Retro Adventurers Podcast

[EdwardianDuck]

A new podcast which looks at retro text adventures has begun.

https://retroadventurers.podbean.com/

Not BBC Micro specific.

Jeremy

[haerfest]

Thanks for the heads up, added to my subscriptions to listen to during my lunch breaks.

The era of text adventures were a bit before my time, but got seriously sucked into Zork a few years ago when I gave it a spin.

Wouter

[vexorg]

Doesn't show up on my phone when searching for podcasts

[EdwardianDuck]

There's some discussion about discoverability in the announcement thread, but I just subscribed to the RSS feed directly in a podcatcher application (gPodder in my case), this being my preferred way of downloading podcasts.

[vexorg]

Seems to be wanting the podbean app installed to play that podcast.
Nothing shows up on apple's own podcast player

[EdwardianDuck]

It shows up on my ancient iPad in the podcasts app, but it's not near the top of the list. Note that it's "retro adventurers" not "retro adventures" as that's caught at least one person out. Not that I ever use this app myself.

[vexorg]

Found it, I had entered retro adventurers, it's way down the list, with other similar names above it. After the first couple of swipes I assumed it wouldn't be as the names were getting further away.

[vexorg]

Well, that was a difficult listen. It sounded very amatuer.
The main guy was far too loud compared to the other two, deafening when he coughed or laughed.
The UK guest sounded like he was in a toilet recording.
The whole spoiler avoidance meant it was near impossible to understand what the issue was with the gameplay as they didn't want to give examples. Meaning the first 70 minutes with no spoilers was very dry and there is only so much they can say about a parser without going into game detail.

[Cybershark]

Haven't listened to the show, as it's not of huge appeal to me, but I will just throw my 2p in and comment on what Vexy said.

...the first 70 minutes...

I see the initial episode is around 1hr45. Personally - and this may just be me - I prefer podcasts that are a bit shorter. If you're going to stretch one out to over 90mins then it better be pretty damn interesting!

Sounds like you really need to level out your audio. People tend to listen to podcasts while they're doing other things and so it's not always possible/easy for them to constantly have to fiddle with the volume!

[EdwardianDuck]

In case this isn't clear, I'm not involved with this podcast beyond listening to it. The last couple of posts seem to assume I am somehow involved or that the podcasters are here, which probably isn't true. If anyone wants to provide feedback, I'd suggest posting to the announcement thread on intfiction.org (link upthread) or via whichever podcast application / site was used to get the episode.

Again, nothing to do with me!

[vexorg]

I never thought it was related to anyone here, just feedback for anyone else that wants to listen, or discussion for anyone that did.

I did break that one into 3 sessions, I only tend to listen to podcasts in the car when not much else is on the radio, and typically no more than about half an hour at a time, unless on a much longer drive for work.

[EdwardianDuck]

I apologise for my confusion. To minimise the risk of future confusion, I won't post to this thread again.

[vexorg]

are we not allowed to discuss what we heard on the podcast?

[BigEd]

Perhaps best to start from a position of kindness: thank EdwardianDuck for bringing this offering, and thank the three podcasters for taking the time and effort to put something out there which will - hopefully - entertain and inform an audience.

Then make your constructive criticisms.

[vexorg]

Perhaps best to start from a position of kindness

What kind of snowflake talk is that!!

[haerfest]

I enjoyed listening to it, but it's their first episode so I'm sure it'll take some time for them to find their form.

They're probably not reading along here, but my two points of feedback would be:

• For the listener, spend some time introducing each adventure's context and general background story.
• When you start the spoiler wall and say that those who want to skip the spoilers should "come back later", it would be helpful to know how much later...

I plan to stay subscribed for now and see how this series develops.

[jcompton]

Hi there, one of the perpetrators of the podcast here. Glad to see some people picked up on what we were doing.

We were aware of the Ep 1 audio issues and decided that of all the options, "fix it as best we can, publish, and ask forgiveness later" was the least-worst.

We've dropped the spoiler segregation for episode 2 and beyond, which is a time saver and somewhat streamlines the flow.

The matter of duration seems to be strictly one of personal preference. For me, there is no real difference between a podcast of 20 minutes and one of 200 minutes: I will listen to it on my schedule. And as a participant in these discussions, I'd rather feel like we're touching on everything we consider interesting or worthwhile to say, rather than being bound in by a linear media concept like "it's a hard out after 30 minutes." But some people see a long runtime and simply don't want to begin, and I understand that.

And yes, spelling counts when searching for this new creation, but it was definitely Findable on all the major platforms within 48 hours of the first episode dropping and continues to spread.

[vexorg]

Nice to hear from you (were you the toilet guy? or the loud guy? )

I didn't have an issue with the length as you can just pause it at any time then continue later. Effectively splitting it yourself.

As said above, the background story to the game would be nice, just adds context to what the game was about.

The UK vs US thing would also be good to keep, there were different machines back in the early 80's.
You also said some played the games on emulators or websites, a link would be good so we can go see for ourselves too if the game is still available.

The search thing seems to be better now. Apple podcast had you about 30 on the list for the exact spelling, now it's at the top.

[jcompton]

I'm the American! Or in your terms, "neither the toilet guy nor the loud guy"!

In the show notes, we do have links to playable versions of the games (except for Around the World where I couldn't readily find one, but did link to an Apple II disk image.)

[vexorg]

Sorry, i had assumed you were a Brit as acorn is more of a British thing.

I'm not very podcast savy, only listened to a few, generally search, download a series, play and delete as i go. Will have a look again where the notes are.

[vexorg]

Second one is much better.

So many years since i thought about the dead warg!!