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Episode 536: Below the Root (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-22 10:00:04
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

What's this, an episode about a home computer game from the early 1980s with nary a Brit in sight? Yes, this week Diamond Feit hosts an episode requested by patron Ben Hamilton who asked us to cover Spinnaker Software and their adventure game adaptation of Below the Root.

Diamond is joined by Jared Petty as they both grew up with the Commodore 64 in their homes and Spinnaker made a point of producing a variety of edutainment titles for that platform. Some of their games were intended to just get kids used to the idea of pressing keys on a keyboard—an uncommon skill 40 years for youngsters—while Below the Root proved to be a much more ambitious, carefully designed platformer with an inventory to manage, spells to cast, and plenty of living things (not just people) to talk to.

Art by Amanda Pruitt Neipris, edits by Greg Leahy. Music in this episode:

14:03 - Commando (C64): Main Theme

28:00 - Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (C64): Towne/Intro

35:42 - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (OST): Main Title

44:51 - Ninja Gaiden (NES): Devilish Influence (6-4)

56:21 - I Adore Commodore (LP): Sargon Chess

1:07:11 - Below the Root (C64): Title Theme

1:17:15 - Faxanadu: World of Branch

1:25:38 - Treasure Island (C64): Title Theme

Closing - The Commodores: "Sail On"

Files

Comments

Ben Hamilton

Outstanding! This game just oozed heart. Such an ambitious creation for 1984! Part of me wants to say it must have had some influence on Metroid, but that gets dangerously close to calling it a Metroidvania..

Brian Pitt

I *loved* this game as a kid and it actually got me to read the novels, so I guess it did its job. I always played Pomma though for the extra spirit energy—maybe I should go back and try it out now with another character that I’m older and better at games.

John Simon

Only 30 minutes in but ... Umpf! Love it! Early PCs (especially their productivity side) is pretty much untouched on this podcast. It's fine enough to revisit metroid, but this is like freshly fallen snow. Never knew The Print Shop to be an actual SYSTEM SELLER and be more or less the reason to get a printer. I had a copy of that on Apple. Seems like every pirate ripped the fonts and used them for their cracked splash screens. "Frogger - brought to you by ... THE MIDNIGHT RIPPER" Spinnaker bought out an Apple II developer called Springboard who made educational games but also "The Newsroom" - a newspaper creation system that I spent hours with. https://archive.org/details/TheNewsroomDemo4amCrack I was a kid with a stack of pirate software in the 80's, I did what I did. (I WISH I was given copy of Ultima or some 6502 books, those would have been seminal.) The C64 Ultima VI description was interesting. Origin was known to push the boundaries of the hardware they shipped on, but it's clear they'd hit a limit with constant swapping and the low speed drive. Pity the Origin playtesters who had to run through this for a job. Maybe their workstations had a stack of six floppy drives all hooked up to a C64? I wonder why they only shipped up to Ultima V on the Apple II.

Ben Mitchell

This has awakened some serious Broderbund Print Shop memories within me that I had almost fully repressed. What if that's how I ended up as a graphic designer?

Julian

Beautiful cover art!

Ryan M

I am not a C64 Head or a Root Head, but just wanted to say this episode was a delight. Like all the best Retronauts, it was informative and begat nostalgia for something I have never actually experienced. Thanks Diamond and Jared for bringing so much heart to the pod!