9.7.24

Today is my father's birthday, and the first time he is absent, as he passed away this spring. My mother passed away in the spring of 2019, the year I founded Rufe.org LLC and began by departure from AAA game development.

My story with Moria began with my father's small business, Dynadox. He built a templating extension to microsoft word that allowed law firms to quickly submit common legal documents. This included quite a bit of software and hardware about the house, and I was lucky to use a home PC in 1990 that ran Mines of Moria. I still have a journal in my closet from when I was 8 years old, writing about the new keyboard shortcuts (oh boy, wizard mode!) I discovered in moria. This journal captures the wide-eyed, awe of youth looking out at the immense possibility of a digital universe.

One programmer and one artist ship Mines of Moria to six platforms today: Steam Deck, Linux, MacOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. I acknowledge Koeneke's wishes that the game remain free, and so it is. $4 on Steam is a bit like paying for parking at the Ghetty Villa, there are cheaper ways to get there if you're willing to work at it. You can more easily acquire builds of Moria via trusted software distributors. This cost has the benefits of ease, trust, and high availablility. Steam, Apple, and Google work hard sustaining platforms that make software readily available to a global audience.

It's OK to ship software that's incomplete or imperfect. We're listening, and we're comfortable pouring time into the details of these games. It's OK if you like or dislike or feel nothing towards our games. If you want to see changes in the present, then:

1) speak up in your way

2) clarify an incremental change you would like to see in the present world

To balance death, there is birth. We have two young children in my home. It is a conscious choice to step away from a career of online gaming to make an offline game. It removes the urgency of making changes to the system. In essence, I am a volunteer who is devoted to making games I love, including Mines of Moria, more available to the world. For some, maybe it inspires you to dig out old favorites. For others, this may be the gateway of your awareness to original roguelikes. Or dust in the wind.

-Alan Newton

CEO Rufe.org LLC