Astrocade at Magfest!

[ubersaurus]

For any enthusiasts who are going to Magfest or live on the east coast, Rachel Simone Weil and I will be running a history panel all about the independent developer/enthusiast scene that cropped around the Astrocade! Obviously quite unique for a game console to have vastly more unofficial, "bedroom coder" style software releases than official ones, and having enthusiast-developed and sold hardware is similarly incredible. We'll be talking about how this scene coalesced, the kind of unique, even artful programs that were created, how it petered out, and if there's time, even a bit about the current state of homebrew development for the platform.

 

I also plan on bringing my Astrocade to the museum area and having it set up to play immediately following the panel with some BASIC games and homebrew/indie stuff on the ultimulti. Magfest is Jan. 2-5 in National Harbor, Maryland, and the panel itself will be recorded and posted on YouTube in the weeks following the event.

 

[ballyalley]

I added information about this talk to the Bally Alley blog, here:

 

History Panel: "The Arcadians: Exploring the history of homebrew for the Bally Astrocade"

 

This sounds great and I can't wait to watch the video!

 

Adam

[ubersaurus]

14 minutes ago, ballyalley said:

I added information about this talk to the Bally Alley blog, here:

 

History Panel: "The Arcadians: Exploring the history of homebrew for the Bally Astrocade"

 

This sounds great and I can't wait to watch the video!

 

Adam

Oh yes, thank you for reminding me!

 

Another researcher, Whitney Pow, is running a history panel later that same Friday (5:30 pm) entitled "The Glitch: Queer and Transgender Video Game History," which will focus, at least in part, on Jamie Fenton's contributions to video games and digital artwork. I know they've got access to some really interesting items from recent (and as-yet unpublished) interviews Fenton has given, so it should be a good talk as well.

[ballyalley]

I also just posted about this on the Astrocast Facebook page, here:

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Podcast/The-Bally-Alley-AstroCast-793653064007619/

 

I really never use Social Media anymore (not that I really ever used it much at all).  I don't think I've used Facebook in well over a year.

 

Adam