Jason Dyer

All the Adventures aims to give the history about and play every adventure game ever made in chronological order. The 1982 sequence has just concluded, and I've written a post looking back and collecting some notable games. #history #adventuregame bluerenga.blog/2025/05/14/a...

#IFComp '26 results are posted. All the games are there to play now and forever! ifcomp.org/comp/2026

on All the Adventures I continue my journey through the works of Steve W. Lucas, who seems to be one of the most prolific adventure writers of all time yet it's hard to tell because he kept rewriting the same game under different names bluerenga.blog/2026/10/24/s...

Next on All the Adventures, I give the early history of both Broderbund and Star Craft, and the very silly game made under a pseudonym by two of the lead creators of the Carmen Sandiego series. bluerenga.blog/2026/10/17/b...

For All the Adventures, a megapost where I finally give the ending (and missing content) of the Data General game Thissala, lost until very recently. bluerenga.blog/2026/10/14/t...

Apologies for those waiting for next post, been swarmed lately. I was expecting for 2026 two Apple II games (one in French), the ending of Thissala, a game in English from Japan, and one previously-lost game. In the meantime, IF Comp 2026 is running, try it out: ifcomp.org

The judging period for the 32nd annual #IFComp is open until October 19th! You can support the authors by donating to The Colossal Fund that provides a cash prize pool for the top entries. Check them out at ifcomp.org!

@wellerstein.bsky.social have you seen this game before? www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGL9...

I finish my exploration of the Japanese game based on the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, including approximate scenes from the movie and a couple where the author just goes freestyle. Also, meeting God. bluerenga.blog/2026/10/01/h...

Next on All the Adventures, I look into the Japanese computer game based on the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, and why such a thing would be made in the first place. (Part 1 of 2!) bluerenga.blog/2026/09/29/h...

The Italian site VGP Play has interviewed over 100 people involved in video games and other pop culture - all on video. Here's an interview they did with Coleco executive Bert Reiner, telling stories about Nintendo and more. vgpplay.com/video?w=58233

Today on All the Adventures: the British soap opera hit EastEnders, the terrible game that came out of it, and how the story connects to a VIC-20 game that came out three years earlier. bluerenga.blog/2026/09/26/l...

The conclusion to Eye of Min for the home-grown Australian Microbee computer, where I explain shifting focus from nouns to verbs as a puzzle technique, and briefly brush by a mysterious mention in a Swedish magazine: bluerenga.blog/2026/09/23/e...

my exploration of the Australian Microbee game Eye of Min continues, as I run into puzzles that seem like they belong more in a 21st century escape room bluerenga.blog/2026/09/22/e...

tremendous lead from @jdyer.bsky.social bluerenga.blog/2026/09/18/e...

All the Adventures turns to Australia and their most succesful home-grown computer, the Microbee. I give the story of how the Microbee came to be and explore one of the games published by their software branch. bluerenga.blog/2026/09/18/e...

in my finale post on Twin Kingdom Valley, I discover the secret of life, examine the character system more closely, and the author Hall pines wistful for the never-made sequel bluerenga.blog/2026/09/15/t...

Why do we call it an "arcade"? This question takes us back to the earliest days of coin-op amusement, the origin of recorded entertainment, and the tumultuous days of technology Trusts. Introducing: The First Arcade (maybe).

Twin Kingdom Valley continues, as I break into the realm of the Desert King, arm a giant with an axe (which goes better than expected) and get vaporized by a dragon. bluerenga.blog/2026/09/12/t...

Twin Kingdom Valley continues as I explore the underground, theorize about trading with enemies rather than showing aggression, and outmaneuver a troll. bluerenga.blog/2026/09/07/t...

My exploration of Twin Valley Kingdom continues, as I map out the outdoors and observe the philosophical differences between the authors who design "tight" spaces versus Hall's desire for an open world. bluerenga.blog/2026/09/05/t...

This is the oldest* surviving Snakes & Ladders board in the world. Specifically, it's Gyan Chaupar, the Game of Knowledge. It's from the late 18th Century, but the game is much older - paper & cloth are not resilient media. The ladders represent virtue, the snakes vice. The scorpions are decorative.

this was written back in 2022 and remains in my mind one of the most important articles written about game history and technology history in general

In which I embark on one of the most well-known British games of 1983, Twin Kingdom Valley. The main design idea: what if you weren't the protagonist of a story, but just a resident of a world, and the NPCs could do all the things you do? bluerenga.blog/2026/08/30/t...

So much text adventure news! So much reverb! The >OPEN MAILBOX team gets you caught up on the latest contests, preservation efforts, international reviews, and much more in our September installment. retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/48/

my grand sort-of-conclusion to the first Swedish adventure game for home computers, The Temple sort-of in that the (admittedly entertaining) bugs make it impossible to finish, but it's possible to see most of the game bluerenga.blog/2026/08/26/t...

More than a year after recording it, here's a new episode of the Memory Machine! What exactly *is* the first "personal computer"? We assembled a stacked roundtable discussion to get to the bottom of it! memorymachinepod.com/2026/08/24/m...

The long and complicated story of Swedish home computing, landing on what likely is the first Swedish adventure for home computer, The Temple for Commodore VIC-20. bluerenga.blog/2026/08/23/t...

A fun new post about that time for consoles before Atari got in! thehistoryofhowweplay.wordpress.com/2026/08/22/1... Learn about the strange, interesting, and largely European early history of game consoles!

The bizarre and messy conclusion to Citadel Adventure, where I'm not entirely sure what even happened. With some help from the comments I was able to find the author, so there's a little more history. bluerenga.blog/2026/08/21/c...

I endorse this book highly. I didn't use it for my Genma Taisen posts (nothing was strictly relevant) but I did read it leading up to them and it filled in many of my gaps in the overall history.

Next on All the Adventures: a game maybe from Germany in 1982, except before they had the C64, and written in English. Includes some history of Commodore in Germany. Bonus: a puzzle so cryptic even after seeing the solution I could use some help understanding it. bluerenga.blog/2026/08/15/c...

Bonus Genma Taisen (computer game) content: I found a second image which traces off Katsuhiro Otomo's sketch art for the 1983 film. (Likely all the art is done this way, but we don't have all sketches.) Also, if you haven't seen it yet, my part 2 on the game is here: bluerenga.blog/2026/08/11/g...

Part 2 (of 2) of my series on the "legendary kusoge" Genma Taisen, made to coincide with the 1983 animated film. I play through both PC-8001 and PC-98 versions, and tackle the question: how did this thing happen? bluerenga.blog/2026/08/11/g...

Genma Taisen simply can’t catch a break when it comes to game adaptations, huh

Genma Taisen (or Harmagedon: Genma Wars) is an animated movie that had a computer game to go with it released at the same time. The game is legendary for being bad. In part 1 (of 2) I give the history of how the game came to be; in part 2 I will see how it plays. bluerenga.blog/2026/08/07/g...

So, history educators (and humanities educators that are comfortable riffing off of history examples): here we are, August, school year coming soon. A perfect time to improve your game (hah) and check out my new book. Amazon has a decent reading sample:

For anyone wondering why the translation of Kamaitachi no Yoru is such a big deal, I'd highly recommend giving my video about Chunsoft's sound novel series a watch. It's a bit long, but it goes into the long history behind why these games were so influential in Japan. www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9BT...

Enormous news. I can attest that the patch of Otogirisou was excellent so I'm looking forward to trying this one.

Highly recommended for anyone who cares about the history of early Japanese personal computing.

In which I play the earliest adventure game explicitly based on Sherlock Holmes, giving the history of both who wrote the game and how it got written. It was coded based on an unusual system where you can edit from within the game. bluerenga.blog/2026/08/01/s...

Interesting stuff here: GPS has received an ok to rerelease an old game that's considered basically "legal abandonware" (my words) under this new system. However, digging deep into the filing (literally the last sentence, haha), the number of downloads will apparently be capped to 100 total.

Another spin of the wheel at random at All the Adventures, as I play Dr. Bongo's Safari Park, a game by the mysterious UK company Custom Software. bluerenga.blog/2026/07/30/d...

Dr. Lauren Liebe talking about students learning how to play PLATO games. The early graphics are so abstract by today's standards that they couldn't even tell what they were looking at

in which I play the odd graphical adventure game Adventuremania for TI-99, including comparisons between the author Martin Webb and child movie stars (and how teenaged computer entrepreneurs in general dealt with their parents in the early 80s) bluerenga.blog/2026/07/27/a...

the conclusion to Peter Kirsch's 16th game, with both clever preparation puzzles and some of the worst parser abuse I've seen from the author; also, some brief introspection as this is the last of the official 20-game Adventure Game of the Month series bluerenga.blog/2026/07/25/d...