In 2020, for the first time in 30 years, a commercial role-playing game was released for the Apple II computer. The goal of Mark Lemmert and his team was to develop a retro role-playing game with a more modern user interface and compelling storyline, written in assembly language on real Apple II hardware and shipping in a deluxe boxed set.

Mark describes the challenges, including a decades-long quest to create the tile engine, a failed Kickstarter, the Apple’s quirky graphics system, and getting decent audio out of a one-bit speaker. Along the way, the team received help from many sources, including Richard Garriott (Lord British), Dr. Cat, Burger Becky, and Steve Wozniak (Woz). Finally, after a wildly-successful Kickstarter and a year of non-stop coding, Mark details how an obscure floppy disk bug nearly derailed the entire project just weeks before release.

With a mix of personal anecdotes and technical details, The Making of Nox Archaist is the ultimate insider’s account of the creation of a modern game on a classic computer platform. This is a 259 page full-color PDF.