14+ Years of Blogging

I was listening to the latest episode of The Talk Show podcast today and was fascinated to hear John Gruber and Jason Kottke talk about their history writing blogs which dated back into the late nineties.

It got me thinking about my experiences and history of blogging.

I went back to check out my first Blogger entry from 14 years ago and ironically it was me reminiscing about the good old days.

It seems fitting that I post that original entry again as I was very enthusiastic about how easy it was in 2004 to make games compared to 1984 :-)

So here is my first Blogger entry from Wednesday, 6th of October 2004.

I wonder how many readers are thinking back to 2004 (or even 2014) and remembering the first game they made?

-Johno

Twenty Years Ago - Oct 6th, 2004

I got a call from the Game Developers Association of Australia (http://www.gdaa.asn.au/) asking me about some of Krome’s major milestones. This was for a display on Australian games they are putting together and they wanted to know stuff like what year Krome was founded (1999 by myself, Steve Stamatiadis and Robert Walsh) and when TY the Tasmanian Tiger was released (2002). 

I asked them how far the Aussie games industry went back and was told the earliest entry they had was for Beam Software, which was founded in 1980.Suddenly, it dawned on me that I’ve been in the Aussie industry since pretty much the beginning. My first published game was called Chilly Willy and was released in 1984 on the Microbee system (http://www.thepcmuseum.com/appliedtechnology/) by a company called Honeysoft. Halloween Harry followed that up a year later. Then I took time out to study at University, where I wrote some more games. I didn’t release these commercially, but made a text adventure freely available on the university computer system. That was followed by a short stint as a programmer at a telecommunications company after graduation, and then I was straight back into it in 1991. 

Back then, the four years between when Beam began and when I was first published seemed like a lifetime, as most things do when you’re a kid. But looking back, I realize that I was there during the heady days of the Aussie industry. It’s weird, even though I’ve been making games for twenty years now it’s still as fresh and exciting as it was back then. 

But the great thing about making games today is that it’s a lot easier than it’s ever been! All you need is a PC (which most kids have access to) some development tools (like Blitz Basic and Pro Motion) and the burning desire to make a game. And the costs are so cheap that there’s no excuse. Blitz Basic costs USD $100, the same price as two Playstation2 games - get it online from http://www.blitzbasic.com/. 

I hope that in 2024 a whole bunch of kids will look back at 2004 and fondly remember their first game they wrote and distributed over the net. Wouldn’t that be cool? 

Well, that’s enough nostalgia for one day. Time to go make games!