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Episode 6: The Manhole

How brothers Rand and Robyn Miller built worlds from a manhole. This is the story of the beginning of Cyan, the company that went on to develop Myst — the all-time top-selling adventure game and one of the most influential videogames ever made.

Adapted from interviews for my upcoming book The Secret History of Mac Gaming, which is currently crowdfunding on Unbound.

Thank you to everyone who's donated via PayPal or Patreon so far — especially Anuar Lequerica, whose very generous monthly pledge has helped me buy new gear to make a better-sounding show.

Song Credits:

I also used a cassette tape/deck audio sample by FreeSound user magedu.

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About the Podcast

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Ludiphilia
A narrative podcast about how and why people play

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About your host

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Richard Moss

Besides being the creator of Ludiphilia and its award-nominated sister show The Life & Times of Video Games, I'm an award-winning writer, historian, and journalist who has covered technology, games, and science for over a decade. My work has been published in Ars Technica, Polygon, Game Developer, PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, New Atlas, EGM, Mac|Life, and many other publications.

I am also the author of two books (with more to come!) — The Secret History of Mac Gaming and Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet — and a producer on the upcoming CREATORVC documentary First Person Shooter.