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It's amazing to see the path Bungie has traveled. They made a couple of Macintosh games in the early 90s, then had a breakout hit Marathon in 1995 on the Mac, b

It's amazing to see the path Bungie has traveled. They made a couple of Macintosh games in the early 90s, then had a breakout hit Marathon in 1995 on the Mac, back when serious gamers played Doom on the PC and laughed at the Mac (maybe they still do?). When I was a kid with a Mac, wanting to learn to program games, I read this interview over and over: http://marathon.bungie.org/story/jasonjonesTofTMPG.html http://marathon.bungie.org/story/jasonjonesTofTMPG.html I had to read this again to remember that the original Marathon game had taken three developers a little less than a year. And on re-reading it, it's great to see how much solid, long lasting advice there was in that interview.

bennyg 14y ago
Great read, thanks for the link. A lot of interesting game and low-memory design decisions going on there.
Tycho 14y ago
Also interesting that this new game is called Destiny, and the word 'Destiny' is the last thing you see in the Marathon series (ie. when you complete Marathon Infinity).
- nswanberg 14y ago
  What I remember about Marathon isn't only that it was a fun, playable game, but also the story arc and it's level titles' semi-serious references to military history, such as "Waterloo Waterpark" and "My Own Private Thermopylae". It's nice to hear they're continuing that story arc.
  - Tycho 14y ago
    I think the story is one of the best works of sci-fi ever... the terminals play with storytelling/narrative in all sorts of ways.
doomlaser 14y ago
I still have my copy of that book.
- nswanberg 14y ago
  Isn't it great? I gave mine to a friend, but bought another on Amazon a few months ago when I was curious about how well it had aged (aside from the technical details). I thought it held up well. I also have many fond memories of digging through the CD from the back of the book, looking at the code and demo games, including Marathon (Using Resourcerer to find Jason Jones' easter egg note was fun, too).
talmand 14y ago
To answer your question about the Mac being laughed at from the PC crowd, actually Windows crowd, because of the lack of games. This was true until fairly recently. Because of the efforts of Valve with their Steam platform and others, we PC gamers can finally stop laughing and welcome them to the fold of the best gaming platform ever made; the PC. Because, after all, the Mac is a PC with a different OS. Hopefully soon we can roll Linux into the group as well. Although, the Mac did have some good games over the years. Halo was going to be one of them until Microsoft bought it to make it an XBox exclusive.
- omni 14y ago
  Actually, it's still true, but the wheels have been set in motion to make it less true over time. The Mac collection on Steam is still paltry compared to PC, particularly for AAA titles.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Well, you can still laugh at it if you wish. But considering that those paltry few games is a lot more than they had before, I'm willing to say the trend is changing. Somewhere there has to be a point where we can say "this is where it changed". I would think that the release of Steam is possibly that moment.

bennyg 14y ago

Great read, thanks for the link. A lot of interesting game and low-memory design decisions going on there.

Tycho 14y ago

Also interesting that this new game is called Destiny, and the word 'Destiny' is the last thing you see in the Marathon series (ie. when you complete Marathon Infinity).

nswanberg 14y ago
What I remember about Marathon isn't only that it was a fun, playable game, but also the story arc and it's level titles' semi-serious references to military history, such as "Waterloo Waterpark" and "My Own Private Thermopylae". It's nice to hear they're continuing that story arc.
- Tycho 14y ago
  I think the story is one of the best works of sci-fi ever... the terminals play with storytelling/narrative in all sorts of ways.

doomlaser 14y ago

I still have my copy of that book.

nswanberg 14y ago
Isn't it great? I gave mine to a friend, but bought another on Amazon a few months ago when I was curious about how well it had aged (aside from the technical details). I thought it held up well. I also have many fond memories of digging through the CD from the back of the book, looking at the code and demo games, including Marathon (Using Resourcerer to find Jason Jones' easter egg note was fun, too).

talmand 14y ago

To answer your question about the Mac being laughed at from the PC crowd, actually Windows crowd, because of the lack of games. This was true until fairly recently. Because of the efforts of Valve with their Steam platform and others, we PC gamers can finally stop laughing and welcome them to the fold of the best gaming platform ever made; the PC. Because, after all, the Mac is a PC with a different OS. Hopefully soon we can roll Linux into the group as well. Although, the Mac did have some good games over the years. Halo was going to be one of them until Microsoft bought it to make it an XBox exclusive.

omni 14y ago
Actually, it's still true, but the wheels have been set in motion to make it less true over time. The Mac collection on Steam is still paltry compared to PC, particularly for AAA titles.
- talmand 14y ago
  Well, you can still laugh at it if you wish. But considering that those paltry few games is a lot more than they had before, I'm willing to say the trend is changing. Somewhere there has to be a point where we can say "this is where it changed". I would think that the release of Steam is possibly that moment.