The Video Game History Hour

Today’s episode features the bizarre origins of SimRefinery as well as other Sim titles which never came to be. Phil Salvador joins the Video Game History Hour to discuss a branch of Maxis, Business Simulations Division, which gives us a glimpse into a path-not-taken, alternate reality where Maxis might have only made a name for…

Much the way we all set our status to NOT show when we’re in a game, the Game and Watch was originally created to allow Japanese sallarymen to play games at work while their boss was none the wiser. This week we’re joined by Matt Alt as he discusses his article, “How Gunpei Yokoi Reinvented…

In his documentary, Insert Coin, Josh Tsui explored the good, the bad, and the ugly of Midway Games’ Studio from varying management styles and their resulting culture to the magic formula for sequel games. Listen in with the guy who knows where all the skeletons are buried and learn how the NBA may owe much…

In this turn-based interview, Sid Meier takes us from zero to 255 and brings the show nuclear! Well, at least that’s the rumor. Sid opens up his lifelong dev notes to discuss how he got started in games, why he decided to write his recent book, Sid Meier’s Memoir!, and how he’s better at Red Baron…

Garry Kitchen joins the podcast to discuss his lifelong career in gaming and how spending his summer of 1982 porting Nintendo’s Donkey Kong over to the Atari 2600 was tedious, but worth it. He’d also like you to know he’s a hell of a good ROM hacker, Mario’s eye is just a void, and you’re darn right…

Spoiler Alert: It’s a monkey wrench! You find a banana to put on the metronome to hypnotize the monkey to put in your pocket to take to the waterfall to use on the valve as a “monkey wrench.” *puff, puff* Oh, you don’t have monkey wrenches in your country? Mm okay, that may throw a…

Though it’s the reason he was hired as a video producer at Game Informer, Ben Hanson back-burnered his documentary, Trailheads: The Oregon Trail’s Origins Documentary, for 11 years on a game that took 5 days to create (don’t we all have some project like that?). And yet, the wait has been worth it: You’re gonna party…

Putting aside his ‘imposter syndrome’ feelings, video game journalist Elijah Lee asked, “Who was the first female video game designer” in his A First Lady of Gaming microdocumentary. Lee takes us through a bit of Muriel Tramis’ progressive and lightning-in-a-bottle career, laments the heartbreaking loss of history to the maw of time, and aims to support activism…

We sit down with Ally McLean to discuss her recent article The Incredible Story Behind The Barbie As Rapunzel Video Game to learn some behind-the-scenes stories of how Barbie as Repunzel came to be. From being heckled at GDC, to stalking MC Hammer’s press tour, all the way to how this game even inspired Ms. McLean’s own…

Matt Leone, features editor of Polygon, recently published the second in a series of articles delving into the history of the Street Fighter franchise: Street Fighter 1: An oral history. Matt helps us understand the market conditions that made this game unique for its time and how it served as a foundation to a wildly…