Category: Uncategorized

  • Flash Game Interweb Mash-Up July 24, 2009

    Flash Game Interweb Mash-Up July 24, 2009 I have been working on part one of a very large (Flash Game relegated) project over the last couple weeks. I just sent the first version of the first set of deliverables off for judgment. That, coupled with my spotty Internet connection has forced…

  • They Used Our Kung Fu: GameNutz Podcast

    GameNutz is a video game “news” podcast that originates from Sherrill, NY. The podcast includes Rob “StickyNugget” Feddersen and Andrew “Boter” Hookway, who are employees at GameNutz store, also is Sherrill, NY, plus Justin “FearTheClaw” Clough. All three are very knowledgeable about current and classic games. Since the GameNutz store…

  • Flash Indie Game Interweb Mashup – Mochiads Games Edition July 10, 2009

    Flash Indie Game Interweb Mashup – Mochiads Games Edition July 10, 2009 Since I did a Mash-Up last week on blog entries, I thought it would be fun to take an entire mash-up to focus on my favorite subject – actual games! Since GameJacket’s demise has come to pass, there…

  • Silverlight 3 Released And Ready For You To Make Some Awesome Games – Maybe

    Microsoft has finally released their new version of Silverlight, Silverlight 3.  All the dev tools are now available here:  http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ . However, if you want to develop on a Mac, you  will need to use something like Eclipse4SL, which, when we tested it a few months back, was stil la…

  • Atari 2600 Game Quiz: Name The Games From The Manual Excerpts

    Atari 2600 Game Quiz: Name The Games From The Manual Excerpt Many Atari 2600 games had manuals that were nothing short of…bizarre.  Some of the descriptions and back-stories created, even for some of the most well-known games of the time, were astonishingly, wonderfully odd.  Below are clues to 10 different…

  • RESULTS! Quiz: Can You Name These Classic Computer Games From Their Old-School Reviews (#1)

    A Couple weeks ago I posted the following quiz.  It takes parts of old-school game reviews and challenges you to name the game.  I thought this one was EASY.  However, it was not, it was really hard and I have learned my lesson.  Here is the quiz again, with the…

  • Absolutely Brilliant Lost Garden Article On Flash Game Monetization

    Absolutely Brilliant Lost Garden Article On Flash Game Monetization If you have even a passing interest in making games full time, you have to read Flash Love Letter Part One by Danc on the Lost Garden blog. He ever so eloquently describes in detail the current revenue streams for Flash…

  • Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : July 3, 2009

    Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : July 3, 2009 I was sick this past week (it’s still lingering on), and today (actually July 4)  is a USA holiday – a couple hundred years ago some dudes in funky white wigs decided they didn’t want to pay taxes to an island, I…

  • New Retrogaming Times Monthly article on ST game developer Michtron

    New Retrogaming Times Monthly (free online magazine) features my first Atari Playfield article on ST game developer Michtron . Richard Davey (www.atari.st and www.photonstorm.com) was invaluable help on this article. I have been reading this splendid on-line magazine every month for a long time, but over the last year, Atari…

  • Hackers and the Beautiful System

    Hackers and the Beautiful System On the heels of Steve’s wonderful post on the joys of being a creative programmer, we get an idiotic Infoworld post on why American programmers are so bad…because they are hackers? I like to think that the Hacker Ethic (creative, open exploring of systems and…

  • Time Warner Interactive , Midway: The Soul Of Atari Might Still Be Alive…

    I just read this news story that Time Warner Interactive is planning to buy Midway Games. This would stand as just another boring game industry story for me, if it was not for the “Atari” connection. You see Atari was bought by Warner Communications in 1976.  When Warner “sold” Atari in…

  • Favorite Video / Computer Soccer (Football) game of all time

    Favorite Video / Computer Soccer (Football) game of all time In support of the USA’s remarkable 2-0 win over the vaunted powerful Spanish side in today’s Confederation Cup semifinal, I wanted to up the quiz anti with a poll of sorts.   I have played a number of Soccer (Association Football)…

  • R.I.P. Michael Jackson: Remember His Video Game

    I suppose you could call this “gallows humor”.  I actually liked much of Michael Jackson’s early 80’s output, so I’m fairly sad to see that he could not turn himself around.  Anyway, this “Moonwalker” Game came out at just about the time Jackson took his final turn into “Neverland”.  Commercial For…

  • Quiz: Can You Name These Classic Computer Games From Their Old-School Reviews (#1)

    Quiz: Can You Name These Classic Computer Games From Their Old-School Reviews (#1) In this quiz we will give you a few lines of a review from a classic computer and/or video game. Your job: Name The Game.  Leave a comment with your answers below.  The first person to get…

  • Kyobi added to the 8bitrocket Arcade Showcase as Hall Of Fame Gold Medal Recipient

    Kyobi added to the 8bitrocket Arcade Showcase as Hall Of Fame Gold Medal Recipient Richard Davey(Photonstorm)’s retro-remixed, physics based puzzler, Kyobi, has been added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Showcase as a Gold Medal Winner. It joins just 6 other titles with the honor, including Richard’s previous game, Abominaball. Kyobi…

  • Cool Stop-Motion Video Game Tribute That You Probably Have Seen But I Have Not (until today)

    I was searching the Indiecade Web site for some kind of interesting story, and I came across this awesome stop-motion film by Pez. Watch Centipede, Frogger, Asteroids, Space invaders and Pac-Man all re-made with household objects. Brilliant! I may be a bit late on this, but it’s still awesome.

  • Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : June 17, 2009

    Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : June 17, 2009 I was on vacation last week, so I missed doing one of these (well, I wouldn’t say I missed it, but I didn’t get a chance to do one). I was on vacation, so I must have had more time than usual…

  • 1984 Computer Chronicles TV Show Video on Computer Games

    1984 Computer Chronicles TV Show Video on Computer Games This rare video from USA public television chronicles the state of home computer games in 1984. Games included – Steve Kitchen’s Atari 2600 game Space Shuttle (Activision) + Interview with Steve. – Chris Crawford’s Atari 800 game Excalibur (Atari Program Exchange)…

  • E3 2009 Flash Game Developmwent Report #1: GP32X Wiz Flash Support

    Possibly, the coolest thing we saw at E3 this year was in a tiny booth manned by single person, tucked away in the corner of the South Hall at the Los Angeles Convention center.  In that booth, we saw the latest iteration of the (now defunct) Game Park hand-held console,…

  • Classic Electronic Games Magazine Issue #1 Online Now!

    Classic Electronic Games Magazine Issue #1 Online Now! This is the one that started it all! All modern and classic video game magazines  would probably not have been the same without this incredible magazine. The hard workers at RetroMags.com have scanned each page into a JPG. Then they compiled the…

  • Issue #1 of Classic Video Gamer Magazine Available Now!

    Issue #1 of Classic Video Gamer Magazine Available Now! A new Downloadable and Print Magazine covering the world of Retro Games has been released. Hoping to become the American version of the famed UK Retro Gamer Publication (I just got the issue with Game Boy on the cover and an…

  • Flash indie game development interweb-mash-up : May 29, 2009

    Flash indie game development interweb-mash-up : May 29, 2009 The more often I write these, the shorter they become, but the longer it takes me to dig up new and interesting stuff. This week I had to cast a net a little wider than usual.  I did find a little…

  • ComeToPlay’s non-contest Flash Game Contest

    ComeToPlay’s non-contest Flash Game Contest I don’t shill for everyone that writes in asking up to promote their product, contest, game, or site. I usually sift through the requests and add the best ones to a Mash-up. Come2play emailed us yesterday about a pretty cool contest (really a revenue opportunity)…

  • Programming By Google? A Quick Poll

    This week I worked on a project with some “new” CSS/HTML and AS3 concepts that I had never used together in any prior project. I was fairly successful by the end of the week, and most of the time I “programmed by Google”: When I got stuck I searched for…

  • What types of free music clips / sound do you want?

    New Music Clips are a-coming and an offer to you. I am planning to sit down and make some new free music clips and some sound fx this weekend, but I don’t know what to create. Normally, anyone can use the 11khz versions of our music and sound clips for…

  • Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : May 19, 2009

    Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : May 19, 2009 It’s been quite a few days  since I last mashed-up the infobaun looking for Flash game development related blogs, scribbles, games, articles, and assorted thing-a-ma-whose-its to entertain myself, and hopefully others, but mainly me. There was a whole lot of shaking going…

  • Attack of the Killer Mutant Bingo Wings Added to Retro Arcade

    Buzzard Games’ very unique and fun Attack of the Killer Mutant Bingo Wings has been added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade.   This game looks as feels like an early Atari ST or Amiga game and features some very compelling game play. The goal is to PLAY BINGO as you blast…

  • Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : May 1, 2009

    Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : May 1, 2009 “A kinder, gentler machine gun hand” Blogs, scribbles, games, tutorials, and assorted what-not from around the info-baun that might, probably, and should (but not always) concern the indie Flash game development community…and sometimes just crap that I want to post about (because…

  • Game Magazine Subscriptions Cancelled? Credit/Refund might Be Waiting For You.

    Have you lost out on a game magazine subscription (or any other subscription) in the past couple years because the publication has ceased operations? Well, if you bought the subscription through any kind of “magazine drive” (Girl Scouts, School promotion, door-to-door, etc.) you probably actually bought (unknown to you) it…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: April 14, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: April 14, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. Our Mash-up of all things Flash Indie Game Development is back, but to mix things up, a more DADA, stream of consciousness, not-so-focused, more verbose, and not quite…

  • Blaster-Mines Chronicles #2

    Blaster-Mines Chronicles #2 I have spent the last couple nights’ worth of late-night game programming to make a little more progress with Blaster-Mines. I used up an inordinate amount of time coming up with a class structure for the Enemy types. The first enemy I created was the ‘Wanderer’ as…

  • Blaster-Mines Chronicles #1

    Blaster-Mines Chronicles #1 Blaster-Mines is the name of my current indie project. It started out as Mine-X 4K, and is slowly evolving into a game in it’s own right. While Mine-X was simply a scrolling Asteroids variant, Blaster-Mines will be a combination of Bosconian, Star Castle, Asteroids, mixed with my…

  • The perfect Apple BlueTooth Mouse Replacement?

    I don’t know about perfect, but the Targus Blue Tooth laptop mouse was only $34.99 at Best Buy and the scroll wheel actually works. Outside the Apple community there is little knowledge of a dirty little secret that they would like to keep quiet- the $80 Blue Tooth Apple mouse…

  • Atari Nerd Interweb Mash-Up: Mini Edition

    OK, here are some neat links to some cool Atari related content: IGN Retro has an article about Activision vets David Crane’s and Steve Cartwright’s session at the GDC.  Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton’s new book: Vintage Games has just been released and is now for sale Bill Kunkel has…

  • Slowdown?

    You might notice in the next few weeks that the other guys here at 8bitrocket.com have started to slow-down on their numerous updates.  It seems that after launching all sorts of new features this year (games, videos, blogs, cartoons, awards, Atari Nerd, iphone stuff ,etc.) they are trying to assess…

  • Minus World’s NES Modern Classics

    I know I talk a lot about Atari on this blog, but I spent almost as much time playing NES games at my friend Ian’s house in the late 80’s as I played 2600 games in the early 80’s.  Because of that, I am very proud to announce that The-MinisWorld.com…

  • Eclipse Tools For Silverlight – Mac : Hands On

    I decided to try out the newly announced Elclipse Tools for Silverlight this morning to see if it was true that a real development environment for Silverlight Web apps now existed for Mac OSX. My journey started by visiting the Eclipse 4SL page (http://www.eclipse4sl.org/) to download everything required.   There are…

  • 8bitrocket Pumpkinman Reaches 1,000,000 plays (finally)

    Finally, within the last couple days, one of our games reached 1,000,000 plays (as recorded by Mochiads).  Pumpkinman was one of the first games we put on Mochiads, right after the service launched. While this is nice mile-stone, it’s also kind of wake-up-call and time for reflection. Creating games that…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: March 25, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: March 25, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover a lot of articles on monetization (because that’s what I found). Maybe this is because of the bad economic climate and many people are…

  • Tweening in Flex AS3 – sans MXML

    Tweening in Flex AS3 – sans MXML On Sunday night I decided to start working a new game called Blaster Mines that is a direct descendant of my 4K Game Contest Entry, Mine-X 4K. I originally thought that I would limit this one to under 100K, or some other artificial…

  • Silverlight Game Development Interweb Mash-Up March 24, 2009

    Sorry it has been a while since I’ve posted any news about Silverlight. We’ve been busy finishing off our Flash games from the 4K Contest, and working on our new Video Podcast. First, the really big news is that Microsoft has released the Silverlight 3 Beta to the public. There…

  • HeyZap, the YouTube of Flash Games?

    So, I was doing a search this morning to find interesting content for you guys on the world of Indie Flash gaming and I came across this relatively new site called  HeyZap. They seem to be a new distribution channel for Mochi (and other) games in an interface that resembles…

  • Will Nonoba GameRise Change the Landscape for Flash Gaming?

    Will Nonoba GameRise Change the Landscape for Flash Gaming? I have been reading a lot about Nonoba Gamerise and I am very interested, but also a little cautious. For some reason, the Danish Company Nonoba doesn’t have quite the cache as Mochi or Flash Game license do with me. I…

  • Game Poetry 4K Game Competition Post-mortems

    Game Poetry 4K Game Competition Post-mortems Urbansquall has posted 4 Post-mortems on games in the 4K Game Competition. Aside from my all too long entry on Mine-X 4K, you can read about Face Dodge, Falling With Style, and Grompers. I again want to thank Urbansquall and Gamingyourway.com again for running…

  • Topless Robot’s Top 10 Movie Games for the Atari 2600

    Topless Robot’s Top 10 Movie Games for the Atari 2600 One of the absolute best named blogs in  the history of the web-log-o-sphere, Topless Robot, has put together a pretty informative, well thought out piece on the top 10 Movie Games for the 2600.   Just the term Topless Robot has…

  • Agent Pixel 6502 #1

    Agent Pixel 6502 #1 I have quite a few games ideas floating around that have not been implemented and I have decided to pick one up and go with it for my next real ad sponsored game. I have not created an ad sponsored game since he utter disaster that…

  • Mines and Bricks in 64K?

    Mines and Bricks in 64K? The judging for the first and second jury prizes in the 4K game competition is over. Two simply incredible entries won (A-Steroids4K and Dungeon Romp).   Unfortunately neither my Mine-X 4K (Mochi version, 4K Comp version) or Steve’s Neon Bricks 4K (Mochi version, 4K Comp version)…

  • Silverlight Game Development Inter-web Mash-Up, March 10th 2009

    OK, so I missed last week, sorry. I was finishing my 4K Flash game for the Game Poetry 4K Game Competition. I’m now working on converting that game into Silverlight. Anyway, that’s a good, quick segue into our first topic: Silverlight Game Competitions. We have already discussed a couple competitions…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: March 8, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: March 8, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover: A selection of blogs entries on subject ranging from Eclipse v. Flashdevelop to art imitating life imitating art in the Flash world; Tutorials ranging…

  • Steve’s List Of The Top-10 Most Insanely Addictive Mid-Core Game Ever Created

    OK, this is kind of “time-out” from other content.  While I’m working on some Silverlight entries, new Flash games, etc, I thought I would go back a bit and name my Top-10 “Insanely Addictive” games of all time.  These are not necessarily the “best” games of all time, just the…

  • Zir0’s LaserStryker added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade

    Zir0’s LaserStryker added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade This is the third day in a row that I am adding another fantastic retro gem to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade. I have to say that all of the last games (plus the one I add tomorrow) have been sent directly to…

  • Oliver Snyders’ Dot Devour added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade

    Oliver Snyders’ Dot Devour added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade The Retro Arcade hasn’t had a lot of love lately as other priorities have hit 8bitrocket towers. So, this week I am going to add a game a day to make up for it. For the second day in a…

  • Oliver Snyders’ Atomsphere added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade

    Oliver Snyders’ Atomsphere added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Boy do I love Missile Command! It is was one of the absolute best Atari 2600 coin-op conversions (Rob Fulop classic). Oliver’s game is very similar, but with some modern twists. “Shoot down incoming missiles and passing UFOs to protect your…

  • Mine-X 4K

    Mine-X 4K is an Asteroids like game played in a 360 degree scrolling world. It was my entry into the Game Poetry / Gaming Your Way 4K game contest. This version is 16K with the addition of Mochi Ads and Leader Boards only.

  • Silverlight Game Development Interweb Mash-Up Feb. 25, 2009

    Sorry, I missed a week of this mash-up, but I’m back again with another entry chock-full of Silverlight Game Development Goodness. This week we check out new entries in the Silverlight Game Development Blogosphere. The guys over at Silverlight Games 101 have just launched a new Silverlight Game portal, SilverArcade.com.…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Feb 24, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Feb 24, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover: Game math tutorials; Paper Vision, and Box2D tutorials; Blogs on the 4K game Contest, render profiling, Multiplayer v. Single player design issues; Game Producer…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Feb 17, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Feb 17, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This is a little late this week, as I have been fighting off a very nasty sinus infection that has turned our house into a hospital ward for…

  • Flash to Silverlight: Zamboozal #2 : C#-,gt;AS2 Horrors: Don’t Do it!

    In the past couple years I have done my share of AS3 work, but since I have so many unfinished game engines in AS2, I have maintained a good amount of work in that version of ActionScript because I already had a ton of work complete. However, my last Zamboozal…

  • Katie’s Heart Catcher Silverlight Launches

    Today it my daughter Kaitlyn’s (Katie) 3rd birthday.  In my ongoing quest to make sure to create games that my girls can both play, and (hopefully) will look back fondly on as they grow-up, I decided to create a very easy “game” for Katie.  since Katie is just learning the…

  • All apologies…

    All apologies… It has been a rough last few weeks getting to all of the emails and review requests that have been send in. Steve and I had a number of set backs that have eaten away the time we normally spend answering questions, reviewing games, and adding retro gems…

  • 4k Game Competition: So I’m at 4k already…

    4k Game Competition: So I’m at 4k already… I have been working on a game for the UrbanSquall / GamingYourway 4K game competition this week and I have already hit 4K in my swf. It will probably surprise no one that the game I’m working on is an Arcade shooter.…

  • Why does the 4K game competition excite me so much?

    Why does the 4K game competition excite me so much? I have been down lately, really really down. A plethora of problems with my house, with work, with the world economy, and with my personal economy have put my attitude and psyche in the complete crapper lately. So, why does…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Feb 9, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Feb 9, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover: The 4K Game Competition; New games from Photon Storm, Gaming Your Way, and The Bedroom Labs; Many tutorials from Emanuele and Freeactionscript.com; Mochi Contest…

  • Silverlight Game Development Interweb Mash-Up: Feb 9th, 2009

    Silverlight Interweb Mash-Up Feb.9, 2009 Last week I had several people email me and ask to get their sites added to the weekly round-up. I say “GLADLY I Will add them! ” The only way to get a bead on the Silverlight Game Development Community is to know that it…

  • Zamboozal Silverlight Featured In Microsoft Silverlight Showcase

    It must have been a slow week for Microsoft’s Silverlight.net editorial team, because our 2-week test project, Zamboozal Silverlight was featured today in Microsoft’s Silverlight.net Showcase.  Even though we are pretty sure that nearly every entry Silverlight.net receives gets featured,  we are still happy to see it there, and it…

  • Music to Code By: The Gaslight Anthem

    Music to code by: The Gaslight Anthem I don’t read record reviews, or music magazines, or music web sites. I rarely watch music videos, and when I am in the car I usually listen to my own cds. It’s rare that I will ever be drawn into the hype around…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Jan 31, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Jan 31, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover: The biggest browser based  game sites; A selection of general game design topics (applicable to Flash, Flex and other dev systems); Tutorials on AS3…

  • Silverlight Game Development Interweb Mash-Up Jan. 30th, 2009

    It is still very quiet on the Silverlight game development front this week. However, we will forge through as we believe this platform is going to be very significant very soon. Microsoft has not added any more games to their Silverlight.net Showcase this week, but the silverlight.net community gallery has…

  • New Star Soccer Trials added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade

    New Star Soccer Trials added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade What a treat to stumble upon Simon Read’s first viral Flash game. Created as an advertisement for his incredible New Star Soccer 4, New Star Soccer Trials pits you in the role of squad trainee, competing for a place on…

  • Read full chapters from the new Atari VCS book, Racing The beam

    Read full chapters from the new Atari VCS  book,  Racing The beam Steve and I have been following the progress of this book for the last few months. We don’t know the authors or have any vested interest in the title. We do though think the idea of taking a…

  • Building A Generalized Flex Game Control Part 4 – TileSheet class

    Building A Generalized Flex Game Control Part 4 – TileSheet class In part 1, I discussed and mused over what parts of the MVC pattern (if any) to implement in my Flex game control. In part 2, I dug down into my thoughts on the rendering engine and how I…

  • Play Retro DOS Games Easily on your Mac (or PC, but not as easily)

    Play Retro DOS Games Easily on your Mac (or PC, but not as easily) The ultra cool DOSBox software has been available for the Mac (as well as Windows and Linux platforms for a while now), but I always had a little trouble getting some of my favorite games to…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Jan 23, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Jan 23, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover: Flashgamedistribution.com in beta; New PixelBlitz features and demos; A new Mochi contest; tips for protecting your high scores; How to get Flex FP10 and…

  • Zamboozal Silverlight 1.0 Launches : Plus Hosting Silverlight Games with .ASP.NET 2.0 MasterPages

    Excuse me for being a bit nostalgic, but tomorrow is my birthday. Actually, since my brother Jeff and I are twins, it is both our birthday’s. Anyhow, nearly 20 years ago Jeff and I created our first real "finished" and compiled object code game (we had made many games in…

  • Silverlight Game Development Interweb Mash-Up : Jan 21st, 2009

    Silverlight Game Development Interweb Mash-Up : Jan 21st, 2009 Things are still a bit slow on the Silverlight game development side, but we plan to help liven things up with this weekly column devoted to all things tagged GAME in the world of Microsoft’s Silverlight 2 platform. The first is…

  • Five Chuck Arellano Classics added the the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade

    Five Chuck Arellano Classics added the the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade One of the rewards for spending my free time working on this site is finding a gem of a developer like Chuck Arellano. Not only did he use some of my tutorials in making the 5 games we are about…

  • Flash To Silverlight Game Development #2: Random Numbers For Multiple Class Objects

    This might seem like a very simple topic, but it is something that confounded me for a few hours while translating a Flash AS2 game to Silverlight 2: Random Numbers. For many games, the concept of random numbers is essential. Nearly all programming languages have a function to create a…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Jan 14, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Jan 14, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover: Sound Classes and Api for As3; The New Flash Developer magazine; A Flash Joystick; Mochi / Facebook integration; Many game design articles and tutorials;…

  • Awesome Retro Flash Game, Jump!

    I was just trolling around the various portals this morning and I came across an absolutely fantastic retro Flash game called Jump. I have looked around and I can’t actually find the real authors name, so I cannot give true credit where it is due. On the game it says…

  • Musical Interlude: Optimus Base Primera By We Are Monsters

    Musical Interlude: Optimus Base Primera By We Are Monsters If you are in the mood for some electronica styled 8-bit music, check out the We Are Monsters blog to download their free 5 track album entitled “Disco Knights”.  My favorite track is Optimus Base Primera, and really, how could you…

  • Silverlight Game Development Interweb Mash-Up, Jan. 11 2009

    Silverlight Game Development Interweb Mash-Up, Jan. 11 2009 Now that we are expanding 8bitrocket.com to more indie game dev technologies, we will also expand our world famous “interweb mash-ups” to those technologies. Don’t worry Flash fans though, Jeff’s regular Flash interweb mash-up will remain unchanged, we are simply adding a…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Jan 7, 2009

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Jan 7, 2009 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we cover: New Mochi features; Squize’s X++ as the Zarjaz; The importance of using focus groups; What to do with all the ideas in your head;…

  • IGN Running Multi-Part Version Of “Once Upon Atari” Video Series

     http://videomedia.ign.com/ev/ev.swf IGN  is running a series of  short videos from Howard Scott Warshaw’s “Once Upon Atari” DVD series.   If you ever wanted any insight into how it was to develop video games for Atari in the “golden Age” this is NOT TO BE MISSED. Take A look, but don’t blame…

  • Flash To Silverlight : Guess The Number Game Part 1: Flash Version

    Flash To Silverlight : Guess The Number Game Part 1 : Flash For my first foray into Flash->Silverlight Game development, I will create a very simple “Guess The Number” game in Flash and then discuss how to do nearly the exact same thing with Silverlight.  In Part 1 we cover…

  • Flash To Silverlight : Guess The Number Game: Part 2 – Silverlight

    Flash To Silverlight : Guess The Number Game: Part 2 – Silverlight For my first foray into Flash->Silverlight Game development, I will create a very simple “Guess The Number” game in Flash and then discuss how to do nearly the exact same thing with Silverlight.  In Part 2 we cover…

  • Fun action RPG Whiflash added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Showcase

    Whiflash has been added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Showcase. Whiflash is a nice combination of traditional console / computer action rpg combined with s few new, very unique elements. In the developer’s own words (Lauri Hosio):Description: In Whiflash you play as a golem who joins the Stone Guard to…

  • Flash To Silverlight 2 Game Development #1: 26 Hour Install WTF?

    What Do I Need? So I’m working on moving some of my Flash skills to Microsoft Silverlight. Why? Because it’s there and you can make games with it. End of story. The first thing you need to do to create Silverlight Games is to install the proper software to get…

  • Classic Bomb Blitz added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Showcase

    Classic Bomb Blitz added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Showcase Bomb Blitz is based on an a classic Vic 20 game called Blitz 16 combined with Canyon Bomber (VCS 2600) and the classic keep the helicopter in the air Flash Game. In developer Mitomane’s words: Description: A fast higly addicting…

  • Everybody’s doing it, so why not do it too…

    Everybody’s doing it, so why not do it too… Getting an Xbox 360 that is. I have been on a “vacation” for the last 2 weeks from my day job. This “vacation” hasn’t equated into much game programming time (although I have started work on a Mac game using TntBasic).…

  • Blast Force added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Showcase

    Blast Force, a 16-bit era Bomberman style game with some unique features and a whole lot of retro atmosphere has been added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Showcase. Developer Description (By Zir0):Description:Blast your way through 11 levels of action. Battle with drones, tanks, and choppers as you prove your the…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Dec 29, 2008

    Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up: Dec 29, 2008 The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This time we have: A new version of Flash Develop; More dev diary and playable demos from Squize; A very informative Zobieland game postmortem; Creating games with Papervision…

  • 8bitrocket.com Launches Retro Flash Game Hall Of Fame

    8bitrocket.com Launches Retro Flash Game Hall Of Fame Today we launch our newest feature: The 8bitrocket.com The Retro Flash Game Hall Of Fame. We here at 8bitrocket.com love to find and play great retro-inspired Flash games. As we build-out our “Next Generation Retro Game Portal” we wanted to make sure…

  • Diatribe: I’m a crappy drummer and other Christmas revelations

    Diatribe: I’m a crappy drummer and other Christmas revelations Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Two years ago I tried Steve’s Guitar Hero 1 on the PS2 and was hooked. Steve was an actual pioneer with this game, having purchased in a full year (2005) before it became any kind…

  • Xbox 360 Adventures #1: Netflix

    A few months ago I wrote a prediction that the Xbox 360 would soon die an untimely death. Since then the machine has systematically proved me wrong. It has outsold the PS3, and has done very well against the Wii. Microsoft has cut the price and added features that have…

  • Merry Christmas: A Stocking full of guilt free and legal retro game roms

    Merry Christmas: A Stocking full of guilt free and legal retro game roms While I am fully aware of all the places you can obtain nefarious copies of all the best retro games in digitized disk or rom format, but I also know of a great big stocking full of free…

  • Flashkit Game Challenge #8: Game Reviews

    Flashkit Game Challenge #8: Game Reviews Well, this weekend’s game challenge is complete and the brave and talented game developers have submitted entries. The challenge was to make a shoot-em-up style game (in the theme of apocalypse) and all five accomplish this with varying degrees of success. There are a…

  • New Star Soccer 4 Chronicles #3

    New Star Soccer 4 Chronicles #3 Note: New Star Soccer 4 is a great combination of sports simulation and role-playing game. I have some time off from my day job, so instead of actually working on any of my own games, I am feeding my addiction to Simon Read’s indie…

  • Flashkit Game Challenge #8 Has Started!

    Flashkit Game Challenge #8 Has Started! The theme this time is SHOOT ‘EM UP!!!! Now, that is right up my alley, but unfortunately, I never have more than a few hours a day (at the most) to code or work on the site, so would never be able to compete…

  • New Site 2.0 Beta Launch

    OK, I just “finished” uploading the new version of the web site.  I’m sure there are some critical/horrible bugs some place, but I have not located any yet.  If  you get any server error messages from the site, please email them to us here: info@8bitrocket.com Thanks, Steve Fulton

  • Well crafted Law Of The West Pinball added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade

    The particularly well  crafted retro pinball game, Law of the West, has been added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade. This game was created by the artisan professionals at Gamingyourway.com in the tradition of 70’s and 80’s arcade to pinball cross conversions. Atari and Bally Midway did a number of Pinball…