ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

367 Followers 188 Following

Nerdy about LucasArts and Sierra video games, Star Wars, architecture, JRR Tolkien. He/him/fhtagn. Also on mastodon.social under the same username.

A screenshot from the published version of Sam and Max Hit the Road, showing the Mystery Vortex interior - the left-hand side of the foyer, plus the leftmost two doors of the color-coded door puzzle. The leftmost door is red, and the right-hand door is orange.
A screenshot of the early build of Sam and Max Hit the Road shown at San Diego Comic Con 1993. The image shows an early version of the closeup of Sam and Max inside the giant fiberglass trout from the World of Fish. In the foreground are Sam and Max and the "frame" of the giant fish mouth, which are still raw scanned grayscale art. Beyond the opening of the fish's mouth can be seen the background plate of the river flowing by the World of Fish. However, the background area has its palette set incorrectly, so that the colors flash psychedelically (is that a real word, Sam?) through a range of incorrect hues.
Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time, 1994.
A picture of a tarasque, a medieval dragon-like creature allegedly tamed by St. Martha, from an illuminated manuscript Book of Hours painted by Jean Poyet in the 15th century, known as the Hours of Henry VIII.
The title page of the 1603 "bad quarto" edition of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
A screenshot of two posts by user @epicsause-official on Tumblr. The first says: "I think we are long overdue for a game that does the reverse of 90s first person shooters and actively makes fun of the player for picking the hard difficulty" The second says "heres kinda what I mean" and includes an illustration. The illustration shows a hand-drawn black-and-white mockup of a game difficulty selection screen. The names and descriptions of three difficulty levels are featured, next to three different player portraits. The top of the screen says "Select Difficulty." The upper difficulty level is next to a portrait of a bespectacled, acne-scarred nerd with large teeth, wearing a bowtie. The text reads '"I'm compensating for my complete lack of a social life!" (Harder enemies, less useful pickups' The middle difficulty level, which has a selection arrow next to it, features an average-looking guy with his mouth open and smiling in an enthusiastic manner. The text here says '"Alright, let's see what this is all about!" (Recommended for first playthrough)' The bottom difficulty level has a picture of a Duke Nukem-esque Cool Guy with a smile showing perfect teeth, a colossal chin, sunglasses, and a ridiculously perfect hairstyle with not one strand out of place. In fact, his hair and chin are so perfect they're rectangular in shape. The text reads '"Sorry, I'm too busy PLOWING my GIRLFRIEND to play this game!" (More items, you kill enemies faster)'
A matte painting of a fortress on Rigel VII in "The Cage," the first Star Trek TOS pilot, painted by Albert Whitlock.
A page from LucasArts' The Adventurer magazine #14 (Winter 1996-97), with a full-page splash ad for X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. Promo text at the top manages to misspell the company's name in two different ways at once: "It's the ultimate battle. It's the ultimate game. Exclusively from LucusArt's."
A 1917 French WWI propaganda poster, showing Marianne with a boob out.
A screenshot from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's Vatican City level, showing a wall with Ionic pilasters holding up a Doric entablature.
The Massachusetts State House as seen in Fallout 4, with a front portico that has five columns so the doorways within it are off-center.
An image of the clay bust used for the character closeup of Brauggi in Sierra's Quest for Glory 1 VGA remake, next to a screenshot (apparently flipped) of how it appears in-game, from Gloria Skurzynski's 1994 children's book Know the Score.
An early character design sheet for Robin Hood in Sierra's Conquests of the Longbow. Rough sketches of front, side, back, & 3/4 front and back views of Robin appear. Robin wears a sleeveless jerkin with a crenellated lower hem and a hood thrown back, and a belt with a pouch on the left side. Beneath the jerkin he is wearing a long-sleeved shirt with a bracer on his left arm, hose, and cuffed boots of some sort. He also appears to have a vandyke rather than a full beard. Beneath a handwritten label "Description of Character" there is some typed text by Christy Marx: "A muscular man of average height in his late 20s. Pending further research for accuracy, I want to see him dressed in a thigh-length jerkin over a shirt which is several inches longer than the jerkin, leather belt, pouch on belt, hose (thick, woven hose), breeches which stop at the bottom of the knee, horn hung on a cord over his left shoulder, short (around the ankles) soft-leather boots with pointed toes, and a bracer for his left forearm (being right-handed). He will not wear a hat, but will have a hood which hangs down in back though maybe be partially obscured by the quiver. He won't wear gloves or finger stalls (leather fingertip protectors.) I see Robin as generally muscular, but lithe, not muscle-bound. He is nimble and agile. However, his arms and chest would be the most heavily muscled from a lifetime of drawing the powerful longbow and using the quarterstaff. (Skeletons of archers from this time period actually show deformation of the arm bones from the constant strain of drawing longbows.) He will have his arrows in a leather quiver which hangs upon his back, angled toward his right shoulder for an over-the-shoulder draw with his right hand. The arrows will have bodkin heads. He will not carry a sword or buckler. He will carry a short, all-purpose dagger hung from his belt, in the center of his back, also angled for a right-hand draw. He will carry his longbow in his left hand.
Screenshots of an unused alternate cursor design from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, shaped like a squareish line drawing of a right hand with pointer finger extended. The cursor color flickers between white and gray hues, like the crosshair in the published game. The screenshots were taken by hex-editing a save file.
Ricardo Montalban as Khan in Star Trek II.
An excerpt from the script of Henry Irving's adaptation of Faust performed at the Lyceum Theatre in late 19th-century London. The text was adapted from Goethe's original German play by librettist WG Wills. It starred Irving as the demon Mephistopheles, and the theater's business manager was Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. The excerpt: "Faust: By what pretence canst thou forbid me, fiend? Mephistopheles: Thou answer'st me As if I were some credulous, dull mate. I am a spirit, and I know thy thought. You think you may be fenced round by-and-by With sprinkled holy water, lifted cross-- While you and your pale saint might hold a siege Against the scapegoat -- 'gainst the devil here. Ere that should be I'd tear thee limb from limb, Thy blood I'd dash upon the wind like rain, And all the gobbets of thy mangled flesh I'd scatter to the dogs, that none should say This carrion once was Faust! Yon cottage would I snatch up in a whirlwind, At dead midnight, like pebble in a sling, And hurl it leagues away, a crumbled mass, With its crushed quivering tenant under it. Dost know me now? Faust: Fiend, I obey. Mephistopheles: When hell's aroused in me, beware! (Business.) End of Act II."
A photo of Howard Park in Wilmette, Illinois, showing a copper steeple on a short brick pedestal rising straight out of a flat expanse of grass.
A photograph of actor George Hall as a 93-year-old Indiana Jones, wearing an eyepatch, from the original one-hour versions of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
A tapestry with four panels seen in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
A painting of a knight crossing a chasm to obtain the Holy Grail, seen in Henry Jones Sr.'s house in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
An early version of the Kyrandia 3 box art which uses a 2D painting instead of a 3D-rendered scene.
A screenshot from Monkey Island 1 EGA, showing how outside Meathook's house, the text GUI highlights inventory items in light red rather than bright magenta.
One half of a late Roman ivory consular diptych, showing a figure who might be Stilicho or Flavius Aetius.
A screenshot from an EGA non-interactive demo of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The image shows a desert landscape with a train passing through it along tracks in the far distance, a shot that doesn't appear in the full game. The game's title, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", is superimposed over the screen, along with the subtitle "The Graphic Adventure", which likewise does not appear in the full game (despite being on the box).
DUNC In the sietch the Fremen come and go, talking of Duncan Idaho.
The leprechauns dancing in the Leprechaun King's throne room, in Sierra's 16-color SCI0 remake of King's Quest 1.
The covers of the three Dark Forces novellas by William C. Dietz: Soldier for the Empire, Rebel Agent, and Jedi Knight.
A portrait of Pope Martin V.
Stills from Raoul Servais' 1979 short film Harpya, starring Will Spoor and Fran Waller Zeper.
A passage from Macbeth, Act I, Scene 3. "First Witch: A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:-- 'Give me,' quoth I: 'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger: But in a sieve I'll thither sail, And, like a rat without a tail, I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do."
A screenshot from the finale of King's Quest V. Mordack is on the ground floor of his laboratory, saying "What's going on here?" He is looking up at Graham, who is standing on the laboratory's upper balcony. Despite the game being in VGA, Graham's sprite appears to be in 16 colors.
Another fake screenshot made with the surviving EGA background of Sam & Max's office and the EGA Sam and Max sprites used to train LucasArts SCUMM programmers. Again, lost areas of the background data are colored orange. In this image, the bottom of the background is removed and replaced by a GUI like the one in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game. There are fifteen verbs at the bottom of the screen, including "What is" to detect hotspots. However, the "Travel" verb from Indy 3 is here replaced by a grayed-out "Shoot" verb, modeled on the "Fight" verb in pre-release Last Crusade screenshots. The top of the image is also cut off and replaced with a black area for dialogue text, which limits the text to two lines at a time. Max is saying "Sam, is it just me, or is our interface kind of clunky all of a sudden?"
A fake screenshot made with the surviving EGA background of Sam & Max's office and the EGA Sam and Max sprites used to train SCUMM programmers at LucasArts. Lost areas of the background pixel data, in particular Sam and Max's desks, are colored orange. The bottom area of the background has been removed and replaced with a GUI from Monkey Island 1, though the inventory arrows appear grayed out next to an empty inventory, as in early promotional screenshots of MI1.
An EGA background of Sam & Max's office, used to train SCUMM programmers at Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts. The image was rescued from a Z-plane file, meaning that objects which characters could walk behind are whited out, and white areas of the background are recolored. In this case, Sam and Max's desks are colored solid white, and the white baseboards and trim of the office walls are recolored purple.
An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Entertainment volume 5, number 4, July/August 1992. The image shows Indy, Sophia, Kerner, and Dr. Ubermann standing around the God Machine in the finale. The GUI is not grayed out, and the inventory icon of two orichalcum beads has the beads spaced farther apart than they are in the final game.
An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. Indy and Sophia are exploring the ruined buildings on the surface of Crete, and have just found the "X marks the spot" leading to the Moonstone. The inventory icons in the GUI have a a palette glitch where their backgrounds are gray instead of brown. Also, there appears to be a purple-colored hose in Indy's inventory.
An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. This image shows Kerner and Ubermann talking in their secret Nazi laboratory. Kerner is saying "Concealed in the base is this small shiny bead..." Part of Kerner's head appears to have a palette glitch, as do some areas of the floor and ceiling.
An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. This image shows Indy in Tikal standing next to the snake wrapped around a tree. The snake is red here, but would eventually be changed to green at the suggestion of LucasArts' Mike Levine.
Line art for the title screen of Castle of Dr. Brain, by Sierra.
An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's, Volume 2, number 11, November 1990 (not to be confused with Game Player's PC Strategy Guide or many of their other similarly named sub-brands.) The image shows another screenshot of the cut reverse view of the lookout point on Melee Island. The left edge of the image is slightly obscured by clip art of a pirate ship.
An early image of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 3, number 6, November/December 1990. The screenshot shows a reverse view of the lookout point on Melee Island, a background that was later cut.
An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. Guybrush is negotiating with Stan to buy the Sea Monkey.
An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. Guybrush is standing outside the Governor's Mansion in front of the open door, but his sprite is scaled a bit too large, so his head is bumping up against the porch roof overhead. The inventory contains "money (173 Pieces of Eight)", an "article", and a "dead chicken".
An unused view from far away of Mordack's island from King's Quest V.
An animation from King's Quest V of a wolf grabbing Cedric the Owl.
An unused 16-color animation of the giant two-headed roc from King's Quest V, found in the VGA resource files.
Photos of the covers of the book "It Seemed Like A Good Idea...: A Compendium of Great Historical Fiascoes", edited by William R. Forstchen and Bill Fawcett.
Screenshots of Bluesky posts by Alex de Campi, in which they drop insinuations about a "wildly misogynist indie comics publisher who loves to publish stories with young women heroes... but only if they're written by men" and who "allegedly pay their women variant cover artists 50% of what they pay the men", without giving any specifics.
ST Joshi on HP Lovecraft attending cinema showings in the 1910s: 'By 1910 there were already 5000 nickelodeons throughout the country, even if these were regarded largely as entertainment for the working classes. Lovecraft reports that the first cinema shows in Providence were in March 1906; and, even though he “knew too much of literature & drama not to recognise the utter & unrelieved hokum of the moving picture,” he attended them anyway—“in the same spirit that I had read Nick Carter, Old King Brady, & Frank Reade in nickel-novel form.” One develops the idea that watching films may have occupied some, perhaps much, of the “blank” years of 1908–13, as a letter of 1915 suggests: “As you surmise, I am a devotee of the motion picture, since I can attend shows at any time, whereas my ill health seldom permits me to make definite engagements or purchase...'
ST Joshi on the youthful HP Lovecraft reading dime novels: "It is one of the great paradoxes of Lovecraft’s entire literary career that he could, on the one hand, absorb the highest aesthetic fruits of Western culture—Greek and Latin literature, Shakespeare, the poetry of Keats and Shelley—and at the same time go slumming in the cheapest dregs of popular fiction. Throughout his life Lovecraft vigorously defended the literary value of the weird tale (unlike some modern critics who misguidedly vaunt both the good and the bad, the aesthetically polished and the mechanically hackneyed, as..."
A screenshot of a headline of an article from the PC Gamer website which refers to Chris Roberts as "Christ Roberts".
A screenshot of the Save/Load GUI in the original DOS version of Day of the Tentacle, which has the words "How may I serve you?" at the top of the menu window.
An in-development image of the 15 toys made by the machine in Night Shift, standing in three rows. Top row, all from Star Wars, from left to right: a stormtrooper, Darth Vader, C-3PO, Luke Skywalker, Admiral Ackbar, and R2-D2. Middle row: Razor and Nurse Edna from Maniac Mansion; the broom alien and Zak from Zak McKracken; Indiana Jones; Bobbin Threadbare from Loom; and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bottom row: a creature from The Eidolon and a Jaggi from Rescue on Fractalus! In the final version of the game, the broom alien was replaced with Fleece from Loom.
A photograph of a bootleg Chinese sweatshirt depicting Bart Simpson (labeled "Baet Simpson") saying "Don't have a box new."