Episode 6 - Shawn Hargreaves

Shawn Hargreaves talks about the Allegro game programming library and the community that sprung up around it in
the late 1990s. We talk about what happens when your hobby project accidentally turns into something with a life
of its own, the inexplicable popularity of games involving the murder of Barney the Dinosaur, and the vital role
of accessible tooling in providing a path to learning.

Shawn Hargreaves talks about the Allegro game programming library and the community that sprung up around it in
the late 1990s. We talk about what happens when your hobby project accidentally turns into something with a life
of its own, the inexplicable popularity of games involving the murder of Barney the Dinosaur, and the vital role
of accessible tooling in providing a path to learning.

Oric Atmos
Allegro home page, April 1997
Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice
PC Game Programmer's Encyclopedia
Denthor of Asphyxia
Teach Yourself Game Programming in 21 Days (CD-ROM)
Near / far pointers
DJGPP
CWSDPMI DOS extender
FreeBE/AF
No more "Swapware"
Barney Mutilator
(alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die)
Kill the Barney
(Play online)
NeoPaint
Teen Programmers Unite
(Original usenet post)
Simtel / cdrom.com
Shawn told me the flightsim game he liked was not Triplane Turmoil
(play online), and I haven't been able to dig up anything more plausible, so please leave a comment in the
forums if you've got a guess!
Allegro 3.11 FAQ
An example of a blatantly-didn't-read-the-documentation question I posted to usenet
that got many helpful responses
allegro.cc community
Allegro Speedhack game jam
(Shawn's first entry,
second)
Allegro contributor list
Allegro add-ons / library extensions
PCX file format
MikMod and Mikalleg
Scream Tracker (Wikipedia)
Impulse Tracker (First-hand account of its creation:
1, 2,
3, 4)
DIGMID patch sets
XNA Game Studio
Avatar Fart, a representative example of the "fart game" on XBLIG.
See also Rocket Fart,
Surround Sound RC Gopher Farting Masseuse, and of course,
Try Not To Fart.
Shawn's current website
Garret Thomson's 1997 MIDI licensing webpage,
including download links for Sorcerer and Demonics, the two pieces used in the Allegro demo game
Garret Thomson's current SoundCloud