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Jason Dyer

@jdyer.bsky.social
3K followers 446 following 861 posts

Game designer making mathematics and science interactive. I also do the All the Adventures project where I play and write about every adventure game ever made in chronological order. bluerenga.blog

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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Happy Bushman (1983)
Recently I played Genma Taisen, published by Pony Canyon in Japan in March 1983 to coincide with the accompanying film. It was an official conversion of an animated film to a game; the “first…
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Play History @playhistory.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
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
vgpplay.com
Reiner: L'ascesa e caduta di Coleco - VGP PLAY
In questa intervista esclusiva, Bert Reiner, uno dei protagonisti della storia di Coleco Industries, ripercorre il cammino dell’azienda dagli anni pionieristici del Telstar, al successo internazionale...
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Land of Tezrel (1983)
Most soap operas take a while to work their way up to murder, but EastEnders kicks off with it from the very first scene, airing February 1985 on BBC One. A door gets kicked in; the characters Arth…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Eye of Min: Verb-Hacking
I’ve finished the game; I was nearly at the end. My previous posts are needed for context. I had left off on an apparent combination lock with four symbols, where you had to enter an “i…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Eye of Min: Knowledge Traps
(Continued from my last post.) Eye of Min, as I previously mentioned, was part of a trilogy, the second and third games being The Sabre of Sultar and The Temple of Azragor respectively. They were o…
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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
tremendous lead from @jdyer.bsky.social bluerenga.blog/2026/09/18/e...
In the 1960s, Qantas wanted to improve their flight reservation system.
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Eye of Min (1983)
In the 1960s, Qantas wanted to improve their flight reservation system. At the time, reservation clerks would get tickertapes from travel agents and enter flights manually; every single sales offic…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Twin Kingdom Valley: The Secret of Life
I owned an Acorn Electron as a kid. It wasn’t the greatest games machine in the playground, but it did have the best game of all-time, Braben and Bell’s Elite, and one of the finest adventure games…
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ourlostarcade.bsky.social @ourlostarcade.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
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).
A postcard featuring The Arcade building in Cleveland, Ohio, circa 1901. The lower left shows the Ohio Phonograph Company office on the second floor. This is possibly the first location for coin-operated amusements situated inside of an "arcade" style building, potentially giving birth to the term "arcade" as a space for coin-operated machines.

https://www.loc.gov/item/2016800199/
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Twin Kingdom Valley: Engulfed in Flames
(Continued from my previous posts.) Last time I left off on a narrow fissure leading to Watersmeet, and a cave nearby that’s a maze. Also, just for the record, I had a brass key (from the ver…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Twin Kingdom Valley: The Maze of the Witch
(Continued from my previous posts.) I have the first two underground sections (the one from the locked grate, and the one from the cave at the trail) mostly mapped out and connected, so now seems l…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Twin Kingdom Valley: Outdoors
(Continued from my previous post, read that post first before this one.) As is usual for one of these massive games of this era, the best place to start is outside. I’ll be showing it off in …
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Tim Clare @timclare.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
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.
A Gyan Chaupar paper board with long snakes, ladders, & some scorpions
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
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
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Twin Kingdom Valley (1983)
It’s not your world. You arrive there and you’re a person, a creature, just like all the others. You see something shiny and think maybe you could go get it, so off you wander. You’re not controlli…
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The Retro Adventurers @retroadventurers.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
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/
retroadventurers.podbean.com
OPEN MAILBOX September 2026 | The Retro Adventurers
Contest deadlines, international reviews, and some Ramsberg groveling lead our news coverage for text adventure enthusiasts this month. Tim, Jason, and Nick bring you the latest for one of the oldest ...
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
The Temple: Dangerous to Move In the Dark
(Continued from my previous post about what is likely the first adventure game written in Sweden on a home computer.) I may not have squeezed out every single piece of working game from The Temple,…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Still playing the Swedish VIC-20 game The Temple (likely the earliest home computer adventure game from Sweden); ran into some bits where I think the author had translation issues. Had a crash including these lines: I'm mat. Spit. Liane tied to branch. Liane tied to bridge-pillar.
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Nathaniel Lockhart @nathaniellockhart.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
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...
memorymachinepod.com
Memory Machine #73 – What is the first Personal Computer?
What would you think is the first ‘personal computer’? I’m sure a lot of folks would say the Apple II, or at least would suggest Apple as having created a very early computer. May…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
The Temple (1982)
The last time this blog visited Sweden was with Stuga a full 15 years ago; one day, I will go back to that game and toss in the history of Swedish mainframes and academic computing alongside. Howev…
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Play History @playhistory.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
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!
thehistoryofhowweplay.wordpress.com
1974’s Bizarre Game Consoles
Weird and wonderful early consoles. Let’s talk about them.
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Citadel Adventure: Everybody Might Be a Member of the KGB
(Continued from my previous post.) First, a resolution of the technical mystery with the caps-swap, courtesy of Andrea Pachetti in the comments (who has a blog dedicated to the history of Italian v…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
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.
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Citadel Adventure (1982)
In 1980, Commodore got their first factory in Germany (in Braunschweig). The CEO Jack Tramiel came to give a speech and was warned “don’t tell them you’re Jewish”. He handle…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
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...
Green creature compared to sketch of sameGame art of child martial-arts master compared to sketch of same
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Genma Taisen: The Power of Love
(Continued from my part 1, read that part first.) Before tangling into the gameplay, one bit of bookkeeping and one bit of meta-discussion. For the bookkeeping, one thing I didn’t linger on i…
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H.K // デビル零 #PlayMoreVF @devilrei.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Genma Taisen simply can’t catch a break when it comes to game adaptations, huh
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Genma Taisen (1983)
This is one of the most infamous computer games from Japan ever made. You can mostly blame the 1967 film The Graduate. I’ll explain along the way– Genma Taisen, the manga, was first ser…
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Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
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:
read.amazon.com
Read a sample: “Designing Historical Games for Classrooms”
Jeremiah McCall
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Bowl of Lentils @bowloflentils.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
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...
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Enormous news. I can attest that the patch of Otogirisou was excellent so I'm looking forward to trying this one.
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Highly recommended for anyone who cares about the history of early Japanese personal computing.
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Sherlock Holmes & the Case of the Elementary Rescue (1983)
People are going to buy these things and then after six weeks or so they’re going to put them up on a shelf in their closet and ignore them … we saw that there was a need for something …
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krugman @動作不良品(カビ) @krugman.net · 31/07/2026
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.
fixupx.com
ゲーム保存協会 💾 GPS (@gamepres)
【重要なお知らせ】 このたび文部科学省様のアカウントから告知がありました。特定非営利活動法人ゲーム保存協会は「未管理著作物裁定制度」の第二号として裁定を受けました。当制度ではSNSでも話題になっておりましたので、ご存じの方もいらっしゃるかと思います。 復刻対象となるゲームは『重機動戦隊シグナス』(日本ソフトアンドハード社) PC-88版です。現在、ダウンロード形式での配信に向けて準備を進めている...
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Dr. Bongo’s Safari Park (1983)
Dr. Bongo’s plan is to destroy the World, with only hours before his devastating missiles are launched you locate his position. Your mission is to stop him and be the World’s No. 1 hero…
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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
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
A screenshot of the PLATO game Camelot, demonstrating the "graphical uncertainty" witj the game's first-person perspective.
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Adventuremania (1983)
As a child I was obsessed with making stuff, it started with cardboard boxes and moved on to wood by the age of 5. By 10 I was constantly visiting rubbish dumps to find broken electrical stuff I co…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
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...
bluerenga.blog
Danger Is My Business: Stinkerus Americanus
I’ve finished the game; this is continued from my previous post. Just to get it out of the way first, we’ve got headhunters again, something I’ve written about before. Since this …
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Kevin Bunch (ubersaurus) @atariarchive.org · 23/07/2026
New Atari Archive post! We wrap up March 1981 on the blog with a history of Activision's Tennis, and early tennis video games. Discover that that the game name "Tennis for Two" is a lie! www.atariarchive.org/blog/tennis-...
atariarchive.org
Tennis – March 1981, Atari Archive
The final March 1981 release, Tennis, is another sports game from the folks at Activision, which drew attention with titles like Boxing, Skiing and...
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Peter Kirsch is one of the most prolific (and unknown) game authors to write adventures. This is his 16th game for my blog. bluerenga.blog/2026/07/20/d...
bluerenga.blog
Danger Is My Business (1983)
It’s been a while since we’ve played Peter Kirsch, despite this being his 16th game for this blog. (Most recently: The Dalton Gang, Alaskan Adventure, The Curse of the Pharoah) This is …
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
All the Adventures returns to Australia. I play two games made by a teenager using his friend's adventure system for VIC-20; they come out better than you'd expect by using the "fan fiction shortcut" of supernatural creatures having common lore. bluerenga.blog/2026/07/18/d...
bluerenga.blog
Deathship / Werewolf (1983)
It was remembered as a “joke” computer, with its 22 by 23 character screen and 3.5Kb of RAM. Revisionists forgot that at the time there was nothing else, and that within the confines of…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
I finally was able to complete Catacombs, after starting on it 3 years ago. The 1981 version of the game was recently unearthed. It is one of the first commercial British text adventures. bluerenga.blog/2026/07/15/c...
bluerenga.blog
Catacombs: Looking Upon the Angel of Death
(Continued from my previous posts on Catacombs, and in particular my last post which described how the 1981 PET version of the game was recently rescued.) Catacombs was more frustrating to get to t…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Last weekend, one of the most important British text adventures was preserved in its original form (Commodore PET!) for the first time. In this post, I examine the circumstances of its rescue and some other details in the starting sections. bluerenga.blog/2026/07/11/c...
bluerenga.blog
Catacombs: The Rescued (Previously Presumed Lost) 1981 Version
(Continued from my previous posts on Catacombs, which you probably should read before this one if you want the full background.) Last weekend, I received a message from Marcel Ingram Lansing that o…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Surprise bonus post on Thissala! While testing one last thing I found a new piece of content which has the potential to break the game open. bluerenga.blog/2026/07/08/t...
bluerenga.blog
Thissala: Your Friend and Aide for Evermore
Back already! (Continued from my previous posts on Thissala.) Well. Rob pointed out I still missed a chunk of content, but I still would have made it an addendum or a comment on my last post, excep…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
My grand conclusion to my series on Thissala, the game lost since 1979: bluerenga.blog/2026/07/06/t...
bluerenga.blog
Thissala: Last Stop on the Suicide Express
This is my last post on Thissala for now, although given the authors never finished it, and there seems to be content I haven’t been able to access, I can’t promise it is the last word.…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Thissala (the game from 1979 only rescued last year) continues, as I reach the fringes of the map and analyze a piece of the game's prose (comparing to original Adventure and Beyond Zork). bluerenga.blog/2026/07/04/t...
bluerenga.blog
Thissala: END DIGGINS
(Continued from my previous posts.) I’ve finally finished filling in the map of the desert, and found absolutely no items whatsoever. It’s all just rooms and more rooms. If there are an…
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The Retro Adventurers @retroadventurers.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Plenty of contest results, a new Inform library (or is it?) and news so late-breaking we have to interrupt our news to bring other news! retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/44/
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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
a fascinating game archeology piece in which someone maps and attempts to understand Thissala, a recently unearthed adventure game from 1979.
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
My exploration of Thissala (the game started in 1979 but only unearthed last year) continues, as I find a desert authored by someone obsessed with geology and scenic simulations. bluerenga.blog/2026/06/28/t...
bluerenga.blog
Thissala: Under Construction
(Continued from my previous posts.) One thing to keep in mind with mainframe adventure games is they were often experienced by players of that period in a state of “under construction”.…
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
The mysterious (and previously-lost) Thissala (1979) continues, as I die and explore the afterlife of Riverworld. bluerenga.blog/2026/06/21/t...
bluerenga.blog
Thissala: The Shores of Riverworld
(Continued from my previous posts.) Last time I left off on getting immediately killed by a pirate when entering a niche at the train station. Predictably, you can also get killed by waiting for th…
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