Continuing with Dragon Magazine 81, Jan. 1984. In this month, you might have played Atari’s laserdisc arcade game Firefox, based on the Clint Eastwood movie. It probably got made because of the success of Dragon’s Lair the year before. I have a vague memory of seeing this game in an arcade, but I don’t think I ever played it. Check out some video of it below.
The Atari copyright is '83, but wiki says it was produced in '84.
But back to Dragon 81. I read the Living in a Material World article by Michael Dobson. The title seems to suggest the Madonna song Material Girl, but that didn’t arrive until November that year. The Police did a song called Spirits in the Material World in ’81. Or maybe that phrase was just in the air at the time. I don't know. The article was about how to find spell components in a D&D campaign. I thought it was interesting because I do that a lot in RPG video games like the one I’m playing now, Fantasy Life. Mr. Dobson points out that in a fantasy world full of magic, there would be a whole economy of spell components. Vendors would sell plants, gems, animal and monster parts, metals and fabricated items. He provides some tables to determine what a shop might carry and describes many different items, their location and rarity. I liked the list of fabricated items. Some are really funny to me like: Bigby’s Clenched Fist (basically brass knuckles), Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion (it’s a miniature ivory portal. I couldn’t help imagining the mini Stonehenge arch from Spinal Tap. LoL), and Leomund’s Secret Chest (this thing costs a whopping 7500 gp and takes 7-12 months for a craftsman to make. All this to hide your stuff on the Ethereal Plane. Sheesh! Use a storage locker for Melf’s sake.) .
Check out that cartoon. Describing the environment is part of the fun of the game. Sheesh!
This map making program is interesting; however, you’ll need a Vic-20 computer to use it. What?! Get rid of my graph paper? Are you crazy?! I think it’s funny that the computer was seen as an accessory to the game, whereas now, it is the game.
oh man, that's like the WORST Clint Eastwood movie ever. He did a couple bad ones, but that one is TERRIBLE. 
Yeah I got a new shipment of Dragon's this week. Some older ones like the year you've been going through. It really is great food for the imagination.
I guess I remember it fondly for the cool airplane. I think the special FX were done by a guy who did Star Wars stuff.
I'd love to come across some old Electronic Games magazines. I didn't even know it existed back in the 80s.
Hey, I liked that movie! You want to see a horrible Clint Eastwood movie, watch The Eiger Sanction.
arg I hated that movie. It was always on cable when I was a kid. SO BORING! 
and I'm a huge Eastwood fan!
I wonder if that movie inspired Mozilla Firefox's name.
Wiki says this: "The name Firefox was said to be derived from a nickname of the red panda, which became the mascot for the newly named project."
Love looking at old magazines. I had a bunch of video game magazines before I moved out of my parents house and spent a whole day reading them before I had to throw them out :( Oh well. I think I kept a few, but not nearly as many as I wanted (I had subscriptions to a few of them for years and would have liked to have kept them all).
I had a bunch too. If I lived in a house, I would've found the space for them, but in an apartment, I just had to get rid of them. I try and scan interesting stuff from ones I find now.
I wonder if Modzilla would sue the game makers of this game if they tried to re-release it?
What? I tcould happen? on both accounts.
That's the one thing I found odd about D&D dungeon mastering. Supposed nerds and the like are suppose to be social awkward and unable to form proper ssentences with crowds, yet here we have a progame that's suppose to help with that in games when usuall the DM's I see are some of the most articulated speakers of the realms they frequent.
Perhaps it's for bad DM's?
"Here's the map on the screen", instead of, "the room is 40' by 40' and in the center is a pedistal with a statue of Baphomet, a flame eminating from a torch above his head", just doesn't cut it. It takes away from the imagination. Oh, and nerds are really good describing nerdy stuff. It's the "what to say to girls" thing that gets them tongue tied.
