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  • Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular Digitality by Melanie Swalwell
  • Anne Ladyem McDivitt (bio)
Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular Digitality By Melanie Swalwell. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2021. Pp. 256.

In Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular Digitality, Melanie Swalwell sheds light on homebrew microcomputer game development in New Zealand and Australia in the 1980s, providing important insight into two topics that are typically outside the margins of video game studies. Swalwell argues that homebrew programmers engaged with their microcomputers as both consumers and producers, and this production of homebrew video games by users is the beginning of when digitality became a part of everyday life. Further, Swalwell states that this history is significant because of its inflection on the present.

This study analyzes, recalls, and evaluates how everyday users engaged with home computing when it was new. The focus is on creators of games, even if they were not well-known or making very successful or influential games. Swalwell's attention to homebrew development instead tells the stories [End Page 1212] of those who made and learned gaming through their own tinkering with microcomputers. This provides a unique look into video game history and microcomputer usage.

The author juxtaposes this work with many existing video game histories that focus primarily on home consoles and arcade games, as well as two scholars, Frank Veraart and Graeme Kirkpatrick, who have written about microcomputer usage in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, respectively. Swalwell looks to fill a gap on microcomputer usage and creation, as well as to disagree with Veraart and Kirkpatrick about the idea of a decline in microcomputer programming in the 1980s.

The book shines when Swalwell expertly weaves in engaging anecdotes that provide insight into the microcomputer interests of ordinary people, demonstrating how people came to work with microcomputers and how some of them made small commercial businesses with their games. Some humor is thrown in, such as the anecdote of Ross Symons publishing programming books that taught his teachers how to code and then getting rewarded with a B in his computer science class.

There are moments where the narrative leans heavily into the theoretical underpinnings Swalwell utilizes, and this can sometimes throw the reader off the track of the argument being made. Because of this, the book would be a difficult one to assign to undergraduates or for scholars new to the history of technology. This work is significant to the history of video games, but the broader relevance of the topic is somewhat limited for scholars of the history of technology.

Sometimes the reader might question the overall goal of the book, as well as what the author means by "vernacular digitality." There is a fantastic section in Chapter 5 that addresses both, and it would have been helpful for the reader to have this appear earlier in the book. There is also a significant amount of signposting that points to other chapters throughout the book, which can be positive or negative depending on the reader. Swalwell mentions the releases of the Sega Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in context with microcomputing and changes to the gaming environment. There is either an error with the release dates on these systems, or it is unclear that we are looking ahead to the end of the 1980s and/or into the next decade (p. 115). For those familiar with video game history, this can be confusing and distracting.

The analysis of homebrew game development as a cultural production on a microlevel is well argued and supported through archival sources, personal documents from homebrew developers, and interviews. It creates an engaging narrative about the period and style of game development. This ties into modern indie development, as well as the continued creation of games on microcomputers after the '80s, which Swalwell argues brings past development into relation with present and future gaming. [End Page 1213]

Swalwell's focus on the homebrew creators in Australia and New Zealand is a fantastic contribution to the history of video games that focuses on users as creators. It is sure to be a model for those looking at engagement with video games beyond...

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