Category: Features

  • In-App Buyer’s Remorse : Will It Kill Mobile Games?

    My friend told me a story yesterday about an iPhone app that his young son loves to play.  It’s a virtual fish-tank.  You must use credits to feed your fish, and those are obtained by downloading “free” apps or by paying real money.  Some of those “free” apps have very…

  • AtariMania.com has full PDF editions of all Atari User Magazines

    The awesome, though seemingly under-appreciated site, Atari Mania, has hand-scanned (a lot of f***ing work I might add)  versions of the entire 43 issue series of the UK-based Atari User magazine. This is of special interest to USA-Based Atari 8-bit computer fans because just as the 8-bit range was dying here, it…

  • What ever happened to Steve Moraff?

    His name might not spark wild-eyed fascination with many retro gaming enthusiasts, but Steve Moraff was a little bit of a legend in his own time. When we first got a PC (non-Atari machine) in the early 1990’s, we jumped on the early CD-Rom craze.  The best use of CDs…

  • Going Solo (from the corporate beast) #6 – The First Month

    Working at home and on your own without a corporate sponsor has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that I am home every day and can work the hours I choose. I get to see my family much more than ever before and even a couple times a week…

  • Vacation Game Brainstorm: Mark Twain was here…?

    So I’m on a short trip with my family on California Highway 49, in the Gold Country.  Specifically, we have been roaming Calaveras County, the very same county made famous by a certain Samual Clemons in his story the local Frog Jumping Contest. Now, there is a lot of history…

  • Going Solo (from the corporate beast) #5 – A Valuable Lesson Learned

    I knew it was going to happen some time, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. I don’t want to give out too many details, but I just want to say that getting taken by a  client is no fun. I guess everyone must go through this, and…

  • Killa Appz By Dave Berzack : I Laughed, I Cried

    We need more stuff like this.   The thing made me laugh out loud about about 20 times.  Bravo.  I hope Dave gets some consulting work out of it. “Props to Adobe” “My mind on my mark-up and my mark-up on my mind” – classic.

  • Play Halo 2600 Online Now!

    Ed Fries has created a new home brew Atari 2600 masterpiece, Halo 2600. You play Master Chief as you run around the multiple 64 screen levels blasting baddies, and collecting weapons and other goodies. Check out the Atari Age thread on the creation of the game. There are physical carts…

  • No More Corporate Teat – #4 – Feast or Famine

    It has been exactly one week since I stepped outside corporate America to have a go on my own as an independent developer. Those 16 years spend toiling under the thumb of increasingly Office Space and Dilbert-esque corporate environments cannot be completely discounted as a waste of my time though.…

  • No More Corporate Teat – #3 – The First Day

    Today was the first real work-day of my non-corporate development life. Since I have an iPad contract that starts up soon (I am a little scared as the client is delaying a little on getting it initiated) I decided to re-acquaint myself with Xcode and the iPod/Pad development work-flow. First…

  • A TRON “Legacy”?

    There will be a new TRON movie out this year and no one could be happier than I. I loved the first TRON movie when it was released back in 1982. While it was not a great movie, it came out at the exact right moment for me, smack-dab in…

  • No More Corporate Teat – #2 – The Last Day

    Today was my last day as an employee of a major corporation. I am very sad to leave so many of my friends, but excited at what the future holds. I am in the midst of setting up the consulting arm of 8bitrocket Studios called Twin Engine Web Systems. There…

  • No More Corporate Teat – #1 – I Quit!

    This is the white (wipe) -board I have used weekly for 13 years to note to-do lists and other things necessary for my day job. I only have one more “to do” this upcoming week and that is to pack my belongings and not let the door hit me on…

  • The Day The Soccer Peaked: Landon Donovan Penatly Kick Goal Vs. Ghana 2010 World Cup

    This video I took at the Arcata Theater in Arcata CA, the home of Humbolt State. It’s a small town in Northern, CA. We were on vacation , and this theater was showing the USA vs. Ghana game. There were about 300 people there. Arcata is about 250 miles north…

  • Vacation Game Storm #2: Frog BBQ

    Note: I’ve always felt that the best time for me to come-up with new ideas for games is when I’m on vacation.  I recently went on vacation with my family.  These are some of the game design notes I took. We arrived at our cabin in Redwoods National Park late…

  • Atari 7800 Retro Inspection In Retro Gamer Magazine #78

    Atari 7800 Retro Inspection In Retro Gamer Magazine #78 My favorite Atari console of all time is the Atari 7800. It could play 99% of the Atari 2600 games and it had very nice versions of some of my favorite arcade games (Food Fight, Galaga, Pole Position 2, Joust, etc).…

  • Vacation Game Storm #1: Free Budget Breakfast Buffet

    Note: I’ve always felt that the best time for me to come-up with new ideas for games is when I’m on vacation.  I recently went on vacation with my family.  These are some of the game design notes I took. On our first night of the trip we stayed at…

  • 8bitrocket.com @ E3 Report #1 : Lucha Libre Fight While The Game Industry Dies (updated)

    So we went to E3 today, and we saw few things worth mentioning (which we might cover later), however, our general impressions can be summed up with this story from Cracked.com: The Day the Gaming Industry Died: Impressions from E3 2010 by David Wong We saw one GREAT thing while…

  • 8bitrocket.com @ E3 2010

    We are attending E3 2010 this year.  We hope to bring you back all the “news” of stuff on display for Flash, Web, Viral, Retro, Mobile, Indie game developers. However, we assume, just like last year, the entire show will ignore this part of the game industry.  If we can…

  • Nomen Ludi: Awesome Short Story About The Quest To Finish An 8-bit Computer Game

    I was directed to the story Nomen Ludi By Rob Beschizz, a fictional short story about the quest and the meaning of trying to finish an 8-bit computer game.  Lost of great turns an imagery in this one, and also some really cool 8-bit game screens.  Read it here.

  • John Russell Fulton: Isn’t Artistic Talent Supposed To Jump A Generation?

    I can’t draw to save my life.  Neither can Jeff.  While be both can do a bit of  “abstract” work practical art has pretty much escaped us.  However the rest of our family has all kinds of talent in spades. The most “famous” artist in our family is John Russell…

  • R.I.P. Gary Coleman And 80’s Portrayals Of Video Games

    Gary Coleman died yesterday at the age of 42.  He was best known from his role on the TV show “Different Strokes”.  It was sad to see him go, as he never really appeared to achieve that he set out to do in life. It is interesting to note that …

  • Game Design Inspirations: Some childhood 70’s non-electronic games and books

    Game Design Inspirations: Some childhood 70’s non-electronic games and books Growing up in the 70’s Steve and I didn’t always  have access to electronic and video games. It was 1981 before we had our first 2600, and before that we had but a smattering of hand-held electronic games that failed…

  • Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Interview with Jeff Minter (1988)

    Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Interview with Jeff Minter (1988) A couple weeks ago I was hunting around in Steve’s garage and found the May 1988 issue of ST Action magazine. I scanned in the review of Dungeon Master in that issue and put it on the site. This…

  • Atari History Orgasm Hits AtariAge.com Forums As Nolan Bushnell Shows Up to Defend Himself

    It was an unprecedented moment in the history of Atari fandom, and it happened over the past few days.  After, it was announced last week that Nolan Bushnell would join the board of directors of Atari SA, the message boards at Atariage.com lit-up with excitement and terror.  Some Atari fans…

  • Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Review – Dungeon Master

    Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Review – Dungeon Master I was sifting through the treasure trove that is Steve’s garage the other day when I came across a classic issue of ST Action magazine. The issue is May 1988 (the first year of the publication) and it is filled…

  • No More Printed Game Manuals For “The Environment”, or “Pay Twice For What You Used To Get For Free”

    The Gamer’s Blog has a very interesting story about Ubi Soft jettisoning printed game manuals as a “green initiative”.  thsoundman writes: “No more man’u’als? Ubisoft announced this week that they will be ditch’ing the trend of print’ing instruc’tion man’u’als for new games under the ‘green’ ini’tia’tive.  While no other pub’lish’ers…

  • Ouch My Face Hurts! A Facebook Social Games Deep Dive.

    Mochi Game Developer’s Fund Chronicles #2:   Ouch My Face Hurts! A Facebook Social Games Deep Dive So I’ve never really played a “social” game on Facebook before today.  Since those types of games were propped-up by some as the “second coming” at FGS, and because the Mochi Game Developer Fund…

  • New 8 Bit Weapon Sony Loop Library

    New 8 Bit Weapon Sony Loop Library We make a lot of loop-based music here at 8bitrocket. One of our favorite tools is Acid by Sonic Foundry (and now Sony). Sony always has new sets of loop libraries to fill the need for unique and new game music construction. For…

  • Apple/Adobe/HTML 5 Saga: Who Is Big Brother Now?

    Apple/Adobe/HTML 5 Saga: Who Is Big Brother Now? Well, I never expected to be writing about HTML5 years before it will be finished, but the whole iPad/No Flash support saga has me up at night wondering if we need to move sooner than later. First off, far from Apple relenting…

  • Why Does Apple Hate Flash: The HTML 5 Canvas Might Be The Answer

    Why Does Apple Hate Flash: The HTML 5 Canvas Might Be The Answer Many people on the web have been questioning why Apple “really” hates Flash and why it has not been included in the iPod Touch, iPhone, or new iPad. Everything from “Flash runs slow” to “Flash is not…

  • Tables Turned: One Of My Favorite Game Jounalists Interviews Me

    Last week I spent over an hour talking with one of my favorite game journalists, Tom Chick, about one of my favorite games of all-time, Roller Coaster Tycoon.    Actually, we seemed to discuss many things other than Roller Coaster Tycoon, but it was still fun. You can listen to it…

  • I Play/Read All This Stuff At Once???

    I noticed yesterday that I have too many games being played and books being read at exactly the same time.  All of these games/books are being played/read at different times, when I’m doing different things. -Mac: M.U.L.E. (new version)-PC (Mac Bootcamp): Dragon Age Origins-PC Laptop:  (no game) making a video…

  • The office politik: Twilight v. The Atari 800

    The office politik: Twilight v. The Atari 800 Ok, so I really want to write something about Flash games or indie games, or retro games, but every ounce of my energy for and interest in those topics is being funneled into the final revisions for the book. I would love…

  • R.I.P. Art Clokey: Creator of “Gumby” and “Davey And Goliath”

    Art Clokey was one of the masters of “stop motion” animation. He is best known for the “Gumby” cartoons. Gumby : The Small Planets There were a few episodes the dealt with space. This one stands out as the best….and most bizarre. “My beautiful arpeggio ruined!”   Art Clokey was…

  • Writing A Technical Book: The Stuff No One Tells You

    We are finishing-up the final parts of the book “The Essential Guide To Flash Games“. The Amazon release date is wrong, as the whole process is about a month behind. We are sorry for anyone who expected to get this thing next week, but honestly, (HONESTLY), the book is much…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • “B.A. PANTS’ (not underwear for the UK folks, but trousers)

    ‘B.A. PANTS’ (not underwear for the UK folks, but trousers). Note: This diatribe is only tangentially related to Flash game development. Read at your own risk.   I used to wear jeans and skate shoes to work every day. I did this for nearly 10 years even though I was an…

  • One Of The Best Mainstream Game Articles In A Long Time: The Magic of Wii Sports Resort @ IGN

    Michael Thomsen @ wii.ign.com has written what I believe is one of the best gaming articles I have ever read.  His piece, The Magic of Wii Sports Resort is notable not just for it’s structure and style, but also for its sentiment and passion.  Thomson writes about about game narrative,…