Dad's Basement - Old-Timey Game Videos & Stuff:

Dad in the Basement

Dad's Basement - Old-Timey Game-Stuff

Dad's Basement is a video series from me, Dana, the Dad of the Happy Game Family, wherein I play, show off, and try to convey what was cool about some of my favorite games from yesteryear. I hope you younguns appreciate that I'm spending some extra time cutting together all the cool parts!

PROFESSOR Ulyaoth

History of Games and Game People

Lately this video series has had cause to pursue not simply the stories of old games, but the stories of some of the people who helped bring us those games. We're no journalists, but since we had the occasion to see certain stories from a different perspective, we'll be happy to share those stories from that viewpoint. Enjoy!

Dad's Basement #3c3 - The Shadow Over Denis Dyack: At The Mountains of Bad Press

Dad's Basement #3c3 - The Shadow Over Denis Dyack: At The Mountains of Bad Press - Mar. 12, 2016

In mid 2012, a number of people were laid off from Silicon Knights after the company's long-running lawsuit with Epic Games took a bad turn. They started a new company, Precursor Games, purchased some assets and equipment from Silicon Knights, and set about to nearly a year's work building a demo to bring to the public in order to crowd-fund the spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. In mid 2013, immediately upon launch, they would find themselves in the unenviable position of being the first crowdfunding effort roundly shouted down by various influential voices in the games press.

Long overdue, part Three of our three-part (plus) series covering Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and its attempted spiritual successor now is a posthumous survey of the failure of the Kickstarter for Shadow of the Eternals, split into multiple chapters.

Episode Video and Source List Here:
Dad's Basement #3c2 - The Shadow Over Denis Dyack: Paul Caporicci: Re-Animator

Dad's Basement #3c2 - The Shadow Over Denis Dyack: Paul Caporicci: Re-Animator - Nov 12, 2015

Ten Years after Eternal Darkness was released, a new wave of funding and support seemed to become available for makers of forgotten and neglected games and genres. History would write a story of acceptance and success and good press in 2012, while quietly behind the scenes former Silicon Knights people work to launch a company and a crowdfunding project of their own.

Long overdue, part Three of our three-part (plus) series covering Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and its attempted spiritual successor now is a posthumous survey of the failure of the Kickstarter for Shadow of the Eternals, split into multiple chapters.

Episode Video and Source List Here:
Dad's Basement #3c1 - The Shadow Over Denis Dyack: The Colour Out of Place

Dad's Basement #3c1 - The Shadow Over Denis Dyack: The Colour Out of Place - Sept 7, 2015

On the press response and reception to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Long overdue, part Three of our three-part (plus) series covering Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and its attempted spiritual successor now is a posthumous survey of the failure of the Kickstarter for Shadow of the Eternals, split into multiple chapters.

Episode Video and Source List Here:
Dad's Basement #3b - Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Dad's Basement #3b - Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - Aug 18, 2013

Part Two of our three-part series covering Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and its proposed spiritual successor starts by busting open the plot and characters of the former game, and then concludes by outlining its history and some cut elements, and then analyzing the gameplay highlights! sReleased in 2002 and the first M-rated game published by Nintendo, Eternal Darkness was developed by Silicon Knights initially for the Nintendo 64 and then retooled and released for the Nintendo Gamecube. The game spans the lives of multiple characters across two millennia of human history as they battle the Ancients, vast cosmic entities that threaten the fate of all mankind. It stands to date as the greatest Lovecraft-inspired game, in my opinion.

Episode Video and Source List Here:
Dad's Basement - #3a - Lovecraftian Horror and Games

Dad's Basement - #3a - Lovecraftian Horror and Games - Jul 30, 2013

Part One of our three-part series covering Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and its proposed spiritual successor starts with a survey of Lovecraft, Lovecraftian horror, and Lovecraftian games.

Episode Video and Source List Here:
Dad's Basement - #2 - Project Firestart

Dad's Basement - #2 - Project Firestart - Jan 24, 2013

Project Firestart is really the prototype for the modern survival horror game. Released in 1989 for the C-64 by Electronic Arts and developed by Dynamix (who would go on later to develop the highly popular Tribes), the game established many of the first qualities of "survival horror" including: limited ammo and weak weapons, cutscenes and cinematic presentation, multiple endings and consequences for actions.

Released when it was, the game took a lot of inspiration from the films Alien and Aliens. However a lot of the unique wrinkles in project Firestart--including an evolving enemy formed by genetic manipulation and the name of the main vessel in the game--have reappeared in the latest film in the series "Prometheus."

Special thanks to https://www.hardcoregaming101.com and https://www.retroremakes.com for research and materials used in this video.

Episode Video and Source List Here:
Dad's Basement - #1 - Legacy of the Ancients

Dad's Basement - #1 - Legacy of the Ancients - Jan 10, 2013

Legacy of the Ancients was an RPG with action elements, and a contemporary of other RPG series at the time like Ultima, Wizardry, and the Bard's Tale. It was released in 1987 by Electronic Arts, and was developed by Quest Software, a company made up of twin brothers John and Charles Dougherty, who also developed the Questron games for SSI.

In this video I show off the demo mode of the game as captured from a C-64, and then embark on a series of highlights from a quick runthrough of the beginning of the game.

I believe the motif of this game, a galactic museum filled with "out-of-tune" video screens that served as doorways to dungeons and other parts of the world, is very similar to, and a possible inspiration for, the motif of the game of Myst, which was released 6 years later and was also developed exclusively by two brothers.

Episode Video and Source List Here: