Who Owns Softdisk and Big Blue Disk Now?

I’ve talked here before about my efforts to preserve and make available the archives of the long-lived disk magazine Loadstar. Please forgive me for linking to that once again, but sales of it help me obtain food: Loadstar Compleat. If you want to see more past posts on Loadstar, you can check the helpful Loadstar tag.

Loadstar and its side project Loadstar 128 were made for the Commodore 64 and 128 home microcomputers. They were disk magazines, a niche of publisher Softdisk, distributed by mail, and for a while even on newsstands. Even after it became untenable to keep distributing by retail Loadstar managed to retain enough subscribers to keep going for a while longer.

Loadstar lasted 22 years, from 1985 to 2007, an amazing run lasting well into the Internet Age. It hasn’t been 22 years since 2007 yet. In that time they published more than 6,700 items. Sure, it had its ups and downs, and towards its end its last editor, Rev. Dave Moorman, had to struggle to find things to fill its four disk sides with. Its last year only saw two issues, but Dave was determined to keep it going, aiming for 256, the number of possible values in a byte. Sadly a tornado hit his home and destroyed his issue-making setup. (We talk sometimes about reviving Loadstar and making the last six or seven issues ourselves to fulfill Dave’s ambition. We have most of the tools, and it’s much easier to find new Commodore software now than in 2007.)

Loadstar wasn’t Softdisk’s only product. I can legally distribute Loadstar because of a special carve-out for it. Loadstar is still owned by its longest-running editor, Fender Tucker, who used to sell physical CDs of the issues, with an old version of VICE on it to run them in emulation. I have one of those CDs myself, and it serves as the base of the version of Loadstar Compleat we sell with Fender’s permission.

The company that originally published Loadstar was called Softdisk Publishing. Founded in 1981 by Jim Mangham, it was a similar product to Loadstar but for computers in the Apple II line. It was also successful, lasting (I believe) for 166 issues (Loadstar went for 249), and given the popularity of Apple IIs could probably have lasted a bit longer, but for a lamentable fact: Apple IIs were refreshed several times during the series’ life, as Apple II+s, Apple IIes. Apple IIcs and then Apple IIGSes. Early issues don’t even run on Apple IIs after the + line; later machines, especially the GS, have much greater capabilities than the original, so a stock II owner would have to upgrade to get the most use out of the final issues. Unlike Commodore 64s which cost $200 for most of their life, Apple IIs were always pricey, and eventually an owner would have to decide whether to invest more money in a line of computers even its manufacturer didn’t seem too interested in anymore, or switch to one of the teeming IBM PCs types that were everywhere by then.

I’d like to tell you more about Softdisk the magazine, but I’ve never used it! Just now, today, I’ve finally been able to obtain a mostly complete set of issues from the Internet Archive, in Softdisk Supreme. Doing so was an adventure involving an ISO using the Mac HFS filesystem (so standard ISO-manipulation tools proclaim the disk image to be corrupt), the website Infinite Mac, and having to dodge several annoying quirks of both Infinite Mac and Classic Mac OS itself.

Softdisk Supreme was the product of a company called Syndicomm. Distributed on CD much as Loadstar Compleat was, Syndicomm was owned by Eric Shepherd, who transferred it to Tony Diaz in 2011. Diaz passed away in 2021 (source), leaving ownership of Softdisk’s properties uncertain.

Or are they? There is a note in a PDF supplied with Softdisk Supreme that tells us that Syndicomm didn’t own Softdisk the Magazine, but just licensed it from the company:

According to Wikipedia, “Softdisk, LLC” is another name for the company of Softdisk Publishing, probably adopted after they stopped making disk magazines and settled into their late life as an ISP.

So then, who owns it now? No less a figure than John Romero himself, the John Romero, game designer of Wolf 3D, Doom and Quake and former Softdisk employee, tells us that a company called Flat Rock Software owns the Softdisk IP now.

Softdisk made more magazines than just Softdisk and Loadstar. For the PC they made Big Blue Disk and Gamer’s Edge. I’ve found a mention online that parts of Softdisk’s legacy were sold in pieces to other companies. My Abandonware doesn’t distribute several notable games from BBD’s issues that were made by the id Software people, like Catacomb 3D, pointing people (but not directly) to GOG. Here is a direct link. It’s $6 for six games, and in the style of GOG retro releases they’re packaged with an emulator capable of playing them out of the box.

Catacomb 3D is listed as made by “id Software, Softdisk Publishing” and “Catacomb Games.” It’s the only product by Catacomb Games on GOG. They have a website. They’ve opened the source code to the whole series and uploaded it to Github. While their website doesn’t list a point of contact, their Github account page has an email address, which I sent a polite request to just a few minutes ago. I hope they can clear up the question of ownership, and if they can, that it’ll illuminate a path towards offering a package similar to Loadstar Compleat for Softdisk’s other products.

I believe that all software has value, but Softdisk’s output easily exceeds that low bar. The Catacomb games don’t need my pitiful efforts at preservation, but Softdisk published lots of other stuff that’s in serious danger of being lost forever. In addition to the work of their in-house programmers they accepted submissions, and bought software from a wide range of programmers. Many of those coders are aging, or are no longer with us. Attention must be paid! They cared about their work, and so must we. Wish me luck.

Declan Chidlow’s Rundown of Every Console Web Browser

Over on the site vale.rocks Declan Chidlow has written up a complete rundown of every console web browser, and it’s certain to spark memories in many of you. Including web browsers in consoles used to be a useful way for a company to distinguish their system from others, but as they admit at the end of the article, now the web is with us constantly, on phones and tablets, and people are more likely to turn to game consoles to escape from it. I’m sad about that, there’s still a lot to like about the World Wide Web, it’s mostly the social media elements of it that suck.

Probably the first console web browser, on the Phillips CD-i. (image from the site)

The systems listed are the CD-i, the Sega Saturn, the Apple Bandai Pippin (wow really?), the Nintendo 64 (only in Japan with the 64DD add-on), the Game Boy Color (through the Mobile Trainer cartridge), Sega Dreamcast (I remember it well), the Wonderswan, Playstations 2-4, Portable and Vita, Nintendo DSes original, I, 3 and New 3, Xboxes 360, One, S and X, the Wii and Wii U (the Wii U had quite a cool browser, as the article explains), and technically speaking the Steam Deck (which can run lots of other software too). But please click through and read all about them!

Web Browsers on Video Game Consoles (vale.rocks)

The First Console RPG

Proclaiming something for sure in the realm of vidyagaems is just asking to be challenged and possibly humbled. Yet it seems likely that the first true video RPG, as pointed out by -Eclipse14- in this video (10½ minutes), is the Atari 2600/Supercharger game Dragonstomper.

I have played Dragonstomper, in fact I wrote about it in an ebook on 2600 games here, and it’s quite an interesting game. Defining an RPG these days is rife with complication, but then it a bit more obvious: statistics, character building, equipment, exploration and turn-based combat. Dragonstomper has all of these things and more.

The Supercharger was a peripheral that allowed games to be loaded off of cassette tape. The unit itself housed an amount of RAM that held the games that the system would run. The Atari 2600 didn’t have write lines leading out to the cartridge, so the Supercharger had to load the code itself, which looked like normal inflexible ROM to the Atari. But the Supercharger could handle multiload games, making it much easier to make large games for the console. Dragonstomper was stored on the tape in three segments, corresponding to three stages of the quest.

The first section, and the most open-ended, involved exploring the kingdom, fighting monsters, finding items and trying to build your character’s power. A complication to this is that five magic items, a Charm, a Cross, a Potion, a Ring, a Staff, have randomized functions that change every time you begin a game. (There is no saving; the Atari has no way of writing to the tape.)

To get to stage two, you must get past the guard to town, either by showing him an ID, by bribing him, or by defeating him in combat. (They have more health than the dragon!) Town is kind of a break area where you shop for items to help you in the final part of the quest: the tunnel to and fight against a dragon waiting for you in its cave.

There’s all kinds of interesting things you can do, that helps give the game a lot of replayability. For example, you can hire fighters in town to accompany you against the dragon. There are traps around but also items that can reveal their locations to you. You can fight the dragon in melee, or by firing a longbow at it, or you can even avoid fighting it all together by figuring out how to get the gem its guarding without fighting it. There is a GameFAQs guide to it (contributed as late as 2023) that gives a good rundown of how to play and win.

Notes on Nintendo Direct 6/9/26

Oh joy, it’s another Nintendo Direct, full of games I don’t have much interest in.

In the past I’ve done brief takes on every game in a Direct, but I feel like this time I’d be reduced to either saying the same thing about many of them that I’ve said before, or else be forced to resort to the same kinds of loathsome cliches most game enthusiast sites use. No thanks.

Oh look! Yet another grandiose and pretentious anime-themed combo-based melee combat RPG, how original. Is there an omininously Latinish-named evil force? Are we destroying God again? Are there Disney characters in this one?

Most game players, it’s true, are either kids or recently-kids, and I remind you that I haven’t been either of those for a long time. Think of me what you want for saying this, but these base and juvenile depictions of coolness are things I outgrew long ago. But I suspect at least some of you think that way too, so here then are the few games that I’m genuinely interested in from the recent Direct.

Rhythm Heaven Groove

This is the big one, the game from the show I’m most likely to actually get when it’s released. All the Rhythm Heaven games are big gooey piles of joy and this’ll be the first new entry in an age. (Example from a prior game: Packing Pests.) The footage we saw yesterday only confirms my anticipation. A day one purchase for me.

Big Walk (cross platform) *

The first game from House House since Untitled Goose Game looks very interesting, basically just an excuse to wander around a big island wilderness with friends. Big Walk purposely eschews most of the concessions most games make when exploring large spaces, like fast travel, and the ones made when communicating with other players in large spaces, like being able to talk to people wherever they are. It doesn’t just this for realism’s sake though, many of its puzzles rely on overcoming communication difficulty. It’s wildly experimental, and my only real qualm with it is most of my friends aren’t the kind to explore such a game with me. For those who have them though, this is something to watch for.

Deltarune Chapter 5

I loved Undertale and Deltarune Chapter 1, but then fell away from playing the series myself. But I love watching other people play through them, so soon there’ll be another quirky and fun, yet entirely vicarious experience for me to watch.

Nintendo Switch Sports Resort

This is essentially the Switch version of Wii Sports Resort, the followup to the Wii pack-in Wii Sports released way back in 2006. I still have many fond memories of playing Wii Sports with friends back then, a perfect pack-in game if there ever was one, but each successive game was more complex, and that much harder to get friends interested in. The simplicity, perhaps even more than cheapness, of Wii Sports was what made it accessible to so many people. I’m sure when we reach the inevitable age of nursing home Wii Sports parties that the appeal of its simplicity will become even more important.

Final Fantasy Resonance

Not only is it the first Final Fantasy game to get the HD2D treatment, but the first (somewhat) new one to get it too. The brief glimpses we got of it show us a game that seems to take after the old-school 16-bit era battle systems that recent entries, and I find that more appealing than anything else about it. It’s not that I’m nostalgic for the way it was done, but there the quality of the experimentation seemed greater, there was less change for its own sake, and there were still attempts, even if just nominal ones, at simulating adventure above just throwing systems at the wall. But I’m old and grumpy about these things. Just give me five minutes and I’ll probably fall asleep in my rocking chair. Oof, here I go now… Zzzzzz…

Indentifying Luck in Mario Party 10

It’s been a small eon, but ZoomZike is finally back with the latest in his epic series of video deep dives, Identifying Luck in Mario Party, with a 2½ hour entry on Mario Party 10, being for the Wii U probably one of the least played titles in the series.

We’ve linked to these several times before, and I claim directly to you that they’re about as good as you get when it comes to investigating game internals. PannenKoek goes more into specifics and implications maybe, but ZoomZike has much more ground to cover. He’s now done twelve Mario Party titles, all in this playlist, and as they’ve continued they’ve gotten even more complete and detailed. The shortest of all of them is for MP1 at 1½ hours long; the longest, for MP7, is nearly 5½ hours!

Each video covers all of its game’s boards and events, all of its items and how they work, and all of its minigames. While “Identifying Luck” is the title and ostensible purpose, what we get is more like a complete guide to the internals of each game, includingly the many ways the games put their thumbs on the scales, often in favor of the last-place player.

They take a long time to chew through, oh yes, but if you want to know how the masters of video board gaming put their long-running series together, I don’t think you can find a better source.

birthbydrip’s Cray-Cray Taxi Strategies

I love Crazy Taxi! I think it’s one of the best arcade games Sega’s ever made, and obsessing over getting Crazy Licenses and beyond helped me get through the long sad years after my mother’s passing. I was once competitive on the Crazy Taxi scoreboards at Twin Galaxy, getting a score that would have been (if I had sent in my tape) 8th place in a contest they were having at the time. Others have long since surpassed what I once reached, of course, but my $69K score still looks pretty impressive to casual players who have difficulty getting to $5K and an S License.

birthbydrip over on Neocities (psst: yay!) has a terrific guide to getting to $20K and a Crazy License on the arcade course. It’s not for absolute beginners. If you don’t yet know how to perform a Crazy Dash/Limiter Cut your score is doomed to the $2K range until you learn that essential trick. But if you learn it, and nail the timing to spam it, then an S-license don’t look nearly so impossible any more, and then this guide is your golden path to getting to $20K, and racking up hour-long games on any aging Crazy Taxi machine you should encounter on your travels—assuming it’s well maintained that is. I encountered a machine at DragonCon a couple of years ago with a flaky gas pedal that made Dashes terribly inconsistent, grumble grimble gromble.

FEMICOM

Yesterday’s post had a link to FamiBro, and while trying to balance male and female representations of gaming websites equally is subjective and doesn’t make much sense (especially since FamiBro doesn’t seem very bro-y), it does allow me to make a largely meaningless introduction to a blog post about the website FEMICOM. There, done!

Rachel Simone Weil’s FEMICOM is museum and repository of information on overtly girly gaming paraphernalia. They also publish research and a sporadically-updated blog on related issues.

UmJammer Lammy (all images here from FEMICOM)

One of the more recent additions to their collection is Parappa side-game and Set Side B fav UmJammer Lammy. Another is on Idol Hakkenden, for which you may remember we’ve written about a translation patch before.

Idol Hakkenden

They found a manga introduction for girls to assembly language programming, a topic so baroque that I don’t think I’ve seen any such guides directed to boys, unless you count standard non-gendered guides and reference works. And they’ve interviewed femgaming star Anna Anthropy too.

Girl-focused games are a little-discussed community among your obsessive webists, and anyone collecting and discussing them deserves more exposure.

Romhack Thursday: Zelda II: The Adventure of Mario

On Romhack Thursdays, we bring you interesting finds from the world of game modifications.

We’ve not done a Romhack Thursday* for a while. Found by way of a Bluesky post by bro3256, of the website Famibro, this is a brilliant romhack by jroweboy (SMBArena page) that not only puts Mario into Zelda II, but also subtly remixes the game to allow for his different moveset.

While this is a hack to Zelda II, not Super Mario Bros., Mario’s physics and jump have been faithfully recreated in the engine. Mario doesn’t have Link’s sword, and without certain spells his only means of attack is his trademark jump! But all of the enemies that Link could employ his downthrust move against Mario can stomp. This makes some enemies much easier to beat, like the Dairas in Death Mountain, but it makes Stalfos and Ironknuckles almost impossible to defeat without some aid. It takes a lot of familiarity with the original game to notice it, but a couple of enemies have been removed in order to provide a better play experience.

I’ve found it to be unusually well-balanced and implemented for a romhack, especially one with such a unique premise. The game plays a lot like if Nintendo had made it themselves. When Mario is reduced to two bars of health he loses his Super status and becomes small, just like in the SMB games. There are certain advantages to being small; a few keys require a difficult running ducking jump/slide to get when Mario’s big, but if he’s small it’s simple to collect them.

The spells have been redone to fit Mario’s abilities, and the implications of the new rules make the game seem fresh even to Zelda II obsessives like me. The Shield spell doesn’t reduce damage taken, but instead gives Mario a floating shield that acts like Link’s shield. Mario already has a great jump, so the Jump spell is replaced with a spell called Tanooki. Tanooki gives Mario his tail from SMB3; he can’t fly with it, but he can float down from jumps and, crucially, he can use it like Link’s sword if it were limited to low attacks. Unlike all of Link’s spells, Mario’s Tanooki and Fire powerups don expire when the scene changes, but instead lasts until Mario becomes small. I think there are other changes too but I haven’t gotten far enough to find them.

On top of all of that, the music has been slightly Mariofied too, and the soundtrack is really good! Here’s some footage of me playing through some early portions of the hack. (1 hour 23 minutes)

I do need to warn you of one issue though. On my first attempt at playing the game, one of the keys in the first dungeon didn’t register when I collected it, softlocking me and making it impossible to finish the Parapa Palace (the first dungeon). I suggest you save often in case something like this happens to you. It was lucky for me that it happened so early in the game, and starting over didn’t lose me much progress. There’s another place where you appear to be softlocked, in the third palace, but I managed to overcome it by getting the item out of it then setting it aside and exploring ahead, and sure enough, soon after I got an ability that let me go back and finish it.

Despite those issues I’m having a great time trying to puzzle through Zelda II’s huge challenges with this different moveset. If you’re a Zelda II fan too (I hear there are a few of your out there at least) you should check it out!

* Why, you may ask, a Romhack Thursday? It’s because I wanted to do a weekly romhack feature but there aren’t any days of the week beginning with the letter R! You may also ask, why a picture of a frog wearing sunglasses for its header image? They’re the cool frog of the swamp, they know how to edit rom files and give them to all their friends. If you look closely at the cartridge in its hand, the label may look slightly familiar if you’ve played a lot of classic arcade games….

Zelda II: The Adventure of Mario (hack of Zelda II by jroweboy)

Gamefinds: Sophie Houlden’s Picotron Remake of Lemmings

We love it when we find weird and unique indie games to tell you all about! Our alien friends to the left herald these occasions.

It’s got every level of the original Lemmings, including variants from different versions, and the first Holiday demo collection, along with a smattering of extras with more on the way. Picotron of course is the successor to the popular Pico-8 fantasy console, more of a fantasy workstation, but you can still play Picotron Lemmings without buying the $20 tools.

It doesn’t have music or many of the sound effects (including any digitized voices), but it does play very well. It’s smoother than the original and even has visual indicators for Climbers and Floaters, which the originals didn’t have.

Lemmings is a true classic from the 16-bit era and even without music this version is a fine remake. And it’s free to play!

One of those ports we mentioned was a web-based port from 2004, DHTML Lemmings, still online after all these years. Back then it was amazing to see a game like that without even needing Shockwave or Flash. We’ve come a long way, for better or worse, but Sophie’s version is destined to be a highlight among the legends of the Lemmings.

What is that? Some of you may not know what Lemmings is? It’s a classic computer game from DMA Design in the early 90s, originally for the Commodore Amiga but ported to many other systems including the SNES. A bunch of green-haired numbskulls march forward through a huge variety of dangerous landscapes. As kind of their benevolent god, you give them skills to help them get through the terrain and also prepare the way for their friends. In the original you had to have a certain percentage survive to progress to the next level, but in this version you can play them in any order you choose. Give it a try, it’s just as brilliant now as when it was first released in 1991.

Sophie’s Picotron remake of Lemmings (Picotron, Web, $0)

Steam Next Fest Coverage Part 3

This is more coverage from Steam Next Fest 2025 October edition. (Previous posts are here: Part 1 and Part 2.)

00:00 Intro
00:16 Aerial Knight’s Dropshot
01:49 Super Pinball Adventure
2:55 This isn’t Just Tower Defense
4:33 FlippUp
6:02 Fatal Claw
7:14 Re-activated
8:25 Tower Lords
9:39 Legends of Dragaea
11:20 Fantasy Idle Dungeon
12:48 Slimeward