#stumbling through

[davidxn]

Stumbling Tours! Epic MegaGames, Part 1: ZZT

I'm opening up a new video project (and the thing that I really came up with the Stumbling Tours rebranding for) - it's the history of Epic MegaGames! This will be an occasional video series, because I don't get nearly the amount of time that I used to to work on these things - but I'll take it from their very beginning to the release of Unreal Tournament in 1999. This first video covers ZZT and its successors. Originally I'd meant to do more, but I talked about them for twenty minutes and felt that that was long enough for a first part already.

I'm trying to make a conscious effort to speak more slowly, as I've had a few people say my rapid Scottish accent makes it difficult to keep up with me - it's a struggle and I still find myself slipping!

[wetwicksdry]

Thinking about my first moments in elementary school and how when we were asked to spell out our full names I freaked out and cried so they had to call my mom. I knew how to spell first and last but my middle name was a mystery to me. I cried so hard like I had lost all foundation of who I was. Like if I dont know how to spell my middle name who even am I? Not knowing made me lose my grip on reality for a min. Like, am I even a real girl? Is everything I know about myself only half filled in and this easily collapsible. Poor little Alex. Also I once was on the carpet for story time and I found a dime and tried to put it in my nose. I was successful but it got stuck and I was freaking out trying to get it back out. I did. I think now about if someone around me was just staring at me the whole time with my head down barely concealing my panic. Lol. I was a sensitive and weird child. Things have not changed much. My childhood, it was like those teenage movies. The weird girl was friends with the populars until they saw how weird she truly was when everyone started growing up a little more. That's the thing about being a pretty girl who is also weird. You trick everyone.

[nxtyxurfamily]

Closed Starter: Stumbling Through

Phoebe chews on the eraser of her pencil a bit, staring off into space. Her mind a million miles from here, lost in a situation that hasn’t happened, but her mind is playing through the same what-if scenario for only the millionth time about it.

Snapping out of her thoughts when she hears someone speak, she blinks and looks up, smiling at the girl. “Oh, sorry, I... my mind wasn’t here. Did you say something? Love your hair, by the way.”

@untxld-stxries​ (Mara)

[davidxn]

Stumbling Tours: Epic Megagames, Part 5: An Epic Year 3

I'm honestly not sure how I'm keeping up this schedule while taking care of a rapidly developing toddler, but here is another Epic video! I'm still covering 1993, during which Epic somehow managed to release about five years' worth of games. This video covers their brief experiment with publishing games for Windows 3.1! Featured here are Castle of the Winds by Rick Saada and Dare to Dream by a developer you may have heard of called Cliff Bleszinski. It also shows Xargon, which was Allen Pilgrim's second game that took a lot from Kiloblaster and Jill of the Jungle.

[davidxn]

Stumbling Tours: Epic Megagames part 3 - An Epic Year, part 1!

1993 was a ridiculously large year for Epic where they released about twelve games. This video covers Solar Winds and Silverball by James Schmalz (now of Digital Extremes) and Ken’s Labyrinth by Ken Silverman. It also includes footage of a quasi-official followup Ken’s Labyrinth II!

[davidxn]

Stumbling Tours: Epic Megagames Part 2 - Ventures in VGA!

Continuing my look through the back catalogue of the great Epic Megagames, covering their history from ZZT to Unreal Tournament! This episode is about the first four graphical games that Epic released in 1992 - it's called Ventures in VGA even though one of them isn't.

Features Jill of the Jungle, Kiloblaster, Brix and Overkill.

[davidxn]

Stumbling Tours! - Le Fetiche Maya

I’m opening up a new video series that’s a lot like my old video series - the Stumbling Through name had meant to be for blind playthroughs of games, but I’d drifted into using the same title for more documentary-type videos as well. So from now on, the videos where I talk in-depth about games, compare ports, and so on will be under the new name, Stumbling Tours!

This one came into being because I was trying to look up a playthrough video for Le Fetiche Maya, a Silmarils DOS game from 1989 that I could never work out at all. Finding there wasn’t one, I decided to make one myself, with the aid of a guide from Abandonia.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/800/Le+Fetiche+Maya.html

The aim of the game, as much as you’re given one at all, is to venture into the ruins of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, etc. and recover a strange fetish. Along the way, I found the writers of the game had done more research than I’d anticipated.

[davidxn]

Two years after investigating the first game, here's my look at all the versions of Prince of Persia 2! This time there are only five ports and a lot of them are much more similar than the original Prince, but each of them has their own personality that brings a little more (or less) to the game.

Thanks to @tangobunny for providing a copy of the FM Towns version!