Author: itvbadmin

  • Win Atari’s New Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale From 8bitrocket.com

    If you know us you know we love Atari.   Besides the classic Atari franchises and properties now owned by the new Atari (Asteroids, Star Raiders, Centipede, etc.), they also own some of our other favorites: Roller Coaster Tycoon and Dungeons And Dragons.   While we are still waiting for…

  • Our HTML 5 Canvas book is the O’Reilly E-Book Deal Of The Day – 1/2 off

    Today, you can purchase our latest book on game development, HTML5 Canvas, in digital form, for $15.99. This is 50% off the normal E-Book Price. The offer code is: DDM94 The link is:http://oreil.ly/kjeZ4P

  • Retro Scan of the Week: Tengen’s Mostly Legal NES Games

    The Tengen NES games two-page advertisement scan from Video Games & Computer Entertainment Magazine April 1989. I say “Mostly” Legal because the history of Tengen is slighly confusing. They did release Gauntlet, Pac-Man and RBI Baseball for the NES while under a legal NES licensing agreement between 1987 and 1989.…

  • Daily Interweb Mash-up: 5/24/2011: Canvas Game Tutorials, iPad Naval Gazers, Apple Heroics

    New HTML5 Canvas Game Tutorials Coming Jeff and I have each been working on an HTML5 Canvas game to talk about here.  Mine is called “Brickbasher Infinity” (a progressive Breakout game), and Jeff’s is “Bug Off!” (a Centipede style shooter).  The games are 8-bit styled with pixels, particles, etc.  We…

  • Daily Interweb Mash-up: 5/21/2011: Graphic Adventures, Flash CS5.5, & Hype

    Sorry, we missed a couple days there, but we had some special reports.  Let’s get back to the news, shall we? The Guide To Classic Graphic Adventures hardcorgaming101.com has a new book that covers nearly every graphic adventure game ever made.   Here is what they say about it: “The…

  • Something So Right: Flynn’s Arcade At Disney’s California Adventure

    Flynn’s Arcade. Usually, I would not write a story about a seemingly throw-away, stop-gap style Disney attraction created to take-up space and distract visitors while major construction is taking place elsewhere in an amusement park, but then I never thought Disney’s California Adventure could get something so right either. Disney’s California…

  • Gagaville goes gold (and silver, and sparkley, with a meat dress)

    I was a small cog in the big Zynga machine that just launched a giant promotion with Lady Gaga today – Gagaville on Farmville. By playing you can unlock pre-release versions of her up coming songs, acquire Gaga specific items for your own farm, and much more.      …

  • 8bitrocket.com Daily Interweb Mash-Up: Monday May 16, 2011

    Death Of Unicorn Death Is Pixelated Awesome Play the Mochi Game of the week, Death Of Unicorn Death.  It’s an awesome bit  of pixelated madness.  It also has some juicy 8-bit in all the right places! Angry Video Game Nerd Takes On The “Mattel” Power Glove Mattel has had a…

  • A Look at the Atari Facebook Retro-remakes

    Atari has been finally been diving into its extensive back catalog to create console, PC, and even Facebook versions of games that have been ignored by the various Atari branded entities over the years.  While we have not been overly impressed with the recent Star Raiders and Yars’ Revenge 3D…

  • HTML5 Canvas Book : Notes #1: Use Google Chrome

    Here are some notes about our HTML5 Canvas Book.  Actually one note: Use Google Chrome. Especially for the examples in Chapters 6 and 7 (audio and video), and especially when loading and playing video and audio clips, Google Chrome has the best support right now.  The other chapter examples work…

  • The 8bitrocket Daily Inter-Web Mash-Up – May 12, 2011

    Atari releases  the first update to Star Raiders in almost 20 years. The original Star Raiders was one of the best 8-bit computers games of the golden-age and the main reason that over a Million Atari 400 and 800 systems were sold in 1979 and 1980.   This week, Atari released…

  • Atari Nerd: Lynx Garage Excavation

    Inspired by Jeff’s Atari excavation a couple weeks ago, I went into the garage this weekend trying to find the Atari Lynx we bought back when it was released in the USA in 1989.    Far back in the garage, I found a plastic box with the word “Handheld” scribbled…

  • 8bitrocket.com Interweb Mash-Up: Tuesday May 10, 2011

    What is Obama’s favorite game system? Why did Jeff hate the Fringe Finale, where can you buy our new book, and much more. Our O’Reilly HTML5 Canvas Book Has Arrived Clocking in at at hefty 652 pages, our thinly disguised book on HTML5 Canvas game development has been released. This one…

  • Our book, HTML5 Canvas is now available.

    Our book, HTML5 Canvas from O’Reilly is now available. Only a few copies are left at Amazon, but you can get it directly from O’Reilly if you want.

  • 8bitrocket Daily Interweb Mash-up : Saturday May 7, 2011

    Atari 810 MicroSD Drive! This is amazing!! A MicroSD card reader in the shape of an Atari 810 disk drive that can be mounted and used by an Atari 8-bit computer (400,800,1200xl,600xl,800xl,65xe,130xe).  We want to buy this NOW!!! History Of Atari computers @ CIO Magazine Here is a nice slide-show…

  • Our HTML5 Canvas Book Now Available for Amazon Kindle

    Apparently Our HTML5 Book is now available for Kindle.  Our faithful reader Hayes reports that our new O’Reilly book, HTML5 Canvas, is now available for the Amazon Kindle:  You can see it here.  

  • Need A Death Panel? HMOs Already Got You Covered

    So my dad is very sick, lying in hospital bed at his house, unable to walk, speak,  eat or use the bathroom without help.  Over the past 18 months he has developed severe dementia.  We thought he was just slowly fading away. He has been to the doctor many times,…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Inter-Web Mash-Up – Friday, May 6, 2011

    Flash Games We Like – Wing Defender – Fun top-down shooter with cartoon-style graphics and a retro feel to the game-play. –Go Go Gummo – This Mochi FGF winner is a really cool puzzle game with elements of an action platformer…or is it the other way around. From the Flash…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Inter-Web Mash-Up for Thursday, May 5, 2011

    Attack Of The Mutant Sheep! Robert Podgorski, the winner of our 16K Game contest has released a new iPhone/Ipad game named “Attack Of The Mutant Sheep”.  It’s very 8-bit, and very awesome. You can download iPhone version (it’s free) at: http://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/mutant-sheep-2/id433857505?mt=8 The iPad version ($.99) at http://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/msheep-hd/id430579572?mt=8 Wanna learn Box2D…

  • Atari Nerd: This Week In Atari History : First Week Of May

    1979 May: Atari announces Baseball and Basketball coin-op arcade games •    Both use Trak-Ball controller •    Baseball is in a cabinet similar to Football coin-op 1979 May: Atari ships Subs arcade game •    Uses two monitors 1979 May: Atari announces Superman patches and t-shirts •    For operators to give-away to…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Inter-Web Mash-Up – Star Wars Day – May the 4th, 2011

    First off, I had no idea that May the 4th was Stars Wars day because of a bad lisp pun, but hey I’m game. Geekologie has it covered though. The Mathematics of whether Han shot first (Wired.com) I hate dress up games, so let’s review some from the latest Flash…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Inter-Web Mash-Up – Tuesday, May 3, 2011

      Tech Interview Question Tip – AS3 – Compute Factorial Iterative and Recursive package  {  import flash.display.Sprite;  /**   * …   * @author Jeff Fulton   */  public class ComputeFactorial extends Sprite  {   /*In mathematics, the factorial of a positive integer n,[1]    * denoted by n!, is the product of…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Interweb Mash-Up – Monday, May 2, 2011

    Hulu + WTF? I eagerly subscribed to Hulu Plus on Saturday because I had missed Friday’s penultimate episode of Fringe while at the Zynga quarterly meeting in San Francisco. The FIOS DVR had only picked up static (happens way more than it should, Verizon) so I jumped on my Xbox…

  • The Literal DOS Box – Classic DOS game gold vein

    I have been going through old boxes of retro gaming gear over the last few weeks and today I came across a set of 3 1/2 inch floppy disks that I knew existed, but was had been unable find. In 1992, Steve and I shed our beloved Atari 1040ST for…

  • Atari Nerd : This Day In Atari History For May 1st

    1981 May 1: Threshold  published By Sierra On-Line for Atari 8-bit 1983 May 1 : Atarisoft releases Pac-Man for the Intellivision 1989 May 1: Mastertronic Atari ST budget UK release: SILKWORM 1990 May 1:  Atari Games US Trademark date for Hydra 2003 May 1 : Atari releases Breakout for cell…

  • Atari Nerd : This Day In Atari History For April 30th

    1981 April 30: DataSoft first publicizes Micro Painter for Atari 8-bit computers 1984 April 30: Parker Brothers finalizes prototype of Atari 2600 game Frogger II 1994 April 30: Atari Classic Programmer’s Club announce 8-bit computer products• Loopz: game releases TBA• Helter Skelter: game release TBA• Bomb Blaster: game release Christ…

  • 8bitrocket InterWeb Mash-Up For Friday April 29th, 2011

    A Note From 8bitrocket Hi everyone, I hope you are enjoying our new focus and format as much as we are are enjoying it.  We found it very hard to write lots of in-depth articles because the industry is changing so much at the moment.   We will have more in-depth…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Inter-Web Mash-Up – Thursday, April 28, 2011

    MochiGames.com Game for Today: RobotSockets RoboSockets is a new take (to us anyway) on the  classic falling item/connect/clear game play pattern.  The robots have various connectors that need to be lined-up to get clear them  from the screen.  It’s engaging with neat graphics, and fun in short bursts. Flash AS3…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Inter-Web Mash-up – Wednesday, April 27, 2011

    The Daily Briefing has been re-named back to the Inter-Web Mash-Up of old. Steve and I have both made it through 6 weeks with the new game development company, and although the hours are long, we are trying to find time for daily updates here on 8bitrocket.com. The focus will…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Briefing – Tuesday, April 26, 2011

    New Game Picks From Mochi Games Cactus McCoy : A Western-themed platformer with nice music and neat graphics. Homerun In Bezerkland :  Hit the geek as far as you can. More than a decade ago played this with penguins.  Because of that, this game probably falls into the “retro Flash…

  • 8bitrocket Daily Briefing : Monday April 25th, 2011

    Top Of Mind Jolt Here some neat new games from MindJolt.com : Green Archer : Aim and shoot arrows are various objects.  Simple and derivative, but intriguing none-the-less. Bi-Plane Bomber :  Addicting, easy to control (and wholly unrealistic, but still…) bi-plane dog fight and bombing game.  Nice scrolling, and great…

  • 2010 Easter Games Revisited

    Here are links to the 2010 Easter Games we posted last year.  All are simple games with graphics designed by my girls (8bitsteve).

  • The 8bitrocket Daily Briefing – Sunday, April 24, 2011

    First off, Happy Easter to all those who celebrate it. Try out these new Flash Game Distribution games. We liked them the first couple times we played them. – X Missile (once you find the game through all of the ads and Free Tower defense logos). This is fun shooter…

  • 8bits in the Attic – Atari (and Intellivision) Treasure Trove

    About 12 years ago I realized that I wanted to play my original 1986 Atari 7800, but had no idea where it was. After searching the garage at my parents house, I found the original system in its original box, but no games. This set me out on a mission…

  • Our First “Game” Hack, Circa 1981

    Last week I pulled out I found an old Choose Your Own Adventure book to read to my girls.   This was one of the original books Jeff and I got from the Scholastic Book club in elementary school.  This particular book was from 1981.  I recall, that Jeff and…

  • The HTML 5 Canvas (O’Reilly) Table Of Contents

    Our book on HTML5 Canvas programming is nearing completion. The Amazon.com info page has not been updated yet with the latest information, so I decided to put it here in case anyone is interested. We are in final revision stage and everything is right on time. We have checked and…

  • Ode To A Game That Nobody Played

    This is an ode to a game that nobody played For the classes and functions and code that I made For the weeks designing how the screen would be laid With Pseudo-3D and traces that rayed With cool explosions filled with particles sprayed This is an ode to a game…

  • Retro Scan Of The Week: Romox Games (1983)

    This week’s scan is a Romox microcomputer games advertisement from Analog magazine’s Sept/Oct 1983 issue. The two games featured in the ad are Anteater and Typo (available in cartridge form for the Atari 8-bit, Commodore Vic-20 / 64, and TI 99/4A). Romox started business in Campbell California in 1982 and…

  • Two Great New Video Game Books You Should Check Out

    It appears that we are in a “gaming book” renaissance the likes of which we have not seen since the  since the early parts of the 21st century when Dungeons And Dreamers, Masters Of Doom, and The First Quarter all fascinated us with inside stories of games being made and played. While there have…

  • Atari Greatest Hits Vol. 2 DS: Atari 400 Emulator In Action

    I discovered today that the new DS title Atari Greatest Hits Vol .2 for the Nintendo DS includes an Atari 400 emulator running Atari BASIC.    The emulator is in the extras section, and as far as I can tell, only lets you type in and run it in the…