Tony Rowe wrote:
Alien Garden is a pioneering computer toy for the Atari 8-bit computer line. It isn't really a game: the player is an alien bird or insect soaring over an alien landscape, interacting with the mutating plants growing there. It was designed by Bernie DeKoven (known for his participation in the "New Games" movement to create non-competitive games) and programmed by Jaron Lanier (who would later popularize the term "virtual reality" and be named one of TIME 100 most influential people in 2010).
Why do I bring this up in the Holmes Basic group? The good doctor himself saw enough merit in this software to write a two-page review for GAMEPLAY magazine issue no. 6. Here we learn that Dr. Holmes used an 8-bit Atari computer (probably an Atari 800), enjoyed playing Crossfire (by Sierra On-Line) and Zaxxon (SEGA) and did not get stoned before playing games.
Fascinating. I love the "He had to have been stoned at the time" line. Who knew that Lanier and Holmes had zero degrees of separation?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, I hadn't read that before. And not surprising that Holmes mentions Clark Ashton Smith!
ReplyDelete"I called my mail-order Atari dealer": that's a sentence you don't hear anymore.
ReplyDeleteWow!
ReplyDeleteZach H I was just thinking that!
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