Author: itvbadmin

  • …palindromes… (2009)

    unscramble the palindromes. click any two letter tiles to swap positions. each level contains up to six words. you have 30 seconds to complete them all. score bonus points for time left on the clock. unused time added to next level.

  • Essential Flash Games Book, Chapter 11 – An Optimized Scrolling Blaster

    Essential Flash Games Book, Chapter 11 – An Optimized Scrolling Blaster Chapter 11 is by far the longest chapter in the book so far and will probably remain so. There is only one more chapter and Steve and I want to keep that one under 40 pages. It was due…

  • Bruce On Games: You don’t want to work in the video game industry

    This is great!  The same Bruce who is fighing off a libel lawsuit aginast makers of Evony (read: Bruce appears to be the victim in this one) has a new article called You don’t want to work in the video game industry where he lists 12 really good reasons why you…

  • Indie Flash Game Development Inter-Web Mash-up: November 12, 2009 (including Mochi Reviews)

    Indie Flash Game Development Inter-Web Mash-up: November 12, 2009 (including Mochi Reviews) This week I have paid some extra attention to checking out the games by some of my favorite developers (Robot Jam, Long Animals, and Alillm). I also have a set of Mochi game reviews and a lot of…

  • 8bitrocket Flash Game Distribution Game Review Podcast 11/11/2009

    In This podcast we review 8 games. We also learn how to use Chroma Key! (but we need to use it for something better). Also we have some more techincal problems (lighting?!?!?) but the games are pretty good this week, so who cares? Games Reviews This Week: Revert to Growth…

  • Optimized Game Timer Loop Update #2

    Optimized Game Timer Loop Update #2 Ok, so I spent the weekend (well the free-time part anyway), looking at the timer and found that in its current form it works best at 30FPS across all platforms. With updateAfterEvent turned on, you might still run the risk of an older computer…

  • 8bitrocket Mochi Game Review Video Pocast: 11/06/09

      8bitrocket Mochi Game Review Pocast: 11/06/09 We review about 8 games, and Steve touches his hair far too often, as we both never look into the camera because we are looking at a laptop to see the goods. Still, the new gameplay overlay screens are pretty cool. Game Links:…

  • Tutorial: Using The Open Source CamStudio to Record Flash Game Play Animations

    We have found the need to take screen animations of our games lately, but were at a loss on how to do it cheaply and easily.  That was until last week, when we found CamStudio, an Open Source utility for capturing video. CamStudio is a very interesting piece of software. …

  • SFXR native in Mac OS and AS3!

    SFXR native in Mac OS and AS3! I installed Windows 7 on my Bootcamp drive this last weekend. There were a few pitfalls, such as getting BlueTooth devices to work properly (black magic), but it was mostly painless. To start up work on the games book again, I needed to…

  • 8bitrocket.com Games Demo Reel: 70 games in 3.5 minutes.

    After making the last video podcast, the most enjoyable part turned out to be capturing video of some of our games. Taking that lead, we created this new “demo reel” with game play video from just about 70 games in 3.5 minutes, most of which have never seen the light…

  • Indie Flash Game Development Inter-Web Mash-up: November 3, 2009 (including Flash Game Distribution Reviews)

    Indie Flash Game Development Inter-Web Mash-up: November 3, 2009 (including Flash Game Distribution Reviews) There is a lot of cool new stuff to cover, so with no further delay here is a survey of my favorite sites, games, and blogs. We start with some Flash Game Distribution reviews: Flash Game…

  • 8bitrocket.com Video Podcast-Essential Flash Game Book Games Preview

    8bitrocket.com Video Podcast-Halloween Edition. In this edition we preview the games from our forth coming Flash game development book, Essential Flash Games. You actually see them in action. We also learned to use a screen capture utility and the results are…mediocre as always. Hey, but it’s getting better. Also, check…

  • Editorial: Two Big Kids On The Block In The Viral Flash World

    When Jeff and I were little, we lived on a block with a lot of other kids.  Of all those kids, there were two bigger ones that we tried to be  friends with: Justin and Travis.  Both had good qualities and bad ones too.  Justin was a pretty nice guy,…

  • A Youth Well Wasted: Lee Bradly Bogs His Youth In Video Games

    UK game journalist Lee Bradly has been writing an on-going blog chronicling his youth playing video games.  His series, A Youth Well Wasted is a a fascinating story about his friendship with a kid whose dad was a Sega executive.  As you may know, we here at 8bitrocket.com have been…

  • Kill Screen: A Video Game Magazine That Aims For The Mature Mind

    If you are like us, you constantly lament the demise of great game magazines like Electronic Games and Next Generation. Those magazines went beyond the standard news/preview/review/strategy format of most gaming tomes to include in-depth articles on subjects like sociology and future of the hobby. However, even those publications still…

  • Mochi Game Review Mash-Up: October 26, 2009 (10 new games reviewed)

    Mochi Game Review Mash-Up: October 26, 2009 (10 new games reviewed) Games Reviewed: Street Fighter 2: CE, GraveShift 2: The Sewers, Zombie Taxi 2, Globulos Challenge, Froggy, Lost Mouse, WS Cup 2009, Battlerun, Speed Game of the Week: Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition I don’t know why I haven’t got…

  • Essential Guite To Flash Games Book: Pre-Order

    This has been up for a couple weeks but were waiting some confirmations to post it.  You can now pre-order  the Essential guide to Flash Games book from Amazon.  Also, we learned yesterday that that great Iain Lobb will be the technical reviewer for the book,so if we lead you…

  • Mochi Game Review Mash-Up October 20, 2009 (11 new games reviewed)

    Mochi Game Review Mash-Up October 20, 2009 (11 new games reviewed) I wanted to do a full blog and site mash-up today (along with Mochi Game Reviews), but I that task is so daunting, I decided to stick to just reviews for another day. I searched out retro games again…

  • Essential Flash Games Book Ch.9: Dice Battle! A.I.Battle Puzzle Game.

    Here is an alpha sample screen of the game “Dice Battle” from the “Essential Flash Games” book.  This game builds upon the material in Chapter 8 (Color Drop), adding ramping machine-based A.I., a soundtrack manager, multiple enemies in battle-style puzzle game like Book Worm Adventures or Puzzle Quest, plus a bunch…

  • Mochi Game Review Mash-Up : Oct 14th, 2009 (Games where things shoot at other things day)

    Mochi Game Review Mash-Up : Oct 14th, 2009 (Games where things shoot at other things day) These were always my favorite types of arcade, video, and computer games, so I scoured the “Coins”, “Featured”, and “Recent” Mochi lists for some arcade blastin’ titles to review. Games Graded: Tank Destroyer, Gravitor,…

  • Essential Guide To Flash Games Book: Chapter 10: A tile-based scrolling driving game

    Essential Guide To Flash Games Book: Chapter 10: A tile-based scrolling driving game I put the finishing touches on the game for chapter 10 this weekend and started writing up the chapter text. It is supposed to be done by now, but the game took me a little longer than…

  • Jeff Minter’s Grid Runner Revolution PC Review

    If 8bitrocket.com had it’s very own “Mt. Rushmore” containing the faces of four video games designer/developers who have influenced us the most they would be: Dan Bunten (programmer/designer of MULE and Seven Cities Of Gold) Chris Crawford, Atari 8-bit evangelist and the author of the first ever book about the…

  • Mochi Game Review Mash-Up: October 7, 2009 (11 Games Reviewed)

    Mochi Game Review Mash-Up: October 7, 2009 (11 Games Reviewed) Today the game selection kind of made me feel like I was looking though some of the various pirate crew Atari ST and Amiga late era disc menus from the 90’s. Some gems, some odd games with bad foreign translations,…

  • Adobe Max Report #2: Adobe Takes On Mochi With their Own Game Distribution, Ad Serving, and Monetization (updated)

    Ok, Adobe Max day #1 was even better than Day #1. Here is a run-down. Adobe Distribution First off, we were shown Adobe’s answer to Mochi ads and Monetization, Adobe Distribition Services . Here are some of the features of the service: Sharing : Easily distribute your app and game…

  • Flash Indie Game Interweb Mash-up (plus Mochi Game reviews): October 6, 2009

    Flash Indie Game Interweb Mash-up (plus Mochi Game reviews): October 6, 2009 I have a lot of updates that I have been putting off, so I will try to quickly squeeze them in here today… Book Update: Working on a book is hard. No whining here, just a statement because…

  • Adobe Max Report Day #1

    OK, so here are my notes from Adobe Max Day #1: 1. Biggest News: Flash On The iPhone.  This does not mean it can run Flash apps in the browser, but it does mean that you can compile to native iPhone apps kind of like you make Projectors for Windows. …

  • Game Macropayments: A Developer Subscription Model?

    I was thinking about this on the way home yesterday, and I thought I would run it up the old 8bitrocket.com flag pole to see what people think. After writing about what I might pay for using Micropayments a few weeks back, it occurred to me that there is another…

  • Mochi Game Of The Day Review: Arthropod Armada By Rocketslap

    Mochi Game Of The Day Review: Arthropod Armada  By Rocketslap Arthropod Armada is a very well done side scrolling blaster in the R-Type genre. Instead of a piloting a space ship an organic alien underworld, you are a  flying bug soldier on a mission to defend your homeland from evil…

  • Essential Guide To Flash Games Book: Recursive Function Puzzle Game.

    I just finished this last night, so I’m a bit excited about it (or is that exhausted)?  Anyway, I wanted to show that this book is not just about the types of things you have read previously on this blog.  This game, “Color Drop” uses recursive functions, a simplified mini-State…

  • Essential Guide To Flash Games Book: Chapters 4 , 5: Flack Cannon

    Here is another short preview of our book The Essential Guide To Flash Games from Friends Of Ed.  The first real game discussed in the book (taking up over 70+ pages) is named Flack Cannon.  The game is a take on Missile Command in which you try to defend your…

  • Mochi Game of The Day (Sept 28, 2009) – Star Fish by Photonstorm

    Mochi Game of The Day (Sept 28, 2009)- Star Fish by Photonstorm Star Fish made it to Mochi today. I saw a pre-release of this little gem a few weeks back and have been anticipating it’s release on Mochi. It is a high quality casual game that you would expect…

  • Flash Game Development Interweb Mash-Up: Sept. 27, 2009

    Flash Game Development Interweb Mash-Up: Sep. 27, 2009   It has been quite an interesting 3 weeks since the last mash-up. The new ‘day job’ web site launched after 9 months of corporate hand wringing, scope changes, and development disasters. It came out nicely, but is still keeping me slaving…

  • Essential Flash Games Book #2 (chapters 6 and 7)

    Essential Flash Games Book #2 (chapters 6 and 7) I have just completed (finally) chapters 6 and 7 of our upcoming Essential Flash Games Book. These two chapters go into exhaustive detail on creating a maze-based, over-head 2D shooter in the Armor Attack genre. The game is not one that…

  • Adobe MAX, L.A. Oct. 5-7

    http://max.adobe.com/widget/MaxWidget.swf I just learned yesterday that I am going to Adobe MAX in L.A. in October.  There are only a few sessions that I want to attend, so if anyone wants to meet and talk Flash, Games, Flash Games, or anything else, drop me a line. Unfortunately, as it stands…

  • The Scariest/Best Flash Game Contest Ever : Revisited – UPDATED!

    Almost 2 months ago we reported on what we thought might be the scariest/best Flash Game Contest ever created. The Stonking Great Game Contest From The Escapist Magazine: Well today we received an update about the contest.  It seems that they have upped-the-ante a bit by adding a bunch of…

  • Email Of The Month

    We get all sorts of email requests here.  Most of them are from reasonable people who need help or ask questions.  We like those.  However, sometimes we get emails that are simply mind-bogglingly awesome in the boldness of their requests.  Here is the best one we have received in a…

  • Mochi Game Video Reviewcast #1!!

    Reviewcast! We review a bunch of the latest Mochi games and you get to see them in action! (kind of) OK, we tried hard to make this work, but I’m not so sure it is the right way to do it. I’d give us a D+ or C-, mostly for…

  • Essential Flash Games: The Book #1

    Essential Flash Games: The Book #1 One reason that there have been fewer tutorials, mash-ups, reviews, etc on the last few weeks is that Steve and I are deep into our first book on Flash game programming. Friends Of Ed is the publisher and we have a deadline to finish…

  • Mochi Game Review Mash-Up : September 14, 2009 (9 new games reviewed)

    Mochi Game Review Mash-Up : September 14, 2009 (9 new games reviewed) First impression mini game reviews covering a variety of the latest Mochi games.  The grading has been toughened up a bit because the quality of games has reached a new level in the last few months. I have…

  • The Dark Spire: Super-Old School 8-bit computer RPG on the DS: A Perfect Flash Game Candidate?

    When people talk about “old school” role playing games these days, they are usually referring to Final Fantasy or Dragonquest or some other JRPG released near the end of the 80’s. Those are good games mind you, but hardly old school. To me, “old school” RPGs are nothing of the…