BBSes

Night Owl BBS

Managed by Mark A Janelle of Barracuda fame, the Night Owl BBS served as the semi-official Game-Maker community hub. Every copy of Game-Maker included a leaflet for the BBS.

After some recent discussions, I seem to recall some widespread connection issues. Either the BBS was only up during evening hours (as the name would suggest) or the number on the leaflet was incorrect. Either way, many people had trouble logging in. When one did log in, the place was a bit stiff and, again, serious. And being hosted in Kennebunkport, Maine, it was a hefty long-distance charge for almost anyone -- even those who lived in-state, as I did. Still, it was a good place to make connections and branch off to other sub-communities and smaller BBSes.

My memory is a bit hazy; I think the Night Owl BBS may have changed names, or the Game-Maker section may have moved over to other boards. On that list of 1990s Maine BBSes, I recognize a couple of other boards associated with Janelle's name.

Sharing

Indie game design being what it is, especially for younger developers the impulse to kife elements from your favorite games is almost irresistible. Witness Duke Nukem (icon of the shareware movement), which not only copied its catch phrases from Bruce Campbell movies; the 2D entries blatantly ripped art resources from Turrican and other Amiga games. Depending on your philosophy, you might call this reappropriation lazy, criminal, postmodern, or pragmatic. Frankly, theft is a fact of the creative process. The creative aspect depends on how far you take the theft, how well you reinterpret the material you’ve stolen, and how well you cover your tracks.

Game-Maker being set up the way it was, a certain amount of reappropriation was almost encouraged — particularly of RSD’s own sample games. Some of the results were more blatant than others. The male and female characters or the background tiles found their way into practically everyone’s games at some point or another. I had a few original sprites and tiles lifted, myself. Generally all it took was an e-mail to the derivative author, and I would get a credit and a virtual handshake. It was a pretty loose culture.

And of course that loose-fingered approach had little real effect on the quality of a game. Granted, the more borrowed elements generally the lower the bar. Still, it’s interesting to see what can grow from someone else’s seeds.