I am just now putting the finishing touches on a custom game for a portal. I’m very happy with the results. The AS3 engine that powers it is getting a little long in the tooth and I am excited to start the next batch of 8bitrocket games that will use a brand new engine that incorporates many new features. My next set of games will be based on a new scrolling, shooting, RPG style adventure engine that we are building. Obviously, we are going to stay with a retro theme, but we will be doing away with creating simple arcade games with new retro-evolved features and start on some more advanced games. Think Gauntlet with role playing and puzzles, utilizing an AS3 engine that will allow us to push 100’s of enemy, ordinance, particles, and more at the same time. Anyway, I haven’t written one line of code for it yet, or even engaged any of our artist partners yet, so it might be a little premature to discuss it, but I love new game ideas.
Apple Chronicles
I have now had only an iMac to use for a week and so far I love most of the results. As the computer and operating system go, I have never used anything more elegant or easy to master. What a treat to use OS X 10.5 (the official title, it isn’t redundant because Apple says so). Time Machine is the single greatest backup utility I have ever used, the center ball on the Bluetooth mighty mouse seems to be made of some Alien substance that reads my mind and knows what I want to do. All in all, the machine is a joy. The ability to grab just one part of the screen with a key press and a mouse drag is simply inspired! The microphone built into the machine is better than many pro mics I have used.
The bad: Parallels 3.0 is great, but I have had trouble with two of my main pieces of software. Acid 6.0 actually works great, but its ability to access the networked drives (the OS X 10.5 drives it shares) is very very slow. Also Flash Develop has had a hard time dealing with the same networked drives. I am running Parallels in Coherence mode with a desktop and documents folders that are shared. This makes most things work seamlessly, and FAST. Just these two pieces of software have slight problems, but I haven’t had time to fully work through them. I have a little trouble getting the LAME MP3 encoder to install so Audacity has been a little difficult to use. Hence, my need to use all of my Windows sound and music apps. I haven’t had enough time to dive into Garage Band, but I am sure it kicks ass like the rest of the included ware.
Some cool games I have found on portals between round-ups and Fresh Kill Fives:
Play Law of the West at New Grounds – The GamingYourWay.com teams delivers a retro classic. Nice Job, dudes. I hope you get a pile of sponsorship dosh from this gem.
Play Evo Cannon at New Grounds – First this game brought me back t o1981, then it fired me forward to 2008. Well done if sparse vector shooter. I know there are a lot of these, but this is a fine one.
Also Steve added 5 new games to our Retro Showcase:
Purp – Pac-man, but new and it scrolls, and its damn (not a new game, but a good one)…
Gyrustakee – A new take on the classic Gyrus.
Jetpac 2 – Like Mario Bros (the original) combined with Blue Print.
Breakout Voyager – Simple, but fantastic version of the Atari classic.
Anti Pac-Man -Very slick turn the tables Pac-Man.