Category: Uncategorized

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Nov 1, 2008

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Nov 1, 2008 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. It’s been a couple weeks since I have had time to do a mash-up. I have been busy with my new game and some other 8bitrocket towers duties…

  • New 8bitrocket Game Goes Live (Again) : Jack’s Beach Blitz Release Candidate 2

    After making some last minute story and graphics changes, I have finally finished release candidate #2 for my latest game, Jack’s Beach Blitz. It started out as a simple re-skin of Pumpkin Man for Halloween, but eventually turned into a completely different game, roughly based on the same game engine.…

  • Late To The RPG Game: Phantasy Star

    Over the past few years I have been making an attempt to find and play many of the Japanese RPG games that I otherwise missed when they were originally released. For many years I had an aversion to Japanese RPGs because I felt they were too heavy on story and…

  • New 8bitrocket Game Goes Live: Jack’s Beach Blitz

    New 8bitrocket Game Goes Live: Jack’s Beach Blitz I have finally put the finishing touches (at least for tonight) on my latest game, Jack’s Beach Blitz. It started out as a simple re-skin of Pumpkin Man for Halloween, but eventually turned into a completely different game, roughly based on the…

  • Premature Rocket Launch

    This type of thing happens as you get older. Jack’s Beach Blitz was launched yesterday (last night), but unfortunately needs to be brought down for maintenance. The current version on GameJacket will not work. This is not a technical issue, it is an editorial issue.

  • A Military Version Of Atari’s Missile Command: Rich Adam , “Chuck” react….

    A few months ago (April 30th 2008 to be exact) we wrote a story about a possible “military” version of Missile Command. The most controversial part of the story was this: While information on the Army Battlezone project is freely available today, in the early 80’s it existed as only the…

  • Making Games: Jack’s Beach Blitz Pre-Mortem

    Making Games: Jack’s Beach Blitz Pre-Mortem I have been working all weekend long to put the finishing touches on Jacks’ Beach Blitz. I failed to hit my deadline of having all 15 levels complete by today, but I have put a 99% complete 5 level preview on both Flash Game…

  • 8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #7: A Modest Proposal: The VGS-8200

    8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #7: A Modest Proposal: The VGS-8200 Note :This week we are exploring some ideas that we believe could help Atari -Infogrames pull itself out of their current difficulties, while at the time time treating Atari’s illustrious past with the reverence befitting befits the world’s first video…

  • 8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #5: Remake And Download Quality Atari 8 And 16-bit Computer Games

    8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #5: Remake And Download Quality Atari 8 And 16-bit Computer Games Note :This week we are exploring some ideas that we believe could help Atari -Infogrames pull itself out of their current diffculties, while at the time time treating Atari’s illustrious past with the reverence befitting…

  • Making Games: Jack’s Beach Blitz Part 4

    Making Games: Jack’s Beach Blitz Part 4 Note: I have been working on a game the last few weeks in my spare time to try and hit the Halloween holiday (sic – I know it really is’;t a holiday per se, as we have to work that day, but what…

  • 8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #4: Atari 7800/Lynx/Jaguar Games That Should Be Remade In The 21st Century

    8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #4: Atari 7800/Lynx/Jaguar Games That Should Be Remade In The 21st Century Note :This week we are exploring some ideas that we believe could help Atari -Infogrames pull itself out of their current difficulties, while at the time time treating Atari’s illustrious past with the reverence…

  • 8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #3: 10 Lesser-Known Atari Coin-ops That Would Make Kick-Ass Casual Games

    8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari  #3: 10 Lesser-Known Atari Coin-ops That Would Make Kick-Ass Casual Games Note :This week we are exploring some ideas that we believe could help Atari -Infogrames pull itself out of their current difficulties, while at the time time treating Atari’s illustrious past with the reverence befitting…

  • 8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari Week Starts!!!

    8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari Week Starts!!! Anyone who follows the game industry closely knows a few facts about the name Atari: Atari, as an actual company was shot in the stomach in 1984 by Warner Exec Steve Ross and then died a slow and painful death over the next 20…

  • 8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #2: Top-10 Atari 2600 Games That Could Have Been Franchises

    8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #2: Top-10 Atari 2600 Games That Could Have Been Franchises 8bitrocket.com’s Project: Save Atari #2: Top-10 Atari 2600 Games That Could Have Been Franchises Note :This week we are exploring some ideas that we believe could help Atari -Infogrames pull itself out of their current difficulties,…

  • Making Games: Jack’s Beach Blitz Part 3

    Making Games: Jack’s Beach Blitz Part 3 I have changed the name of my game from Pumpkin Man Beach Blitz to Jack’s beach blitz. Although the original name of the character in Pumpkin Man was Percy, I think Jack (for Jack-O-Lantern) is a better fit and much more catchy. I…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: October 17, 2008

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: October 17, 2008 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover the latest Flashkit Game Contest; The FHM game contest; New games by Squize, Richard Davey, Steve Fulton, Terry Paton, and Brent Silby; A new…

  • Making Games: Pumpkin Man Beach Blitz Part 2

    Making Games: Pumpkin Man Beach Blitz Part 2 For the last week I have been working on a new game with the working title Pumpkin Man Beach Blitz. It is going to be a cross between Gauntlet and Wizard of Wor using the basics of an engine I created this…

  • Daphnie’s Balloon Castle goes Live! Becomes A Mochi Featured Game!

    Our latest game, Daphnie’s Balloon Castle went live on our site and through Mochi Distribution today.   As a nice bonus, Mochi put it up as one of their Featured Games in the Publishers section.   I’m not sure what the criteria is for this (it might have been slow day for…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: October 08, 2008

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: October 08, 2008 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. (New Format: less scatological, more awesomeness). I have separated the Retro content and the survey of new games into separate posts to help keep this organized (and shorter).…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up:October 01, 2008

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up:October 01, 2008 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. Wow, it’s already October. This year has flown by but the freelance (and corporate) Flash game industry is as strong and vibrant as ever. This time we cover GPL…

  • R.I.P. Game Theory Show

    One of my favorite gaming podcasts, GameTheoryShow has bitten the dust today.    The show featured Gary Witta, Colin Campbell and Kris Graft (among others),  discussing games and the game industry in a way that harkened back to the best game journalism from publications like Next Generation.    The show made our list…

  • 7 More Games Added to the 8bitrocket Retro Showcase

    7 More Games Added to the 8bitrocket Retro Showcase In our search for the best retro inspired Flash games on the infobaun, we have come across to two developers who each have created multiple games we feel need to be added to our showcase. Both deflogic and Jess Hansen have…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up:September 22, 2008

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up:September 22, 2008 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This week I decided to find search out some new sites (or ones I haven’t covered in a while), as well as cover the usual suspects… This time we…

  • Great”General”Gaming Blog

    I’ve talked a bit about Edge-Online in the past, but today they proved again that they are one of the best “general” game sites on the interbaun.  This week they started a new feature  by Colin Campbell that collects the best links from the gaming world.   Today’s best quote is…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up:September 16, 2008

    The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. It’s time to hit my favorite Flash sites and see what’s new in game development. This time we cover some new Zarjaz from Squize; Updates to the Pixel Blitz Engine; An Atari ST classic re-made; Game design…

  • 8 More Mochi Games Added to the 8bitrocket Retro Showcase

    I have been keeping a keen eye on the latest games uploaded to Mochi Ads and have selected 8 games to add to our Retro Showcase. It is difficult to select games for this showcase because even though many good retro inspired games exist on Mochi, we need to make…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web Mash-up: September 8, 2008

    A selection blogs, articles, tutorials, games, and more that might be on interest to Flash game developers (or any other game developers). This week we have a great video that tells the plight of most developers; game creation software for Facebook users; Many cool new games; Game design blogs and…

  • Nick Bilyk’s Optimizing Actionscript Artcile

    Super cool 8bitrocket friend, Alan Donnelly, sent over a link to one of the best AS3 Optimization articles I have ever read. Spare no time getting over to Nick’s site to take an extended read.

  • Domino Multiplayer by Lorenzo Nuvoletta has been added to our Retro Showcase!

    Lorenzo keeps pumping out great Retro Multi-player games and we keep adding them to our site! Multi-player lets you play the classic against the world. This turn based game is a great example of the Nonoba Multi-player engine. Check it out! What’s more retro than Dominoes?

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web Mash-up: September 3, 2008

    A selection blogs, articles, tutorials, games, and more that might be on interest to Flash game developers (or any other game developers). This week the Pixel Blitz Engine EXPLODES!; A new Multi-player classic from Lorenzgames; Common game development mistakes to avoid; A Flash Game License First Impressions Review; A Hand…

  • 8-bit Rocket’s Top-10 Midcore/Casual/Retro Game Predictions For The Next 12 Months

    Since September is just starting and many Midcore/Casual gamers and gamer-parents are gearing up for what is really the new year (new schools and/or classes, new and returning tv shows, NHL,NBA,NFL, world Futbol leagues restarting, etc) we’ve decided to buck the trends and make this our month to make yearly…

  • Tutorial: AS3 Basic Blitting #2 : Rotation – Part 1

    Tutorial: AS3 Basic Blitting #2 : Rotation – Part 1 In this tutorial will will explore basic blitting from a tile sheet to a single blit canvas. We will do so by implementing a common animation problem – rotation. We will also demonstrate the simple math tricks that are used…

  • SoundSnap.com – awesome free sounds for your games

    My buddy, Chris Cutler, sent me a link to this site today (www.soundsnap.com) and I have been exploring it on an off in the limited free time I have had tonight. There are literally 1000’s of great sounds and music free for you to use in your games. Here are…

  • Norm Soule’s Pixel Blitz Engine Released

    Norm Soule’s Pixel Blitz Engine Released The incredible Mr. Soule as been hard at work on an engine that will help you created blit rendered games. Features include (from his site) * Pixel-level collision detection * Layer effects * Horizontal and vertical scrolling * Parallax scrolling * Virtual timeline nearly…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up:August 25, 2008

    The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. It’s time to hit my favorite Flash sites and see what’s new in game development. This time we cover The difference between “distance between points” methods in AS3; MAME Goes the way of Flash; 50 ways to…

  • Atari: The Golden Years A History, 1978-1981 Update #2

      I reported on Thursday that my second article on Atari History launched on Gamasutra:Atari: The Golden Years A History, 1978-1981 , and then I updated with the news that it had hot the front page of SlashDot (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/08/21/2135202 Today I noticed that it has been picked-up by Kotaku.  They…

  • Atari History Part 2: 1978-1981 Launches On Gamasutra: Updated!

      The second part of my “History Of Atari” launched today on Gamasutra.  “Atari: The Golden Years A History, 1978-1981” is long, and self-indulges a lot with the history of the Atari computer line (because the story has told in many places before).   If have a bit of time, please…

  • GameStorm! Launches

    To help with our new GameStorm! Retro/Casual Game Design Podcast, we have just launched “GameStorm!: The Retro/Casual Game Idea Generator“.  Here’s our “blurb” about it: “Never Again Can You Say You Don’t Have An Idea For a Game! This is not that game, but a tool for developers and would-be…

  • New Flash Game Blog: Norm Soule

    Norm Soule, who created the great game Magma (featured in our Retro Showcase) has a brand new blog dedicated to Flash Games. One of his latest entries is a very cool example of a pixel displacement filter created with particles and he wants YOU to have his code too! Nice…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up:August 18, 2008

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up:August 18, 2008 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover FlashGameLicense.com; How people are cheating and hacking Flash games; How to Pause and Resume a sound in AS3; How to implement A* in AS3; 6…