Through the Moongate 03 – Whiz Kids
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Podcast Topic(s)
Andrea Contato’s Through the Moongate, per its Kickstarter page, “illuminates the path of the Ultima games’ history and the creative people behind this landmark series. It also covers some of Origin’s other games, especially Wing Commander, and touches on several contemporary titles. Many of these tales have never before been told.” The book “aims to be a more complete account of Origin’s history than has ever been presented before.”
Andrea Contato spent years researching and interviewing dozens of developers who were key to Origin Systems‘ successes, compiling all of their stories into two volumes. The first book, which covers the history of Richard Garriott and Origin from Akalabeth through to Ultima 6, was crowdfunded in late 2018 and released in mid-2019; you can find it for sale on Amazon, and you can learn more about the book at its author at both Theira.it and AndreaContato.com. The second book, which covers Ultima Underworld through to Shroud of the Avatar, was crowdfunded in late 2019, and is currently being edited ahead of a 2021 release.
The good Mr. Contato kindly agreed to let Spam Spam Spam Humbug adapt Through the Moongate as a series of episodes; over the course of the next several weeks, we’ll be reading through the first book, one chapter at a time. This week covers the third chapter of the book, which details Garriott’s porting of DND28 to Applesoft BASIC, his exposure to several other notable computer games of the late 1970s and inspiration he drew therefrom, and the eventual release of Akalabeth: World of Doom.
Community & Patronage
A big thanks to our new patron, John Zvaleko!
As always, this episode of Spam Spam Spam Humbug is brought to you by our Patreon backers; thank you to everyone who supports Spam Spam Spam Humbug and the Ultima Codex by that means. And, as always, a hearty thank you to our co-producers: Seth, Goldenflame, Dominik, Violation, Helgraf, Gronkh, Pascal, Thorwan, and John.
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Music & Sound Effects
‘Warriors of Destiny’ – an Ultima V Orchestral Remix by Scott Buckley
Keyboard Typing Sound by Spanac
Cash Register Sound Effect by Spanac
Airplane in Flight Sound by Spanac
Telephone Ring Sound Effect by Spanac
Image
One of three known — and verified, by Richard Garriott — copies of Akalabeth sold at ComputerLand prior to the distribution deal with CPCC. Photograph provided by Enrico Ricciardi.
Spam Spam Spam Humbug will be, for the next several weeks, doing a complete read-through of Andrea Contato’s Through the Moongate. This week covers the third chapter of the book, which details Richard Garriott’s porting of DND28 to Applesoft BASIC, his exposure to several other notable computer games of the late 1970s and inspiration he drew therefrom, and the eventual release of Akalabeth: World of Doom.