LoadingReadyRun, a Canadian comedy troupe whose online content focuses on video games and Magic: The Gathering, recently featured an Apple II homebrew game in an unexpected context.
1:36 into episode #543 of CheckPoint, their weekly satirical video game news show, co-host Brendan “Beej” Deery launches into a story about how the setting of the popular computer game Myst has been recreated in the Nintendo Switch game Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The original Myst shipped on a CD-ROM; by some records, it was the best-selling video game of the 20th century, with its format helping drive adoption of CD-ROM drives.
Yet in CheckPoint, the over-the-shoulder (OTS) shot that depicts the topic currently being discussed shows Myst on 5.25″ floppy disks.
No official version of Myst ever shipped on floppy disks. Instead, this photo is taken from the website of Vince “deater” Weaver, who specializes in demakes — reimaginings of modern games for older systems.
deater’s fully playable Apple II version of Myst was released four years ago, when it graced the cover of the March 2020 issue of Juiced.GS. (deater has since also ported the game to the Atari 2600.)
deater’s Apple II demakes were also briefly mentioned in the opening minutes of a panel recently hosted at PAX East, a video game convention held annually in Boston. “Demakes Decoded: From HD to 8-bit” featured four game developers, one of whom, like deater, has ported the Valve puzzle-platformer game Portal to an earlier system. The audio from this panel is available on the IndieSider podcast.
As for CheckPoint, although the name of their production company, LoadingReadyRun, is inspired by the Commodore 64, Apple II references on their show are not infrequent. Previous cameos occurred on episodes 361 and 337, as well as on CheckPoint’s precursor, the Escapist News Network.