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RPG Codex has posted a retrospective interview with Robert Woodhead, co-creator of the Wizardry series. His co-creator was Andrew Greenberg - Wizardy I was first released, by Sir-Tech, in 1981 for the Apple II computer to be one of the first RPGs for the computer. RPG Codex has talked with him about the series as a whole, the design of the series as well as how it was to work in the gaming industry in the 1980's. A quote about the industry in the 1980's:
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And quote about the coding:How would you describe the atmosphere of working in the video game industry in the beginning of the 1980s, and how did it change over the years that you were active in the industry?
In the early days, we were very isolated; the only time we really interacted with other creators was at conferences and conventions. The rate of change during that period was very slow due to the lack of communication -- a 1200 baud modem was the gold standard!
And finally a little bit of advice:Did you code the first four Wizardry games by yourself? What programming challenges did you face that you were most proud of overcoming?
I did the code for the first 4 games. The most interesting hacks I did were the copy-detection system, and the "Window Wizardry" retrofit that added overlapping windows to the UI, which got done from idea to implementation in a single 80-hour coding marathon.
Thanks Crooked Bee!To conclude this interview by going back to the way it all began, have you got any advice for college students who want to make their own cRPGs?
Obviously, you'd want to do something for smartphones or tablets, since the barrier to entry and the development costs are much lower there. But mostly I'd give the same advice I give anyone about any project -- do it for yourself, because you love doing it. Money and success is just icing; the cake is the work itself.
Steve Martin said it best when he said that the best thing about comedy was "I get paid for doing this".
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