I was on a panel about shareware games at PAX Australia in October, with Halloween Harry / Alien Carnage co-creator John Passfield, indie developer and bookshop owner Terry Burdak, and ACMI games curator Arieh Offman. This is the full audio from that panel.

You can find a PDF of my slides from the panel at this Dropbox link. I've also got John's slides in PowerPoint format (so you can play the videos yourself) and Terry's in another PDF.

As for where to find us and the things we talked about:

• My new book, Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the Internet, has a website here
• You can find out more about John's past work at the Play It Again website and his personal site.
• Terry's games studio and shop are located in Melbourne's inner north. You can check out their games and buy some things at https://www.paperhousegames.com/
• If you live in or are ever visiting Melbourne, be sure to visit ACMI and stop by the free Story of the Moving Image exhibition.
• And you can find us all on social media. I'm @MossRC on Twitter and @mossrc@social.mossrc.me on the Fediverse (Mastodon et al); John is @JohnPassfield on Twitter and @johnpassfield@mastodon.gamedev.place on the Fediverse; Terry is @PaperHouseGames on Twitter and Instagram; and Arieh is @OffmanArieh.
• Special thanks to Helen Stuckey for conceiving and organising the panel

And here's the original panel description:

I'm still a ways off of finishing the next full episode, but here's something to fill the void in the meantime.

When I spoke to Home of the Underdogs founder Sarinee Achavanuntakul, we had a long segue into the broken world of copyright and its connections to the abandonware scene in games. I'm not sure how much of it will make it into the main story, but I thought a solid chunk of what she said could stand well on its own — especially in light of recent industry discussions around preservation and digital sales (or re-sales) of games.

So here it is, with a fairly substantial intro from me that felt almost like a dress rehearsal for the abandonware discussion I'll have to include in the full episode.

If you'd like to contribute your thoughts/memories/insights on the Home of the Underdogs, please record a voice clip (in any audio format) and send it to me at richard@lifeandtimes.games, DM me @MossRC on Twitter, or upload directly to this drop folder.

You can support The Life & Times of Video Games in any of the following ways:

• subscribe to my Patreon
• make a one-time or recurring donation via paypal.me/mossrc
• buy my book The Secret History of Mac Gaming
• preorder my second book Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet
• or just by sharing your favourite episodes and telling other people about the show

To wrap up the year I wanted to revisit one of my old favourites: a story I made for my other (currently-inactive) podcast about one of the strangest and most thought-provoking programs ever created. This is the story of If Monks Had Macs.

Original description

It all started with a Macintosh ad: 'You too can be a knowledge worker.' This is the story of Brian Thomas' 15-year odyssey at the helm of one of the strangest pieces of multimedia software ever created — If Monks Had Macs.

Links

• You can learn more about Brian, and about Monks, at his website: http://www.rivertext.com/monks.html
• The original HyperCard stack is downloadable from http://www.rivertext.com/classic.html and also playable at the Internet Archive 
• Ludiphilia Episode 10, Life After If Monks Had Macs 

All music and sound effects from If Monks Had Macs (with some touch-up by me), except:

• I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor by Chris Zabriskie
• Oneiri by Kai Engel
• Comatose by Kai Engel
• And some bits I composed myself