As a kid, one of my first games was Maelstrom, a slick Asteroids clone for the Mac by Ambrosia Software (who later went on to publish the Escape Velocity series). I have childhood memories of the two-note soundtrack while playing the two simplest strategies (spin in place without accelerating, and zoom upwards in a straight line firing all the way), of the “You EEdiot” when you accidentally shot a power-up canister, and the “Pretty good, pretty good!” for when you score over 10,000 points in a single stage.

Except if I open up Maelstrom now, it says “Hot damn!” instead.

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For April Fools’ this year, I got Swift running on Classic Mac OS. You can read more about it (and see screenshots!) on my programming blog.

(Go to belkadan.com)

A memory from, oh, let’s say fifth grade: my friend and I wanted to play a game, some kind of mock fight. I’m unsure whether it was supposed to actually have rules or whether it was just setup for a usual kids’ (“boys’”?) play-wrestling. But when we were getting ready to play, my friend asked my a strange question: “Are you a Pikachu, or a Ry-a-chu?” I didn’t have an answer ready, and so he decided, “You be Pikachu, I be Ryachu.” Then he reconsidered: “No, I be Pikachu, you be Ryachu.”

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