Category: Uncategorized

  • Star Wars Uncut The Director’s Cut Released : Another Sign Of The Apocalypse?

    The current Mayan Countdown has us at 331 days left until the end of the world, so we here at 8bitrocket.com have decided to spend some time looking for stories that we think show that something weird is going on this year. The next Sign Of Doomsday: Star Wars Uncut : The Directors…

  • 336 Days Left : The Next Sign Of The Apocalypse : Microsoft Adds Achievements For Coding Into Visual Studio

    The current Mayan Countdown has us at 336 days left until the end of the world, so we here at 8bitrocket.com have decided to spend some time looking for stories that we think show that something weird is going on this year. The next Sign Of Doomsday: Microsoft Adds Achievements For Coding Into…

  • 346 Days Left : Next Sign Of The Apocalypse : The Kindle Fire Holding It’s Own Against The Apple iPad

    The current Mayan Countdown has us at 346 days left until the end of the world, so we here at 8bitrocket.com have decided to spend some time looking for stories that we think show that something weird is going on this year. The next Sign Of Doomsday: The Kindle Fire Holding It’s…

  • 348 Days Left : Next Sign Of The Apocalypse : Tom Chick Goes Solo

    The current Mayan Countdown has us at 348 days left until the end of the world, so we here at 8bitrocket.com have decided to spend some time looking for stories that we think show that something weird is going on this year. The next Sign Of Doomsday: Tom Chick goes solo Tom…

  • 349 Days Left To Code: Next Sign Of Doomsday : Bob Cringley Quits Writing About Technology

    The current Mayan Countdown has us at 349 days left until the end of the world, so we here at 8bitrocket.com have decided to spend some time looking for stories that we think show that something weird is going on this year. The next Sign Of Doomsday: Bob Cringley Quits Writing About…

  • 351 Days Left To Play: Next Sign Of Doomsday : Adobe Sales Are Up

    The current Mayan Countdown has us at 351 days left until the end of the world, so we here at 8bitrocket.com have decided to spend some time looking for stories that we think show that something weird is going on. The next Sign Of Doomsday: Adobe sales are up It turns out,…

  • 352 Days Left To Play: First Sign Of Doomsday : Atari Defends Its’ Intellectual Property

    The current Mayan Countdown has us at 352 days left until the end of the world, so we here at 8bitrocket.com have decided to spend some time looking for stories that we think show that something weird is going on. The first Sign Of Doomsday: Atari starts to defend its…

  • spaceport.io Takes some of the Pain Out of HTML5 Game Development By Helping you convert AS3 to HTML5

    Wow, it’s getting hard to keep track of all the exciting new APIs, SDKs and platforms emerging for HTML5 game development! We just took a look at Ben Savage’s spaceport.io project today, and it looks really interesting.       There is both an SDK that helps you to convert…

  • Atari Nerd Chronicles: The Best Christmas Ever

      Although I had no idea in early 1981, my brother and I were video game obsessed twins on a collision-course with the pinnacle of ultimate geekdom: computer ownership.    We both loved arcade games and owned an Atari 2600 that we played constantly.  We spent all of our money on…

  • The 12 Years Of Atari Christmas 1981-1992

    On Christmas ’81 Atari gave to me, a VCS under the Christmas tree   On Christmas ’82 Atari gave to me, two arcade conversions and a VCS under the Christmas tree   On  Christmas ’83 Atari  gave to me three Swordquest titles two arcade conversions and a VCS under the…

  • Atari 80’s Christmas Commercials (More Filler For A Slow Week)

    Nothing brings back 8-bit Christmas memories like atrocious video game commercials from the 80’s.  The funny is, we LOVED these commercials.   They represented the mainstream accepting our love of Atari and video games…at least that is how we thought about it. Anyway, here are a couple for your viewing…

  • Atari History Book Kickstarter Project Launches

    By Jeff Fulton Marty Goldberg and Curt Vendel have launched their Kickstarter.com project to help get their massive Atari History book project off the ground.  Here is a video about the project: [iframe frameborder=”0″ height=”410px” src=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ataribook/atari-history-book-volume-1-beginnings-to-1984/widget/video.html” width=”480px”/]    

  • Image Gallery : From Altair To Nintendo : Christmas Themed Computer And Video Games Ads and Editorial Pages, 1975-1989

    When I was growing up, getting into the Christmas spirit usually involved reading my favorite computer and video game magazines and paging through the special Christmas content created just for the holiday. Since the physical magazine era is quickly coming to a close, I thought we would salute the golden…

  • Finally: Atari Museum Atari History Book Is On The Way!

    By Jeff Fulton We’ve been politely pestering Marty Goldberg and Curt Vendel from The Atari history Museum to finish their book on Atari history for at least 5 years now. Well, it looks like the day might arrive soon. Today Curt announced a new web site dedicated to the upcoming…

  • Adobe Donates Flex To Open Source Foundation

    Not much else to say here except to link to this: Adobe donates Flex to foundation in community-friendly exit strategy. A good move to keep Flex viable for developers for the foreseeable future. (Thanks to R.J. Lormier for the heads-up)

  • More Fuel For The HTML5 Fire: Adobe Admits That The Long Term Viability Of The Flex SDK In Doubt

    In the “Your Questions About Flex Blog” on blogs.adobe.com, Adobe appears to be putting the future of Flex in doubt: Does Adobe recommend we use Flex or HTML5 for our enterprise application development? In the long-term, we believe HTML5 will be the best technology for enterprise application development. We also…

  • Texture Packer Makes Sprites Easy to Export From Flash. For Corona, as well as Cocos2d, and more.

    I have a huge new gig that includes taking 100’s of pre-existing Flash animations and using them  to create a cross platform mobile application for a kids television network. The goal is to take the current Flash site (luckily in as3) and create a mobile version that will work on…

  • Goodbye Dad, Hello “Code Writer’s Block”

    My dad died just about 5 months ago.  In that time, I have done lots of things.  I have written a ton of blog entries (some good, some okay, and many bad ones), I have changed jobs, read at least 10 books, and started to play hardcore video games (i.e…

  • iOS 5 Has SUPERCHARGED the HTML5 Canvas

    Wow! Just freaking wow! My current two gigs are both HTML5 gigs, so that book we wrote is getting a lot of use. One of the apps is first-person game that is basically a simple shooter with some animation and sound. While a game like that will run at 40FPS in…

  • Pinball Mania! “Special When Lit” on Netflix and “The Pinball Arcade” For Nearly Every Platform That Matters

    When my wife and I first met, we spent countless hours playing pinball together.    In the mid 1990’s you could still find a pinball machine at most pizza parlors and multiple machines at arcades and bowling alleys.  Our standard playing style was to find a machine we liked (i.e.…

  • The Day Wii Played Hooky : How My Family Loved And Lost The Nintendo Wii

    By Steve Fulton In 2006 my family played hooky: All 5 of us.  It was a Monday in November.  The previous day I had gotten-up very early to stand-in line at the local Target.  It was rumored that they would have about 100 Nintendo Wii consoles available first come, first…

  • Sometimes Destiny Lies Between The Lines or How 4th Grade Isn’t Necessarily The End Of The World

    By Steve Fulton I sat next to Michael Jackson in the 4th grade.  Not that Michael Jackson, but Mike Jackson, my friend since he moved from England to  attend our Kindergarten at Pennekamp Elementary school in 1975. Mike, I and my brother had been friends since he arrived from the…

  • Our Favorite Viral Videos About The Games And Web Business

    Code Monkey Jonathan Coulton’s classic song about the life of a software developer.  One of the all-time best songs ever written. [iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/5W_wd9Qf0IE” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen/]   Angry Video Game Nerd : Atari 5200 So this is not just a video, but a whole series.  The AVGN is now…

  • Video Games Are My Hobby: My Essay From English Class, March 1982

    My essay for Mr. Davis’ 6th grade English class, March 22, 1982, Foster A, Begg, Junior High, Manhattan Beach, CA. (text below) Steve Fulton 3-22-1982 Essay My favorite thing to do is play a video game. After school on Thursdays I run home, grab 10 dollars, and nag my mom…

  • Republic Of Fun Aims To Take Over The World With Ginormous HTML Game Engine

      Republic Of Fun have announced Ginormous, and HTML5, cloud-based game engine that aims to toi give developers a way to target all HTML5 compatible screens with a robust set of of game creation tools. The offering includes Facebook integration and analytics, but is not Canvas based.  Very interesting.

  • Adobe Purchases Phone Gap

    Adobe just bought Phone Gap.   We think it’s a good move.   We used-up an entire chapter of out HTML5 Canvas book showing how to package a Canvas for consumption on the iPhone with Phone Gap.  We thought it was pretty cool. It looks Adobe likes it too.

  • Truth In Advertising #1: Atari 2600 Launch Games

    We love the box-art for the original Atari 2600 games.  The amazing game paintings inspired by the “idea” of the game (but not the action) went a long way to fill-in our imaginations when we played the games, because their primitive graphics could not do the job. However, we were…

  • The Flash CS5.5 Air Package to iOS Kicks ass!

    I had avoided upgrading the Flash CS5.5 for a few months because the job I had  didn’t really need it and I had been exploring Corona and Cocos-2d for iOS development. Then, just last week, I was asked what it would take to translate a client’s existing kids web site…

  • Unity -> Flash Stage 3D Looks Impressive

    Yesterday at the free “Flash Day” at the Unity Unite conference, the Unity team showed off their new Unity -> Flash Stage 3D converter.  The product exactly what it sounds like it does: it converts 3D games built in Unity to “Molehill” compatible Stage 3D of the type supported by…

  • The Atari Sanction : Chapter 1 (fiction)

    Detective Jake Rolly rubbed the sheet green-bar printer between his thumb and forefinger.  He sat back in his rolling chair, and pushed his feet against the footing of his desk, rolling himself back towards his office window.  As he rolled back, he closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate.  However,…

  • Microsoft Hot On HTML5+Canvas For Windows 8, Freezes Out Flash

    Apparently, Microsoft has decided that their “Metro” Presentation layer (included in Windows 8 for PC and designed for tablets and smart phones) will not allow any kind of plug-ins to run (read: Flash).  Instead, “Metro” has been optimized for HTML5 and JavaScript.  This means that, for all intents and purposes,…

  • Twisted Pixel’s Beard Secret: An Atari 800

    Twisted Pixel, the guys who created Gunstringer, ‘Splosion Man and Ms. ‘Splosion Man for the XBox 360, have revealed their secret.  An Atari 800.  Check out this video below: [iframe width=”560″ height=”345″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/Kd1M4TzhlgA” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen/]

  • 8bitrocket Interweb Mash-Up For September 3, 2011

    Iain Lobb On The Flash Community So we missed this a month ago, but Iain Lobb posted a really great piece named The Flash Community Needs a Complete Reboot about a month ago.  It’s still worth reading.   We really need to read our own industry feeds page more often……

  • Taito is going after unlicensed Space Invaders re-makes

    The news has been filled recently with game companies using legal means to go after trademark and copyright offenders who infringe on classic and retro intellectual property. The latest to come across our news feed is that Taito (now part of Square Enix) has been “all up in Mochi’s grill”, asking…

  • Amazing! Learn The Basics Of Programming With Codeacademy!

    I just saw this today. Codeacademy is fantastic!  It’s an interactive learning tool for non-developers, kids or anyone else to learn program using JavaScript. Using Codeacademy reminded me of using my Atari 800 back in 1984 and 1985.  Back then, people used to create all sorts of learning tools similar…

  • Atari Pulls Out The Lawyers And Threatens To Sue Hobbyists

    It can be argued (pretty heavily I might add) that Atari fandom is the only thing that has kept the Atari name from falling completely into obscurity.   Long before Infogrames changed their name to Atari back in 2003, it was sites like Atariage.com and AtariMuseum.com that kept the name afloat…

  • Video Fever: Classic News Report On Video Games

    This video on youtube.com is from the local ABC affilate where we grew-up, in Los Angeles California. I used to think that the local news was quite reactionary back then, but these reports are very even-handed, and really interesting. I have to say, the local news of 2011 could learn…

  • Do You Plan On Having Friends?

    [iframe width=”425″ height=”349″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/lGar7KC6Wiw” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen /]

  • Yoyo Games Game Maker will have HTML5 version in Q4

    I was just visiting theYoyo Games Game Maker site to look into using the software to teach my 6 year old son game development concepts without worrying about too much coding. Game Maker has a back-end language as well as front-end complex data structures build-in, so eventually I planned to…

  • HTML5 Canvas Progressive Breakout Style Game Tutorial coming…

    I just wanted to add a short update about the HTML5 progressive breakout game tutorial I promised a while back.  I was working on the game and had stable and ready to write about, when my dad passed away.  It pretty much halted my development on anything the was not…

  • Google Swiffy? Not Yet.

    Google Labs released Swiffy last week, their attempt to allow people to easily convert .swfs to HTML5.   However, instead of being a revolutionary technology, rather, it shows just how far HTML5 needs to go before it can match Flash. Swiffy attempts to open a .swf and convert the content…

  • Video Game History Museum: Help Make It Happen

    The guys behind Digital Press and the CGE have created Kickstarter.com project to help create permanent Video Game History museum in Silicon Valley.  We think this is an awesome idea.  Pledge something if you can: [iframe frameborder=”0″ height=”380px” src=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1760848975/the-videogame-history-museum/widget/card.html” width=”220px”]      

  • 8bitrocket’s Asynchronous News Round-Up : Mochi Achievements, Pepsi+Atari, Mindjolt News

    Welcome to our “Asynchronous” news round-up.  It’s the Daily Interweb Mash-Up, but not daily, and also not really a mash-up, and, well, who knows what it is, but welcome to it. Mochi Achievements API Launched Something we’ve been waiting for a long time, a  distributed “achievements” API.  Here are the…

  • HTML5 Canvas C64 Yourself App Is Awesome!

    Here is a really cool use of the HTML5 Canvas: C64 Yourself! The app converts a 6×4 image into a an awesome pixelated C64 image!   Here are a couple I just created:  

  • Quick Tip For Vizio Theater 3D TV Owners : Cheap 3D Glasses From The Movie Theater Work Just Fine

    Vizio has a new line of 3D TVs that are cheap and powerful.  They use a technology they have branded “Theater 3D”, which is really just the same polarized 3D that is used in movie theaters (i.e. Reel D 3D).   While Vizio will sell you glasses for about $20 each (an…

  • OSX Lion Will Include Hardware Acceleration for the HTML5 Canvas

    I was looking through the 250+ new features and improvements for Lion (available for $29.99 as an upgrade in July) and found this little gem in the Safari Improvements: Improved graphics performance Web pages that use the HTML5 Canvas element can tap into the graphics processing unit on your Mac…

  • AppMobi Cloud-Based HTML5 Game Development Looks Promising

    I have heard a little about AppMobi over the past few months and have wanted to take a look at their game platform but just have not had the chance until now. I plan to demo my Centipede game with the platform when it is complete, but for now, let’s…

  • Windows 8 Will Make Heavy Use of HTML5

    The All Things D web site has put up an exclusive look at Windows 8, an operating system that is at least a year away from being released. Essentially, aside from the normal Windows’ 7 style applications we see now, a second, full-screen IE 10 style of application will make…

  • 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

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Get 100 Atari Classics for the iPhone / iPad for $14.99 USD

    The incredibly generous Atari’s Greatest Hits for iOS was released yesterday to the iTunes store. You can have 100 Atari classics for $14.99 or you can purchase various game packs such as the Asteroids pack, Warlords pack, or one of the many others for as little at $1.29. Many of…

  • Silverlight Not Dead: Silverlight 5 On The Way

    Last year while working at “Monolith” I had a short email argument with some upper management folks about the future of Silverlight.  They were all in a panic that “Microsoft was abandoning Silverlight” , and this was just after they had agreed to paid a vendor huge $$$ for some…

  • Watch the New Star Soccer 5 Trailer

    It is no secret that I love the football/soccer games from the 80’s and early 90’s. I was a HUGE Kick Off 2 and Kick off Player Manager fan on the Atari ST, but shed the ST for a PC just in time to miss out on Sensible. Anyway, about…

  • Atari Greatest Hits Vol.2 For The DS Now Available

    Atari hs just sent us a press release for their “Greatest Hits volume 2” for the Nintendo DS.  We loved the first one, and this one looks like it will be just as good.   Check out the Atari release below: ATARI’S GREATEST HITS: VOLUME 2 NOW AVAILABLE AT RETAIL…

  • Road Test: Adobe “Wallaby” Flash->HTML5 Converter Preview Version

    A couple days ago, Adobe released a preview version of  “Wallaby”, their Flash->HTML5 converter.  It’s been a badly kept secret for the past few months that Adobe was working on something like this, but with the release they have finally come clean on their efforts. Here is what they says…

  • Listen to the live LAPD radio stream mixed with random ethereal music

    OK, so this is way off topic (game and retro-wise), but you can expect a little more in this “random awesomeness” category now and then. The site YouAreListeningToLosAngeles.com is simply a live feed stream of Los Angeles Police radio  chatter (provided by radioreference.com) played over a random selection of ethereal…

  • Retro Blaster, Pumpkin Man and Jack’s Beach Blitz added to Google Chrome App Store

    I have started to add some of our arcade games to the Google Crome App Store. Retro Blaster Asteroids on steroids with many power ups to purchase and bosses galore. Pumpkin Man If Pac-man had included 30 different mazes, multiple power-ups, door/key puzzles, transporters and more it would be something…

  • Ultimate Unscramble #1 and #2 Now In Google Chrome Web App Store

    I went ahead and added a couple more free educational games to the Google Chrome Web App Store today: Ultimate Unscramble #1: HTML Color Words Ultimate Unscramble #2: Countries And Flags It appears to be very simple to add new apps to the store. The interface is easy to use,…

  • Palindromes Plus Now In Google Chrome Web App Store

    I just tested out one of our games, Palindromes Plus,  in the Google Chrome Web App Store.  You can check it out here:

  • Flash Player 10.2 Released: Stage Video Is Finally Here – But What Is It?

    I can recall Adobe talking about stage video for a long time.   It’s a new feature in Flash Player 10.2 that is supposed to speed-up video layback considerably.   In many ways, this appears to be Adobe’s way of combatting HTML5 Video.  If you are curious, here is what…

  • Flash Game Competition (Stanford, Adobe, Mochi, JayIsGames & more!)

    In conjunction with the Stanford Dance Marathon / Hackathon 2011 (?!), Stanford University is throwing a three week long Flash Game competition with the theme of Benevolence.    Squize, Iain Lobb, and Keith Peters (along with Steve and I)  will be judging the games. We can’t just pick the best game,…

  • Help Beta Test The Flash Develop to Mac Bridge

    The Genius Squad (I mean that in every non ironic and non flippant manner) over at FlashDevelop.org has created a FlashDevelop to Mac bridge in the beta of FD 4.0. It must be used with Parallels or VMWare, but it looks promising. They need beta testers. I plan to get…

  • Gamasutra Warns Of The Coming “Gamepocalypse”

    Over at Gamasutra they have a greta new article by Tadhg Kelly named What Games Are: The Mac App Store And The PC Gamepocalypse. The pie ce crystalizes some thoughts that have been bandied about in 8bitrocket.com towers for the past few weeks: The App Paradigm Shift.  Tadhg says that…

  • Quick IOS Packager Test Results

    Over the last few days I have been experimenting with creating a very simple arcade game in both HTML5 and AS3. The HTML5 version I packaged up with PhoneGap and tested on my iPod Touch. The AS3 version I wrote twice. The first version uses built in Sprites and the…

  • Free History of Llamasoft Book!

    Via Jeff Minter’s Twitter, I just downloaded the nearly 200 page History of Llamasoft book that is being given away for free. If you had any type of 80’s computer and played games on it, you probably had at least one game filled with Llamasoft Beasties. Here is the link…

  • PhotonStorm’s Cat Astro Phi an indie game of the week selection at Gamasutra

    Cat Astro Phi, by PhotonStorm’s Richard Davey, is one of the brilliant games selected this week for the Gamasutra “Best Of Indie Games”. Cat Astro Phi is a masterfully crafted, retro-inspired, maze-based exploration-adventure-shooter that should please any game player, especially those who prefer a little retro in their morning game…

  • Indie, Web , Flash, Retro Game Development Interweb Mash-up – Dec 5, 2010

    16k Contest Update We added a new Sponsor and prize to the 16K game contest.  There are 10 days left to get your 16K game in. We have already received a couple games from Ace The Super Villain, so he is way out in front in both quality and quantity. Also,…

  • Chrome App Store Coming In December? Plus, Mozilla Has An App Store Too!

    According to Wired.com, the Google Chrome App Store is set to launch is early December.   As well, Mozilla has announced The Open Web App Ecosystem which reads essentially like their own version of Google Chrome App Web Store.    Here is the feature list from the Mozilla Labs blog:…

  • Silverlight Apps For The Xbox Live Arcade? They May Come Soon.

    Earlier this year we predicted that Microsoft would start to focus Silverlight on their own platforms as it loses ground to HTML5.  Well, this recent story on Wired.com points to towards that predictions becoming a reality.   Tim Carmody or wired.com says: “It feels like a smart move. Xbox 360…

  • Indie, Web , Flash, Retro Game Development Interweb Mash-up

    Here is the “mash-up” for this week. I have had a little time to visit some of my favorite blogs, magazine sites, retro message boards and more. There are some reviews of games and our second ever portal review (at the request of the owner, so don’t go thinking I…

  • Active.Tutsplus HTML5/RIA Roundup Includes Our Thoughts

    Active.TutsPlus.com recently ran an article about HTML5 that rankled a few feathers among developers.  Their intentions were good, but the result was not what they intended. Instead of crying foul, or simply defending themselves, they went out and asked some industry people to comment on HTML5/Flash/Silverlight.  We were honored be…

  • Help me find a good AS3 IDE On The Mac

    For the last three years I was very happy using the incredible Flash Develop via Parallels and XP on my Mac. I would use Flash CS3 in OSX to create and edit assets and then tie the whole project together with FlashDevelop in XP. Although Flash Develop is free, I…

  • Adobe Max Day 2: Dave Berzack And Filthy Mouthed Puppets

    The Adobe Max day 2 general session was a well produced set of fake TV shows designed to entertain the creative and technical class attending the event.  Most of it went of pretty well, but for me the highlights were: Dave Berzack: Remember Berzack’s video “Killa Appz” that came out…

  • Adobe Max Flash Game Update: 3D, Controllers & Terry Paton!

    We just got out of the Adobe Max 2010 general session.  There was a lot of information about where Adobe is taking Flash.  They showed Google TV working with Air apps, and some really nice looking e-magazines developed with their HTML tools.  However, we are here because of Flash games,…

  • Adobe Max 2010

    8bitsteve will be @ Adobe Max next week in L.A., so we will try to report any public news in real-time from the conference.   This year, there is a lot of emphasis on Android, multi-player, and HTML5 tools.   Things are moving fast in our world. We’ll try to…

  • Atari Haunted House – Wii Contest Winner

    We’d like to congratulate Syd Lexia for his winning entry in our “Wii Atari Haunted House  Contest”.  We asked readers to describe an Atari 2600 game that they wouls like to see remade in the 21st century by Atari.  Here is Syd’s Idea: Syd Lexia :Without a doubt, Swordquest 2011,…

  • Mac Steam: A Bonus!

    So here is something really cool I just discovered.  I decided to install the Mac version of Steam, so I could look at some downloadable games.  When I got it installed, I logged-in with the Steam account I made nearly 6 years ago when I first bought Half-Life 2 for…

  • Intellivision Lives DS (2010): Signed And Numbered for $19.99

    Honestly, while I played the Intellivision 100’s of times at my friend Eric’ Barth’s house back in 5th and 6th grade, I’ve never owned one.  At the same time, most of the retro collections of Intellivision games have not been implemented properly because it is very hard to replicate the…