imagine a

2:49

lot of people now are in the hopefully nicely

2:51

air conditioned vehicles heading to Nottingham for Kickstarter

2:54

that is going to be on this weekend.

2:56

So you ready for it? Yeah.

2:59

Whilst this is coming out, I

3:01

should be setting up the show.

3:03

Yes. You know, it's going to

3:05

be really interesting. We've sold out

3:07

Saturday tickets. And if you don't

3:09

have one, it's going to be tough to

3:11

get one. So, you know, we might have

3:13

some last minute cancellations on the door. You've

3:15

got a Discord, haven't you, for tickets? Yeah.

3:18

And there's a ticket exchange on there as

3:20

well. But also like after

3:22

party tickets, you know, we're hitting about

3:24

200. So that's going to be a

3:26

huge number of people there. And Sunday

3:28

tickets are also available as well. So

3:30

yeah, check out after party

3:32

on Sunday. And also Kickstarter is fully air

3:34

conditioned as well. That's

3:38

a bit of a bonus. I mean, it is like

3:40

25 degrees here. And whenever I mentioned that on my

3:42

Facebook, you know, people are broader like in another warmer

3:44

country like you whims. That's a cold winter's day here.

3:46

We're not used to it though, are we? We're not

3:48

used to anything. A tiny bit of snow where the

3:50

whole country falls apart. Whatever are we used to?

3:53

Cloudy and rain, I think it's been the

3:55

last day. So yeah, all roads lead to

3:57

Nottingham for it. Ravi's massive Amiga event. a

4:00

kickstart that's going to be on this Saturday and Sunday,

4:02

last minute tickets. You can head to

4:04

the website amigashow.com, join the Discord on there as

4:06

well for the ticket exchange if you'd like to

4:08

come along. Fingers crossed we'll see a few of

4:10

you there. Now I did mention that

4:13

of course we have got another brilliant guest on the

4:15

podcast this week and we're going to be talking about

4:17

Dragon's Lair. You

4:19

guys remember playing Dragon's Lair back in the day?

4:21

I never played it back in the day but

4:24

when I went to Florida in 2017 we found

4:26

an arcade that had a cabinet

4:28

in there and I was like, I've

4:30

got this, this is going to be well easy and

4:32

no it wasn't well easy. I

4:36

didn't make it very far at all but really enjoyed

4:38

playing it and then I played it again at

4:41

Arcade Club in Leeds. Obviously

4:44

that had unlimited plays because that's

4:46

where you pay to get in and

4:48

everything's unlimited and I

4:51

got a little bit further before I

4:53

gave up with it. It was a

4:55

notoriously difficult game but graphically, absolutely

4:57

stunning for its time. Yeah it

4:59

was an absolutely groundbreaking title and

5:02

this week we have Darlene Lacey

5:04

on and she was a game

5:06

designer, creative writer and narrative designer

5:08

for AMS who were Advanced Micro

5:10

Computer Systems and they did Dragon's

5:12

Lair but also Space Ace. Do

5:14

you remember Space Ace? I've got

5:16

that on the Philips CDI. Ah

5:20

yes because it was another interactive

5:22

title but also she did one

5:24

called Dog Eat Dog and I don't know if you've

5:26

heard about that. That was a quite

5:28

mature FMV and it was all about the

5:31

office environment and commercial world and you had

5:33

to kind of try

5:35

to put people off and take down

5:37

your enemy and it was a huge,

5:39

huge production. They had 20 actors in

5:42

there and they filmed

5:44

200 minutes of film before

5:47

it got cancelled which I'm sure

5:49

there's going to be some good stories

5:53

about that title and then she went

5:55

on to become a game producer at

5:58

the Walt Disney Company So

6:00

of course, I'm sure you know about

6:02

Doctor Tails on the Nas Joe. Oh

6:04

yeah, absolutely. That's ironic. Yeah, yeah,

6:07

she was a producer for that. Chip

6:10

and Dale Rescue Rangers as well. Mickey's

6:12

Runaway Zoo as well. So there's loads

6:14

of titles that we're going to talk

6:16

about, spanning from the kind of early

6:19

laziness films into Disney games. That makes sense

6:21

that you went to work for Disney as

6:23

well, because I always thought with like Dragons

6:25

of Air and Space, they look like they

6:27

could be Disney movies. Totally. Yeah. They've got

6:29

the same feel and the kind of same

6:31

idea of a narrative in a storyline as

6:33

well going on. Yeah, it's going to be

6:35

really interesting. One getting the story of those

6:38

early AMS laser disc games, Dragons of Air,

6:40

Space Ace and lots more as well with

6:42

our special guest, Darlene Lacey, who will be

6:44

on the show in around half an hour

6:46

from now. But you know the

6:48

way the podcast works. First half an hour is when

6:50

us nerds have a bit of a geek out about

6:52

what's been happening in the world of retro from over

6:54

the last week and some more

6:56

big news stories to sink our teeth into

6:58

this week. And this one actually kind of

7:01

nicely follows on from something we were talking

7:03

about last week when we mentioned that there

7:05

was a modder who basically tried to make

7:07

his own Sega Neptune. Well, it

7:09

turns out if you're if you ever wanted a

7:12

Sega Neptune on your desk, there has

7:14

been some pretty big news from a Brazilian

7:16

company. Now, for people who might not

7:18

be familiar with the Neptune joke, give

7:20

us a bit of background on it.

7:22

Oh, man, I always get completely confused

7:25

with the different Sega planets and what

7:27

they all are. So the Sega Neptune

7:29

was a cancelled console,

7:31

Sega console, which was going to be a

7:34

Mega Drive with the 32X built in, which

7:37

is what I was getting mixed up with with the

7:40

Sega Pluto last week. So

7:43

the Neptune is the one which is a Mega Drive with

7:45

a built in 32X. And

7:47

Sega did show off the prototype of

7:49

it. And it looks I always thought

7:51

it looked a little bit like the

7:54

the Mega Drive to have

7:56

a little bit more of a like, I want

7:59

to say sleek. more angular look to

8:01

it. A little bit like the 32X.

8:04

So essentially, if you got a Sega Mega

8:06

Drive version 2 and mixed

8:08

it with a 32X, this is what you would

8:10

get. I always kind of felt like that. But

8:13

famously, because the 32X flopped,

8:16

they cancelled this, they only ever made the prototype

8:18

and then they moved on to the Sega Saturn

8:21

and the rest is history. But yeah,

8:23

interestingly, there is still a big Sega

8:25

community in Brazil, which I'm sure a

8:27

lot of people already know about with

8:29

Tectoy, etc. But

8:31

this is a completely different

8:33

company and I don't want to butcher

8:36

their name, but they're

8:38

making an FPGA based Neptune

8:40

clone console. I think they're

8:43

called Games Care. Games Care,

8:45

right. Okay. And interestingly,

8:47

it is completely based on

8:49

the prototype model of the

8:51

Neptune in a nice silver

8:53

case rather than a black one. So

8:55

a little bit different. And it

8:58

is going to include the Mega Drive slot

9:00

and it is going to be able to play 32X cartridges as well,

9:04

which is really interesting. But

9:06

it will also have an SD slot on

9:08

there and also be compatible

9:11

with Sega CD, which is really interesting.

9:14

Well, this is an FPGA based console as well. So

9:16

I mean, when I first heard about this, I thought

9:18

it just couldn't be like a like a Raspberry Pi

9:20

in there that does emulation or whatever. But

9:22

no, this is like, you know, FPGA, obviously, hardware

9:26

simulation. I think it's generally the

9:28

best way to describe it because if you mentioned

9:30

the E word, everyone goes ape. You know

9:32

what I'm talking about? FPGA. It's actually

9:34

hardware that's simulating the hardware. So it's

9:36

generally a lot more compatible than using

9:38

a software emulator, for example, should be

9:41

pretty much as MZ original. But yeah,

9:43

it is interesting. So I think obviously

9:45

there's always been a desire for cancelled systems,

9:48

particularly stuff that's become collectible over time. You

9:50

know, everyone would have loved to have a

9:52

Sega Neptune on their desk. Although

9:54

there are a few things that I think are

9:57

bizarre design decisions from

9:59

this. Now. You

10:01

did mention that you got the SD card slot, which I think is

10:03

great. You know, basically you can download all the games, play them on

10:05

that. Makes complete sense in 2024 to have that,

10:08

but also be able to play the original cartridges. I

10:10

think that's really good. It's got

10:12

wifi and an online store as well, apparently. So

10:14

you can purchase games online, which is very good.

10:17

You can apparently link it up to a proper Mega

10:19

CD as well. So it will work the Mega CD.

10:22

The weird things for me are the fact

10:24

that, yeah, firstly, it is silver, not

10:27

black. I wonder why they've gone with that

10:29

decision because surely if you've

10:31

always kind of craved one of these, you'd want it to kind of

10:33

look as similar to the original prototype

10:35

as possible. You would have thought. Yeah,

10:38

and to me, like, you know, those classic Sega consoles,

10:40

I mean, I know there are different colors in different

10:42

parts of the world, like in Japan. Maybe there's rights

10:44

surrounding it. Maybe they can't do that. It

10:47

could possibly be the case, but yeah. But

10:49

I mean, it looks very similar otherwise, doesn't it? Yeah, that could

10:51

be the reason why, but it's just for me, you know, when

10:54

I think of like that era of

10:56

Sega, the Mega Drive, the Saturn, you know,

10:58

that kind of sleek black look. The CD?

11:01

Yeah, the CD as well. Yeah, I mean, they

11:03

all look like that in that period, early to

11:05

mid 90s, before the Dreamcast came along, you know,

11:07

from Sega. So I think it

11:09

is a bit of a shame that it doesn't look like

11:11

the prototypes did. And also the

11:14

video output as well, apparently it's going to just have

11:16

HDMI 1080p. Well,

11:19

that's a step up for Brazil because if

11:21

you look to the Sega consoles that were produced

11:23

in few years, it was still component. You

11:26

know, even when HDMI was introduced, because I was

11:28

saying a lot of people were still

11:31

using those televisions. So 1080p

11:33

HDMI is pretty good. But

11:36

personally, I'd want, you know, that is, I think having

11:38

that option there completely makes sense today. And I imagine

11:40

a lot of people would use that. But I think

11:42

the world will also be a large

11:45

selection of potential customers, me included, that would love

11:47

some like RGB kind of output or SCART, you

11:49

know, to be able to connect it to a

11:51

CRT, which, you know, is obviously how

11:53

those games were designed to be played on, you know, the

11:55

mental look like that back in the day. So I think

11:57

I always prefer, and I'm definitely not a lot of people.

37:48

So the King's new lemonade lineup

37:50

is here. Name and a lemonade

37:52

The Smoothie King Way try strawberry.

37:55

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37:57

ice a power up in

37:59

it can energize, or a

38:01

blueberry lemonade smoothie lead it

38:03

up being. Made

38:06

with real fruit. Real juice for

38:08

a real sipping good summer. Yeah

38:10

yeah, Data is no Smoothie Kings

38:12

New lemonade lineup of for a

38:15

limited time. Who. Stars Day.

54:00

point. And so we

54:02

were looking for other ways to kind

54:05

of salvage the spirit of what we

54:07

were doing. And I

54:09

wasn't that involved on the

54:11

executive level with it. But

54:15

somehow or another, Rick Dyer

54:17

and Don Bluth got together

54:20

with the idea that we

54:22

could potentially create an arcade

54:25

game version of what we

54:27

had been doing. And that

54:30

if that succeeded, that could

54:32

generate the revenue to help

54:34

fund further development of the

54:36

fantasy machine. And so it

54:38

was a very tight

54:41

deadline. It was a very tight

54:43

budget for something as ambitious as

54:45

it was. And so we

54:47

all had to scramble very

54:50

quickly and sort of shift gears from

54:52

what we were doing. The

54:55

idea was to take a little bit

54:57

of really the leading

54:59

title that we had for the fantasy

55:01

machine was called The

55:03

Lost Woods, which later became

55:06

Thayer's Quest with the

55:08

Halcyon unit. But it was

55:10

this sort of medieval fantasy. And

55:14

so we thought that that was

55:16

probably our strongest suit for a

55:19

type of title that might catch

55:21

the interest of people at the

55:23

arcade. And so we

55:26

had to figure out really quickly

55:29

how we were going to design

55:31

this game. But we had some

55:33

background in it because we were

55:36

already working on

55:38

creating interactive stories using

55:40

these film strips. And

55:43

so we were faced with

55:45

this really sort of daunting and

55:47

unique challenge of whatever

55:50

it is you're going to design, you

55:52

have to commit to it because it's

55:54

going to be animated, it's going to

55:57

be printed to film, it's

55:59

going to be to be printed on

56:01

the laser disc, burned to the laser

56:03

disc, so it had better work. And

56:06

so when we looked at

56:08

the challenge with this, especially with

56:10

an arcade game, because normally with

56:13

an arcade game, you

56:15

have so many options, right? You can

56:17

go anywhere, you can do anything. But

56:19

with this, we had to break

56:21

the world down into these

56:24

little video segments. And

56:26

we had to connect them up and

56:28

we couldn't have infinite or a huge

56:30

number of branching options.

56:33

And so we had to

56:35

create something very tightly designed.

56:37

So we set to work with these

56:39

type designs with these vignettes that we

56:42

all know from Dragon's Lair. And

56:44

the art department storyboarded them.

56:46

And we figured out to

56:49

say, okay, let's say like it's

56:51

Dirk and the burning ropes and the

56:53

swinging ropes, he's going to start here,

56:56

the ropes are going to swing like this.

56:58

And when the ropes reach a certain angle

57:01

and, you know, distance from Dirk, this

57:03

is the time where he can jump

57:05

and he can successfully swing on the

57:07

rope. And if he doesn't

57:09

hit this window of frames, then

57:12

he's going to fall or what have you

57:14

or just not catch the ropes. And so

57:17

we story meticulously

57:19

storyboarded all these scenes

57:22

and scenarios and then we took

57:24

them to Don Blue Studios. Oh,

57:27

and then also I should add, because

57:29

you're asking about how things changed.

57:31

Yeah. Originally, we thought that our

57:33

hero, he was going

57:36

to be a guy named Rolfe. And

57:38

Rolfe was going to be sort of

57:40

your typical ass-kicking action hero kind of

57:43

guy. And so we took

57:45

all these ideas and these storyboards of Don

57:47

Blue Studios and he looked them over and he

57:52

came back with Dirk to the

57:54

daring, which surprised us because Dirk

57:56

looked a little bit like a

57:58

doofus, right? And

58:01

we were surprised by that, really.

58:03

But in hindsight, obviously, Dirk the

58:05

Daring was a good idea. And

58:08

so, and then he, I think, I'm not

58:10

sure where Princess Daphne came into it, but

58:12

we were also surprised by her because she

58:15

was much sexier than anything

58:17

that we had been envisioning. So

58:19

he was really in charge of the

58:22

characters and sort of taking it and

58:24

turning it into this cartoon movie kind

58:26

of experience. And he set

58:28

forth with making all these beautiful locations

58:30

and scenes and everything. But

58:33

what really surprised us, and

58:36

keep in mind, too, we were

58:38

on this breakneck development cycle, was

58:40

that he looked at our very

58:43

static, tight storyboards and said, well,

58:45

this is very boring from, you

58:47

know, cinematography kind of point of

58:49

view. And so he

58:51

made all these cuts, camera angle

58:54

cuts. And he also changed our

58:56

backgrounds to include doorways and passages

58:58

that we had nothing scripted

59:01

for. And we didn't

59:03

have any time to develop all kinds

59:05

of new scenes and cutaways for the

59:07

design where Dirk could go through that

59:09

doorway, you know. And

59:12

so we found ourselves with something

59:14

much more beautiful than we were

59:16

picturing, but also with a lot

59:18

of gaps in it in

59:21

terms of what you

59:23

could do interactively. And

59:25

we were out of time. We were out of

59:27

money. And so the solution

59:29

that was arrived at is

59:32

that Don would animate

59:34

a lot of blockers.

59:37

And that's where we started to get lots

59:39

of, you know, goo and

59:41

tentacles and other things that

59:43

came in to block your

59:45

passageway. And so none of

59:47

that was part of the

59:50

game design. And yeah,

59:52

I should probably add too, because you'll probably

59:54

wonder about it. The flipped

59:56

scenes, that was also

59:58

because we looked. And

1:00:00

we said, oh, shoot, we don't have

1:00:02

enough footage here to really make a

1:00:04

long game. And so

1:00:06

the solution was to flip the

1:00:09

scenes. And unfortunately, in some cases

1:00:11

with everything being mirrored, like ye

1:00:13

olde whirlpools, the text got flipped

1:00:16

and reversed. But there was

1:00:18

nothing we could do about it. It

1:00:20

was what it was. But if anybody's

1:00:22

wondering why the design was a little

1:00:25

kind of strange, that was a lot

1:00:27

that had to do with it. Well, I

1:00:29

was wondering what the relationship was like then,

1:00:31

because it was Rick Dyer

1:00:33

Industries and Don

1:00:35

Bluth Studios. And how

1:00:37

important was that background? And what was it

1:00:39

like working with the two studios and

1:00:42

the two guys? Well, it was

1:00:44

really stimulating, you know, because we came

1:00:46

in as the game design experts, even

1:00:48

though, of course, you know, we

1:00:50

had no experience making a laser disc game. And

1:00:54

Don Bluth came in as the

1:00:56

animation and character and story expert,

1:00:59

even though we were writers. And

1:01:01

so and then, of course, we

1:01:04

had cinematronics down in San Diego

1:01:06

as the cabinet

1:01:08

makers and the technology. And all three

1:01:10

really had to work together. But

1:01:13

it was really cool because suddenly we had

1:01:16

a professional animation studio working

1:01:18

with us. And that's the sort

1:01:20

of thing that, you know, today

1:01:22

with, you know, gaming studios, they

1:01:24

probably wouldn't think much of it.

1:01:26

But for us, it was like,

1:01:28

wow, we've hit the big time

1:01:31

with this. And it was

1:01:33

really cool to go into the

1:01:35

Don Bluth studios and see

1:01:37

the rotoscoping that they were using

1:01:40

and other techniques like that. That

1:01:42

was totally new to us. And

1:01:44

I think those were probably some

1:01:47

of the earliest or first times that

1:01:49

those techniques were used for computer games.

1:01:52

And of course, we were able to do

1:01:54

something visually that was really

1:01:57

unparalleled. And so it was exciting

1:01:59

to see all that. come together. It was

1:02:01

a great, great kind of transition. I was

1:02:04

wondering how the studio cost low

1:02:06

at the time as well. You know, I'm

1:02:08

not sure about the animation. I know we had

1:02:11

a very tight budget when it came to the

1:02:14

animation and I know

1:02:16

they worked around the clock with it. I

1:02:19

think limiting the scenes and flipping the

1:02:21

scenes was a major part of it.

1:02:24

And really, AMS, we were a very

1:02:26

kind of low cost

1:02:28

kind of studio. I think people

1:02:30

would have a hard time if

1:02:32

they work in the industry today

1:02:34

to imagine what it was like

1:02:36

back then. Even when I was at Disney,

1:02:39

we just had these skeleton

1:02:41

crews. We had a couple

1:02:43

of artists. We had a

1:02:45

handful of writers, game designers.

1:02:47

We had a handful of

1:02:49

programmers. And then just a

1:02:51

smattering of staff here and

1:02:53

there. Most

1:02:55

of us were college

1:02:57

students. Rick Dyer

1:03:00

was able to keep cost downs from

1:03:02

that perspective as well because we were

1:03:04

all just working our way through college.

1:03:06

But he had a lot of really

1:03:08

talented people there. So

1:03:11

it all worked out with that kind of

1:03:14

budget. But I think you'd have a

1:03:16

hard time doing that today. What about

1:03:18

the sound recording as well? Because I know there was

1:03:20

a lot of voice samples

1:03:22

in there and stuff. Yeah, I

1:03:24

think all the sound. It was a little hard for

1:03:27

me to remember that. I think it was done by

1:03:30

Don Bluth at AMS.

1:03:32

We had this attic

1:03:34

that was always

1:03:36

being repurposed for one purpose or

1:03:39

another. And Rick put in a

1:03:41

sound studio up there

1:03:43

that we were using for

1:03:45

the Lost Woods and our other projects. And

1:03:47

so that was something new as we were

1:03:50

starting to delve into

1:03:52

multimedia. But it was kind of

1:03:54

funny because it was in

1:03:56

the attic. And so it had this very low

1:03:58

ceiling. And so some of our... staff

1:04:01

were very tall people and we would all have

1:04:03

to crouch and get into it. It

1:04:06

felt like some sort of old

1:04:08

woman in the shoe kind of

1:04:10

studio. So that

1:04:12

was my personal experience

1:04:14

with sound recording at the time. Well,

1:04:17

I remember seeing Dragon's Lair in the arcade back

1:04:19

in the 80s. And when I saw that game

1:04:21

for the first time, it looked like something from

1:04:23

the future. Every other game around

1:04:25

was like 8-bit or maybe even 16-bit

1:04:27

sprite-based games. Seeing Dragon's Lair, I wasn't

1:04:29

aware that video games could look like

1:04:31

that. So do you remember

1:04:33

seeing the kids' reaction to the

1:04:36

arcade when it first entered the arcade? I do.

1:04:38

I mean, it was incredible.

1:04:40

And I

1:04:42

won't lie to you. When we were

1:04:44

playtesting the game, we

1:04:47

were going to make it a

1:04:49

50 cent pop game and it

1:04:51

was so hard to play, right?

1:04:54

And if you didn't know the design,

1:04:56

you could die so quickly in this

1:04:58

game. And I just thought, I don't

1:05:00

know if this is going to fly.

1:05:02

It looks great. But from

1:05:05

a gameplay point of view, it

1:05:07

was really asking

1:05:10

a lot. Sometimes you just

1:05:12

had to keep playing the game until you

1:05:14

figured out what the game wanted from you.

1:05:16

So I had my doubts and

1:05:18

we put it out there. And

1:05:20

as you know, it just took

1:05:22

over the world. It was phenomenal.

1:05:25

And I remember going to the mall

1:05:28

and seeing just the spillover

1:05:31

of people outside of the arcade.

1:05:33

I believe it was Kingdom of

1:05:35

Oz. And all

1:05:38

these people were gathered around, not

1:05:40

only in the arcade, it was

1:05:42

standing room only, but outside looking

1:05:44

through the window, watching some players

1:05:48

working their way through it. They had

1:05:50

it up on a pedestal so people

1:05:52

could watch. And that's the first time

1:05:55

I've ever seen anything like

1:05:57

that. And I actually have a binder

1:05:59

that that I kept of all the

1:06:01

news clippings that were flowing in on our

1:06:03

telephax with

1:06:06

all the stories of these

1:06:08

arcades and the crowds that they

1:06:11

would draw. It

1:06:13

was astounding and

1:06:15

really exciting to be part

1:06:17

of it. They had a

1:06:19

playoff on it on the

1:06:21

TV network show. That's incredible.

1:06:24

If people haven't seen that, you can probably find

1:06:26

that on YouTube. It

1:06:29

was like Dragon Slayer was a celebrity.

1:06:32

It was incredible. I do remember

1:06:34

going on the game though and literally dying in on

1:06:36

that first bit when you go over the drawbridge. Probably

1:06:39

about 20 times and then running out of money.

1:06:41

But I remember I just wanted to see what

1:06:43

was next. Do you remember the kids

1:06:46

having to learn? So it was definitely a game of reaction,

1:06:48

wasn't it? Did that kind of stun people a bit at

1:06:50

first like it did me? Yeah, no.

1:06:52

I mean, people were very frustrated with

1:06:54

it. I do think those who made it from

1:06:57

start to finish, they sort of became celebrities

1:06:59

in their own right. But

1:07:02

you better have a lot of

1:07:05

quarters. And that was something

1:07:07

that, I mean, if I didn't have unlimited

1:07:09

lives, so I could

1:07:11

do all the play testing, I mean, I would

1:07:13

have never played that game. But

1:07:16

also I created a design to

1:07:19

show how you could jump around from

1:07:21

frame to frame if anyone wanted to

1:07:23

program it to win the game. So

1:07:26

I knew the game like the back of

1:07:28

my hand, but only because not only

1:07:30

was I part of the design team, but

1:07:32

because I could play it infinitely. You

1:07:34

could probably go into the arcade and impress

1:07:36

a lot of kids doing that. Yeah. I

1:07:40

was wondering, was there anything cut from the game that

1:07:42

you wish had been kept in? You know, there were

1:07:44

a few little small scenes I remembered

1:07:46

that became like the hidden scenes or

1:07:48

the Easter eggs. It's hard for me

1:07:50

to really remember now. There

1:07:52

are just some little snippets, but

1:07:55

no, I think pretty much everything

1:07:57

we designed, more or less,

1:07:59

wow, up in there because again,

1:08:01

time was of the essence and we

1:08:04

didn't have time to design a

1:08:06

lot of surplus. It was a very

1:08:09

let's get it done kind of

1:08:11

design process. And did you

1:08:13

enjoy going into that kind of sci-fi

1:08:16

theme away from fantasy with Space

1:08:18

Ace? Yeah, I think in

1:08:20

general, you know, that's something that I'm

1:08:22

more drawn to. I was

1:08:24

never that much into, you know,

1:08:28

fantasy really, you know, the knights

1:08:30

and the swords and stuff. It's

1:08:32

okay. It's not really like my

1:08:34

primary interest. And so Space Ace

1:08:36

was fun to design. At

1:08:39

that time, I think, you know, a lot of people were

1:08:41

kind of coming and going at AMS because

1:08:44

there was a lot of opportunity, you

1:08:46

know, we had designed the first games.

1:08:48

And if I recall correctly, I believe

1:08:51

that it was me

1:08:54

and Shannon Donnelly who went up

1:08:56

designing Thayer's quest as well as

1:08:59

the two of us that

1:09:01

mostly co-designed Space

1:09:03

Ace. But when we

1:09:06

gave our storyboards over to Dom

1:09:08

Bluth, he, I think

1:09:10

he threw out almost entirely everything

1:09:12

that we had done other than

1:09:15

some core ideas. And he

1:09:17

changed the game design to suit

1:09:19

his purposes. So really in the

1:09:21

end, there's not much of anything

1:09:23

that I worked on that is

1:09:25

visible in Space Ace. So

1:09:27

when did you leave AMS? And how did

1:09:30

you make the move to the Walt Disney

1:09:32

Company? Because that must have been an interesting

1:09:34

move. Yeah, you know, so I

1:09:36

left AMS. I joined in 1981. I left in 1983

1:09:38

because AMS was growing. And

1:09:45

so they were going to move the office,

1:09:47

our little strip mall office in Pomona, to

1:09:50

Carlsbad down by the coast,

1:09:52

which would have required moving

1:09:55

for me, which I really

1:09:57

didn't want to do. And

1:10:00

around that time I was graduating from

1:10:02

college, and so it just seemed like

1:10:04

the right time to go. And

1:10:07

it turned out to be a really good

1:10:09

move for me because what I did

1:10:12

next was I worked for Sega of

1:10:14

America, Golfin'

1:10:18

Western, Paramount Studios. They

1:10:21

were looking to make laser disc games, arcade

1:10:23

games. And so I became part

1:10:26

of a little tiger team and

1:10:28

went to work at Paramount Studios. We

1:10:30

were working on a game, a

1:10:33

Star Trek laser disc coin-op

1:10:36

game, which was really exciting

1:10:38

and cool. We did

1:10:40

not get to finish it because

1:10:42

that's at the time where the bottom

1:10:44

fell out of the laser disc arcade

1:10:46

game market. So that

1:10:48

was really disappointing, but I

1:10:51

was able to do a lot more design-wise

1:10:54

and really being tapped in with the studio

1:10:56

than we had access to at the time

1:10:58

at AMS. And after that,

1:11:00

I worked on some

1:11:02

CDI game designs and

1:11:05

other things like that. I was really kind of

1:11:07

in the genre of early multimedia, but

1:11:13

the opportunities there were also kind of

1:11:15

hit or miss and often required

1:11:18

moving, let's say moving up to the

1:11:20

Bay Area, and I didn't wanna do

1:11:22

that. I'm kind of a Los Angeles

1:11:24

girl. So for a while

1:11:26

I didn't do anything at all, except I

1:11:28

was working on my own text

1:11:30

adventure games, on

1:11:34

my own just freelance. I wanted

1:11:36

to do this game called the

1:11:38

Case of the Leading Lady, which

1:11:40

was like a big text adventure

1:11:42

mystery on a ship, cruise ship

1:11:44

kind of thing. But

1:11:47

I wasn't doing much. And so anyway,

1:11:49

when I was at Sega Gulf and

1:11:51

Western, I worked

1:11:54

with Sam Palanuk who had made

1:11:57

the coin up Sega game. for

1:12:01

Sega, what was it, Gremlin

1:12:03

as well back in the day. He was

1:12:05

kind of a famous game designer. And

1:12:08

we had lost touch, but he called me up and

1:12:11

said he was working at Disney. They

1:12:14

were looking to start making computer

1:12:16

games and they wanted

1:12:19

to bring in some really innovative

1:12:21

thinkers with that to be the

1:12:23

first line of producers. And so

1:12:26

it wound up

1:12:28

being me, Sam Palanuk and David Mullick,

1:12:30

we were the three that basically

1:12:33

launched Disney's

1:12:35

entry into the computer game

1:12:37

market. What was it like

1:12:39

working with David as well? Because he's

1:12:42

absolutely legendary in the video games world. Oh,

1:12:44

it was so much fun. I mean, we just

1:12:46

had the best time. Again, we

1:12:48

had this sort of cream of the

1:12:50

crop there. And

1:12:53

I feel pretty honored to be included

1:12:55

with it because I was doing multimedia

1:12:59

and we were looking to do more of your basic C64,

1:13:05

Apple II, IBM PC kind of games,

1:13:07

which I really didn't have any experience

1:13:09

with. And so

1:13:12

I had to really kind of rethink

1:13:15

how I approached game design

1:13:17

with it, which was also stimulating for

1:13:19

me. But those

1:13:21

two, they also gave me some

1:13:24

inspiration and experience with that as

1:13:26

well. And so David, he was just

1:13:28

a pleasure to work with and had

1:13:30

a lot of great ideas as did

1:13:33

Sam as well. And I think

1:13:35

I brought a lot of interesting ideas

1:13:37

to the table as well. So it

1:13:39

was a very creative dynamic. Was

1:13:41

it strange for you moving from kind of

1:13:43

full video to

1:13:47

computer graphics and the change that happened

1:13:49

and how did you kind of adapt

1:13:51

to that? Yeah, it was a

1:13:53

challenge because not only was I

1:13:56

used to having the luxury of

1:13:58

multimedia and had to really... stripped

1:14:00

down my designs, they put me in

1:14:02

charge of the value line on top

1:14:04

of everything, which was just one five

1:14:06

and a quarter floppy disk to create

1:14:09

some sort of compelling computer game experience,

1:14:11

which was a challenge. But on top

1:14:13

of that, it was Disney,

1:14:15

the Walt Disney Company. So it

1:14:18

has to look as great as

1:14:20

possible. You know, people have, you

1:14:22

know, expectations. And so when

1:14:25

I was designing these games, I

1:14:27

was always pushing, can't we make

1:14:29

this a little nicer? Can't we

1:14:31

do something a little bit more? But

1:14:34

also drawing on that early experience

1:14:36

with Pong, right? To say a

1:14:39

fun game is a

1:14:41

fun game. And

1:14:43

so looking to kind of bring that

1:14:45

concept to whatever it was that I

1:14:48

was making, and how can we

1:14:50

pack as much content

1:14:52

into the, you know, the

1:14:54

small format as possible. So

1:14:58

it was really a new

1:15:00

challenge in terms of game design. But

1:15:02

also as a producer, I

1:15:05

had to really be the advocate

1:15:07

and say, can't we just

1:15:09

find some creative way to make

1:15:12

this a little better? I was going

1:15:14

to ask about that, because I've seen like, you

1:15:16

know, Disney have got like style guides and Bibles

1:15:18

that you have to stick to about how, you

1:15:20

know, even characters' eyes can look and how they

1:15:22

move and everything like that. I mean, was there

1:15:25

much of an approval process? Because obviously, these are

1:15:27

very well known characters that you're working with now

1:15:29

at Disney. Yeah, it was

1:15:31

tough, especially in the first

1:15:33

years, you know, because, you know, let's

1:15:36

say you have something like the Amiga

1:15:38

or, you know, the Commodore 64, you

1:15:40

have some options with the graphics a

1:15:43

little bit more than you would, let's

1:15:45

say, especially with the PC in terms

1:15:47

of animation, or the Apple II.

1:15:49

It was just terrible

1:15:52

across the board. And

1:15:55

so you have something like Mickey Mouse.

1:15:58

And the whole thing with Mickey Mouse, Mickey

1:16:00

is to have him

1:16:02

look on model is dependent on

1:16:04

having these very subtle curves to

1:16:07

his shape of the head, the

1:16:09

placement of the ears, the curves

1:16:11

of the eyes. And,

1:16:13

you know, Mickey can just melt

1:16:15

like in an instant. Wait, if

1:16:17

you have too few pixels for

1:16:20

him. And I remember sitting

1:16:22

there myself just clicking away

1:16:25

in deluxe paint, trying to

1:16:28

make Mickey look a little better, you know,

1:16:30

it's like, here, let me take a go at

1:16:32

it. Because often you had

1:16:35

programmers in charge of the graphics

1:16:37

and programmers often didn't

1:16:39

have the fine look at it.

1:16:42

They're like, oh, well, this is good enough. It's like,

1:16:44

well, I don't think it is because it's

1:16:46

never going to get approved by Disney's

1:16:50

creative services. And

1:16:52

we would have these packets that

1:16:54

we could work with with line

1:16:56

art for the characters and all

1:16:58

the style guides. But again, no

1:17:00

blame on anybody because you reduce

1:17:02

it down to a few chunky

1:17:04

pixels or just even with the

1:17:06

colors, you know, it's very hard

1:17:09

to make the characters look good.

1:17:12

But I will say this, I think

1:17:14

we did accomplish a lot using

1:17:16

those limited palettes and pixels.

1:17:18

I just took a lot

1:17:20

of trial and effort to

1:17:22

make them look as good as they did. So

1:17:25

Donald's Alphabet Chase was converted to

1:17:27

systems with, you know, lessographic

1:17:30

options and stuff like the

1:17:32

ZX Spectrum. And, you know,

1:17:34

you had the Amstrad versions as well

1:17:37

and also the Commodore 64. How

1:17:40

was it kind of porting all

1:17:42

of these? And did you have any involvement with

1:17:44

that process? Yeah, I had to

1:17:46

look at all of them and approve

1:17:49

the specs. I think the way we

1:17:51

went about it was we came up

1:17:54

with the gold standard design and said,

1:17:56

this is the best it's going to

1:17:58

look. we would look

1:18:00

at the ports and say, okay,

1:18:03

what compromises do we have to make

1:18:05

for this one? And sometimes

1:18:09

we would change the design a

1:18:11

little bit to work around limitations.

1:18:13

We did a lot of hand

1:18:15

crafting from port to port to

1:18:17

make sure things looked as good

1:18:19

as they did. I don't know

1:18:21

if Disney's creative

1:18:23

services looked at each and every

1:18:26

port. I think they

1:18:28

understood that sometimes it

1:18:30

is what it is. But I did.

1:18:32

And I would go through, I actually

1:18:34

did a lot of handwork myself, even

1:18:41

though as a producer, I didn't

1:18:44

have to do that because

1:18:46

I was just trying to make

1:18:48

things as good as they could

1:18:50

be. For example, on another one

1:18:52

of those preschool games, Goofy's Railway

1:18:54

Chase, I

1:18:56

didn't get that right. Goofy's Colors

1:18:59

and Shapes, I think it was called. I

1:19:01

can't remember now. In any event, I

1:19:03

wrote the theme song and digitized

1:19:06

it and did some things like

1:19:08

that to brighten

1:19:10

it up as much as I could.

1:19:13

So I was very hands-on with every

1:19:15

port. It's interesting you

1:19:17

mentioned then about the educational aspect of it

1:19:19

as well. Did Disney see that as being

1:19:21

important that games were educating their audience? Yeah,

1:19:24

they did. We had a couple

1:19:26

of, as we

1:19:28

would call swim lanes today, but we

1:19:30

didn't back then for Disney software. We

1:19:33

had the educational

1:19:36

component of it. We were particularly

1:19:38

working on the early learners and

1:19:40

preschool, which was an interesting design

1:19:43

challenge in itself. And

1:19:45

then we were looking at

1:19:47

the core Disney branded games,

1:19:49

Dick Tracy and things like

1:19:51

that, Roger Rabbit, DuckTales,

1:19:54

obviously with the Nintendo games people

1:19:57

are familiar with using the

1:19:59

license. properties. But then we

1:20:01

also developed our Buena Vista

1:20:03

software label. And I was

1:20:06

kind of a driving force

1:20:08

with that because I wanted

1:20:10

to create new IP for

1:20:12

Disney. My feeling was,

1:20:14

why not? We're creatives. We're generating

1:20:17

new content. Why must we be

1:20:19

limited to the Disney

1:20:21

characters? And so I started

1:20:24

designing a whole series of

1:20:26

adult adventure games and advocated

1:20:28

for the idea that

1:20:30

it could be the Buena Vista label,

1:20:33

much like Disney was doing with their

1:20:35

movies. And as fate would have it,

1:20:37

none of my games actually made it

1:20:39

onto the Buena Vista label, I don't

1:20:42

believe. But that became another track

1:20:45

that we were on at Disney

1:20:47

Software. Well, before we get

1:20:49

into that, we'll get into DuckTales, which

1:20:51

was an absolutely stunning game and

1:20:54

had a lot of attention to detail

1:20:56

as well. What was it like

1:20:58

working on this title? DuckTales was really

1:21:00

an easy title to work on.

1:21:02

It was really a pleasure. I've

1:21:05

talked about it a lot online,

1:21:07

but just for anyone who doesn't

1:21:09

know, David Mulloch was the original

1:21:11

producer on it. And he did

1:21:14

a lot of the footwork getting

1:21:16

it started. And I think somewhere

1:21:18

around midstream, he was moving

1:21:20

over to do some other titles that

1:21:22

needed more of his attention. And so

1:21:26

I was asked to finish it.

1:21:28

And so by the time I

1:21:30

received it, a lot of

1:21:33

really great things were already in

1:21:35

place, you know, the game mechanic,

1:21:37

the world, a lot of

1:21:39

the music, some of it still changed, but

1:21:42

it was well underway. And so I came

1:21:44

in to really kind of give it the

1:21:46

spit and polish at the end, you know,

1:21:49

probably my most notable changes

1:21:52

involved the dialogue, which needed

1:21:55

a lot of work. You

1:21:57

know, when you talk about

1:21:59

characters, being on model, it's not

1:22:01

just how they look or how they move,

1:22:03

but it's also how they speak. So

1:22:06

I pretty much rewrote the dialogue

1:22:08

and adjusted it to make it

1:22:10

fit well within the tiny little

1:22:12

text window constraints that we had

1:22:14

on the NES system at

1:22:16

the time. And

1:22:19

then also gave more guidance

1:22:21

in terms of certain things that

1:22:23

were like a little off model,

1:22:26

things that Scrooge

1:22:28

McDuck wouldn't

1:22:31

necessarily collect or things, just

1:22:33

like the props and the sprites that they

1:22:35

were using, making them more

1:22:38

on brand. Probably really

1:22:40

my biggest contribution is

1:22:42

the infamous ending to

1:22:45

DuckTales, which had ended

1:22:47

with Scrooge McDuck making

1:22:50

a proclamation about the

1:22:52

most important thing in

1:22:54

life. Talking to Huey

1:22:56

Dooey and Louie is Dream and Friends,

1:22:59

and that has that sort of a

1:23:01

cult following. Do

1:23:05

you still get a lot of interaction from

1:23:07

DuckTales fans as well? I

1:23:09

do, I do. People love that

1:23:11

game and people talk about Dream

1:23:14

and Friends. There's like a website,

1:23:16

dreamandfriends.com. And I loved it so

1:23:18

much because it was so heartfelt,

1:23:20

but I felt like it really

1:23:22

wasn't capturing the spirit or the

1:23:24

language of Scrooge McDuck.

1:23:26

So it pained

1:23:28

me, but I rewrote it and created

1:23:30

the new ending to it, which I think

1:23:32

was the right decision, but it was a

1:23:34

hard decision to make. Obviously, that game was

1:23:37

published by Capcom. So what was the

1:23:39

relationship with Disney and Capcom like? Oh,

1:23:41

it was really positive. It was

1:23:44

a great relationship. And keep

1:23:47

in mind at the time,

1:23:49

we didn't really have email or

1:23:51

any easy way to communicate with each

1:23:53

other. So there was a lot of

1:23:56

DHL, FedEx going on with the carts

1:23:58

going back and forth. And

1:24:01

so, you know, and a lot

1:24:03

of correspondence. And so I would write up

1:24:05

notes and send them off. Usually

1:24:07

I believe fax it to them. And then

1:24:09

they would send a new EPROM to put

1:24:11

in the cart. And then I could play

1:24:14

test it. I mean, really, it was

1:24:16

kind of me and them, you know, back

1:24:19

in the day. We didn't have a lot

1:24:21

of testers, game testers. And so

1:24:23

I would get the cart. I would play it through.

1:24:26

Thank goodness again for unlimited lives.

1:24:29

Type up a bunch of notes, send it off to

1:24:31

them. And they

1:24:33

seemed really appreciative of the thought

1:24:35

that I was putting into it

1:24:37

and the concise level of changes.

1:24:39

You know, some producers, they

1:24:42

start to dream a lot and make

1:24:44

a lot of big changes. I

1:24:46

was always looking at it from the point of

1:24:48

view. Hey, they have already

1:24:50

put a lot of great ideas into

1:24:53

it. How can I support them by

1:24:55

making a few little changes to

1:24:57

make it even better? And

1:25:00

let's get this done on time and make

1:25:02

it as great as it can be. And

1:25:04

so I think they appreciated my role with

1:25:07

that. And we use that same

1:25:09

system for Chip and Dale's Rescue

1:25:11

Rangers, Mickey's Dangerous

1:25:13

Chase, and Adventures in the

1:25:16

Magic Kingdom. Well, I

1:25:18

remember you saying, you know, one of Vista

1:25:20

Software as well was kind of a way

1:25:23

of Disney focusing on more adult titles.

1:25:25

And one of those was Doggie Dog,

1:25:28

which was a really interesting game

1:25:30

because I heard you had like 20

1:25:32

actors and it went into

1:25:34

200 hours of development. So

1:25:36

what are your memories of that and what

1:25:39

kind of happened? So Doggie Dog, you know,

1:25:41

it's kind of my white whale. I

1:25:44

really thought that this was going to be

1:25:46

the game that would let

1:25:49

me plant my, you know, flag

1:25:51

to say I'm one

1:25:53

of the great game designers from

1:25:55

the 90s, but it

1:25:58

never happened. And in a sense, interesting

1:26:00

that it still is

1:26:02

out there though. There's a lot of

1:26:04

interest in it because it was such

1:26:07

a progressive game and maybe someday we

1:26:09

will finish it. I do

1:26:11

own the rights to it. But

1:26:14

so just a quick synopsis. So

1:26:16

I had this idea and this

1:26:18

was before Dilbert or Office Space

1:26:20

or anything like that. Like wouldn't

1:26:22

it be great to make a

1:26:24

big adventure game based on navigating

1:26:27

a dysfunctional office.

1:26:30

And so it would be a comedy. It would

1:26:33

be a huge robust text adventure

1:26:35

game with very simple graphics. I

1:26:37

had this idea to kind of

1:26:39

do this pop art, comic book

1:26:41

style art that would be

1:26:44

kind of supporting the theme

1:26:46

that the office world is

1:26:48

kind of this paper thin

1:26:50

cartoon kind of farce

1:26:52

to begin with. And I

1:26:54

hired a development team

1:26:56

that became close friends of mine

1:26:58

that didn't even come from the

1:27:01

game industry. And we

1:27:03

agreed that we would create a

1:27:05

neural network for this game, which

1:27:07

was one of a kind, got

1:27:09

a lot of attention from

1:27:11

the press. And we would make it

1:27:14

something more than a predictable text

1:27:16

adventure game where you can really feel

1:27:18

the constraints of the branching

1:27:20

by using this neural network. It would

1:27:22

learn from your actions and it would

1:27:24

have a life of its own. And

1:27:27

so through that, we

1:27:30

wrote these huge scripts that would

1:27:32

train the neural network system and

1:27:34

they were very nonlinear. The idea

1:27:36

was that you would have these

1:27:38

banks of things that the characters

1:27:41

could say or do and they

1:27:43

would draw from that based on

1:27:45

how the ecosystem was developing in

1:27:48

the world that you were interacting

1:27:50

with. And so it was

1:27:52

a very ambitious game, very creative and

1:27:55

still a very modern game in so

1:27:57

many ways you could play a male

1:28:00

or female character, but you could go in

1:28:02

any way you wanted in terms of your

1:28:05

sexual orientation. You could

1:28:07

flirt with anybody and everybody. You

1:28:10

could pursue happiness in any way, in

1:28:13

a multiple of ways. You could leave

1:28:15

and start your own company. You could

1:28:18

rise to the top. You could retire

1:28:20

with dignity. You could get married. You

1:28:22

could do all kinds of things. So

1:28:24

we didn't want to limit the player.

1:28:26

And the idea would be that you

1:28:29

could learn from yourself and have this

1:28:31

true experiment where you might say,

1:28:33

well, this is a way that I would

1:28:35

go through this world. But what if I

1:28:37

just did everything the opposite

1:28:40

of how I would intuitively

1:28:42

do it? What would happen

1:28:44

that way? So we had

1:28:46

infinite replayability with it. But

1:28:48

unfortunately, we were getting close

1:28:50

to being done. But at

1:28:52

that time, Disney's software was

1:28:54

going through some issues with

1:28:57

money. It wasn't performing as well

1:28:59

as Disney, as the

1:29:01

corporation was hoping. And so

1:29:04

they made huge cuts

1:29:06

across the board. Anything in development

1:29:09

was canceled, which was why all

1:29:11

my adventure games got canceled. And

1:29:15

we went from having outside developers,

1:29:17

they were going to do an

1:29:19

in-house developer paradigm instead. And so

1:29:21

I was just devastated, especially the doggy

1:29:24

dog got canceled. And so we had

1:29:26

a lot of cinemaware

1:29:28

people, you know,

1:29:30

ex-cinemaware people working on it. And

1:29:32

through that connection, we were almost

1:29:35

instantaneously able to sell the property

1:29:37

to Trilobite, which

1:29:39

was these ex-cinemaware people. And

1:29:41

they were very interested in

1:29:43

it. And looking to flesh

1:29:46

out their new portfolio was

1:29:48

something almost done and was

1:29:50

innovative. And so we came

1:29:52

in just to finish the

1:29:54

game with Trilobite. But

1:29:57

unfortunately, they soon realized, or at

1:29:59

least they figured out, felt that

1:30:01

if it didn't have full motion

1:30:03

video, which they were becoming famous

1:30:05

for, then they couldn't

1:30:07

publish it. And so they

1:30:09

asked us to redesign the

1:30:11

game for full motion video,

1:30:14

which was kind of a catastrophe because

1:30:17

our whole design was based on

1:30:19

the idea that we could have

1:30:21

these enormous free floating scripts. And

1:30:24

we were sort of back to

1:30:27

dragon's lair. Yeah, full circle. If

1:30:30

we had known that, we

1:30:32

would have designed it differently.

1:30:36

And so we all gamely worked to

1:30:38

create a sort of, you know, like

1:30:40

a TV pilot kind of idea that

1:30:42

it would be a series. And we

1:30:45

shot this massive amount of Digi

1:30:47

Beta cam video, but it was

1:30:49

unwieldy and really lost a lot

1:30:52

of what was going to be

1:30:54

the secret sauce of dog eat

1:30:56

dog and trial a

1:30:58

bite. They wound up just calling it

1:31:00

a day with it because they had

1:31:02

other things they wanted to do. And

1:31:05

so open minded

1:31:07

the developer and me

1:31:10

and we formed a group called Ministry of

1:31:12

Thought and we bought it back. So the

1:31:14

Digi Beta cam videos are sitting here in

1:31:16

my house. I have the scripts, we have

1:31:18

the code. And so someday we may be

1:31:20

bringing it back on the internet. We're still

1:31:22

considering that possibility. That would be incredible. That

1:31:24

was going to ask actually how much you

1:31:26

still had of it. So there's pretty much

1:31:28

everything you need there to make it into

1:31:30

a full game still then is there? Yeah,

1:31:32

there is. Well, fingers crossed that happens one

1:31:34

day. And there's a lot of like indie

1:31:36

software companies out there that I'm sure would

1:31:38

love to put something like that out. So

1:31:41

if any of you're listening and maybe they'll

1:31:43

reach out to you, that would be awesome.

1:31:46

So when I started video games as well, obviously,

1:31:48

you're also an author as well. So tell us

1:31:50

about your books because they sound really

1:31:53

interesting. What are some of your titles that people

1:31:55

should look out for? Oh, thank you for asking.

1:31:57

Yes. So, you know, I continue writing on the

1:31:59

side. And for anyone who's

1:32:02

interested, my other claim to fame is

1:32:04

that I am the curator of the

1:32:06

Candy Wrapper Museum, a collection

1:32:09

of candy wrappers that I started

1:32:11

as a teenager back in those

1:32:13

Pong days. And I've

1:32:15

become sort of a subject matter

1:32:17

expert when it comes to candy

1:32:19

history and candy ephemera. So

1:32:21

I have three books

1:32:24

out on candy wrapper, candy

1:32:26

wrappers in candy history. One

1:32:29

classic candy, that's sort of an overview.

1:32:32

And then I have two books

1:32:34

about the history of Necco, making

1:32:36

those Necco wafers. And in short,

1:32:39

I had received all

1:32:41

this Necco ephemera. Necco was now

1:32:43

out of business, but a

1:32:46

lot of their stuff was thrown in the dumpster.

1:32:49

The future oriented person saved it

1:32:52

from all this great stuff from

1:32:54

the dumpsters. And I took

1:32:56

it, they sent it to the Candy Wrapper Museum. And

1:33:00

my husband, Joe and I, we

1:33:02

cleaned it all up. We researched

1:33:04

it. We created this incredible in-depth

1:33:06

archive of the story of Necco,

1:33:09

which is one of the great

1:33:11

American industrial stories

1:33:13

and put it all together into not

1:33:15

one, but two beautiful

1:33:18

picture and history books. And

1:33:20

so I have my candy books out there. And

1:33:23

being an ephemera fan to somebody

1:33:25

who has always collected along the

1:33:28

lines, I've also created a humor

1:33:30

book called A Woman's Guide to

1:33:32

Low Self-Esteem, which is about how

1:33:34

women out there, anyone

1:33:36

who's listening, if you hate your thighs,

1:33:38

you hate your hair, you hate your

1:33:40

nails. This is the

1:33:43

expose that shows why you do

1:33:45

based on just a

1:33:47

ton of advertising, negative advertising

1:33:49

out there for centuries, convincing

1:33:51

women that everything about them

1:33:54

is wrong. So that's

1:33:56

another one I have out there. And

1:33:58

also for you, video. game nerds out

1:34:00

there. An illustrated

1:34:03

discography about the musical career

1:34:06

of Leonard Nimoy as Spock

1:34:08

and as Nimoy. A really

1:34:11

fun book that's out there. So I

1:34:14

remember seeing, oh, sorry,

1:34:16

I remember seeing Bilbo Baggins, which

1:34:18

was one of the tunes that he did as

1:34:20

well on YouTube. And

1:34:22

I was like, I never knew Leonard Nimoy

1:34:24

did music, but yeah, this is great. Read

1:34:28

all about it. It's really a great

1:34:30

story. Where do people get hold of your

1:34:32

books? You can

1:34:34

buy them on Amazon primarily. So

1:34:37

we also have a few of them up

1:34:39

through IngramSpark, but

1:34:41

mostly they're up there on Amazon.

1:34:43

Great. Well, I'll find the Amazon links and I'll put

1:34:45

them in the show notes so people can click through. Thank

1:34:48

you. Fantastic. Well, Darlene, it's been incredible to

1:34:50

talk to you and what an amazing career

1:34:52

you've had as well. So long

1:34:55

may continue. Best of luck with future books as

1:34:57

well. And thank you for coming on and reminiscing

1:34:59

about these incredible games that you worked on too.

1:35:01

It's been absolutely fascinating to talk to you. Thank

1:35:04

you again for having me on the show.

1:35:06

It's just been such a pleasure. It's fun

1:35:08

to talk about these stories. I hope they

1:35:10

inspire game designers out there

1:35:12

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