This week, I play Dallas Quest. I had two other “quest” games in my childhood library, The Quest and Ring Quest, and both were made by Dallas Snell (later co-founder of Origin Systems); it makes sense, then, that when I was very small I assumed that Dallas Quest was also made by him, and that it would be some kind of plodding autobiography of the man’s own life. Boring, thought little me.

Dallas, of course, was actually a TV soap about … oil barons and cattle ranches, I think, that began in 1978 and ran until 1991, full of cliffhangers, intrigue and family drama. I don’t know, because I have never seen it. Dallas Quest is purportedly a licensed tie-in to the show, but is executed with odd brutality. While I found Death in the Caribbean quite spooky to revisit, and The Quake full of fascinating intent and texture, Dallas Quest, made in 1984, is both frustrating and funny. If you’re not convinced, check out this … artwork? Jonah Gregory made of my Let’s Play.

Sorry about the bugle; you’ll know what I mean when you get to it. I like the lo-fi handmade feel of these videos, but I will def make sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen again. I’ll also be turning off ads in future videos — my thinking was I can’t afford to reject any monetization channel right now, but the potential audience for something like this even in the best case scenario is going to be too small to make a difference, and I risk annoying the like 100 people who actually care.

Also, I did a quick blog at Gamasutra about this new video series, if you’re interested in knowing more about them, or if you want to actually post comments about the Let’s Plays. My real hope is that over time this collection of videos can be another avenue for personal expression about games and become an interesting arm of my work to you. We’ll see!