Bob Bates talking about his Infocom and Legend days

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Mr Creosote
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Bob Bates talking about his Infocom and Legend days

#1 Post by Mr Creosote » Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:37 pm

He was recently featured in a podcast, telling some stories (among other things) about his never made Robin Hood game ("I couldn't figure out how to say: 'You take an arrow from the quiver.' - 'Which arrow do you mean: The first arrow, the second arrow, the twentieth arrow...'"), his never made The Abyss game and makes some thoughtful remarks about parser-driven games actually having some kind of (commercial) future.

The podcast is in German language, Bob's parts are in English.

The other guys talking to him there are the legends of German computer game journalism - basically the people who did the very first game review magazines in this country. Other guests include two guys from Factor 5 (legendary non-IF game company) and Chris Hülsbek (legendary computer game music composer), so if you understand German, it's worth listening to the whole thing. If not... Bob's main part starts around minute 35 and lasts about 15 minutes. He chimes in again around minute 52, talking about Unreal and the final releases of Infocom (but nothing really new there). In minute 75, he talks about what games he's been playing lately himself and about research for his own projects. Somewhere in between, he asks the former journalists how they could face the designers of games they had given horrible ratings in their magazines which leads to some funny discussions and he does the very first and last words of the podcast ;)

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Re: Bob Bates talking about his Infocom and Legend days

#2 Post by Gunness » Sat Aug 28, 2010 7:40 am

Thanks for the heads-up - I've listened to a bit of Bates' interview, and it sounds very promising :thumb:

Where is the Hülsbeck part? I'm a long time fan of his C64 and Amiga compositions and even have one of his cd's (which isn't exactly his finest hour)

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Re: Bob Bates talking about his Infocom and Legend days

#3 Post by Mr Creosote » Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:17 am

Chris Hülsbek didn't really talk much in that podcast. He was 'just there', dropping the occasional line and once again announcing the new CD 'Sound of Games' which he collaborated on. The reason was that he had been a guest on there a couple of times before already:

http://www.spieleveteranen.de/archives/305: He 'unexpectedly' drops in right at the beginning, announcing the new CD 'Sound of Games' on which some of his music will appear as well. He signs off after about five minutes.

http://www.spieleveteranen.de/archives/347: Here, he talks a bit more from minute 44 on: About the end of Factor 5, his perspectives as an independent game music composer and the changing technical challenges in his field - from programming to much more classic recording techniques; a little bit about Turrican; his latest project called 'Zombie Smash'; his favourite synthesizers; his stance on his old C64 music being spread around the Internet for free; his old CD 'Shades'. About 25 minutes of him on the whole.

http://www.spieleveteranen.de/archives/382: From about minute 5 on, Chris, Teut Weidemann and Boris Schneider talk about the time they worked together for Rainbow Arts (late 1980s, early 1990s). Lasts for about 12 minutes. After that, they all talk about the 'GamesCom' where Chris was supposed to be 'live on stage'.

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