• 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:…

  • 8bitrocket 16K Contest Update: New Prize Added!

    So we are now 15 days from our 16K contest deadline.  We have had a lot of interest and we are expecting some really neat games to play.   Today we are announcing a new prize to Grand Prize package.    Clint Herron has graciously offered a license for his…

  • 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…

  • What Can Be Made In 16K? Atari 5200 16K ROM Games

    Here is some 16K inspirations for you.  The following are videos of some Atari 5200 games made in 16K or less.  The ROMs for these games fit on a 16K cart.  the games used the plethora of hardware features available for the Atari 8-bit line of computers (hardware sprites, 4-voice…

  • 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…

  • The Mac / Flash Develop / Parallels decision…sort of

    For the last 30 days (according to the Flash Builder 4 trial countdown) I have been trying to get FB4 on the Mac (in conjunction with Flash CS5) to work as well as my Flash Develop / Flash CS3 in Windows did for years. I have now really given Flash…

  • Announcing the 8bitrocket 16K Retro Re-make Contest ** Small Rule Update

    Note (12/8/2010): The Prize package has been extended and the end date moved to December 19th at 11:59Pm PST. Note (11/19/2010): We have modified the rules slightly to help with file size issues. The HTML wrapper file will not longer count in the 16K total.  See below for details. To…

  • Review: Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 For The Nintendo DS

    Playing retro games is much adu about nuance.   If the little things do not feel “right”, the overall game is usually failure, no matter how much effort went into recreating the past.  Nuances are much more than graphics: they also come in the form  timing,  sound design, responsiveness to…

  • 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…

  • Microsoft Kinect Day 4: Lightsaber Dreams

    So I have to admit, one of the reasons I bought a Wii on release day was the because I thought it would be a perfect platform to finally play a Star Wars game with a lightsaber. Ever since I flailed aimlessly with my mouse trying to play the PC…

  • Kinect Day 3 : 5:00 AM Workout, plus Detecting All sizes

    So I’m on to day #3 of my Microsoft Kinect adventure (not to be confused with Microsoft’s Kinect Adventures, the pack-in game).    I got up at 5:00 AM this morning to test out my ability to make use of “Fitness Evolved” before the rest of the family woke-up.  …

  • 8bitrocket Flash, Indie Game, Retro Interweb In-Box Round-Up

    I have been sunk deep into a couple projects over the last couple weeks and during that time I have not had time to post. There are some cool new things going on that I have had the pleasure to take a look at and my inbox has been filled…

  • Microsoft Kinect Day 2: Punching And Kicking My Way to 180 lbs With No Excuses.

    Day 2 of Microsoft Kinect has been spent playing Ubi Soft’s “Your Shape Fitness Evolved” which would be the most metrosexual game imaginable if it was not for all concentration on hitting stuff.  There might be all kinds of workouts and training classes in this thing, but I would not…

  • Microsoft Kinect: It Sees My Feet!!!

    I’ve had my microsoft Kinect for excatly 1 hour now, and i’m totally hooked.  All of the things that frusted me about the Wii have been fixed.  Sports games are amazing on this thing, mostly because it can see your feet.   I can now kick balls.  I know that…

  • Kraft NFL Huddle To Fight Hunger Augmented Reality Game Goes Live

    The latest project of mine to go live is a cool little “Augmented Reality” game that I coded in conjunction with Total Immersion and Producto studios.  The game uses the Total Immersion Augmented Reality web-cam technology to control the action rather than simply using the mouse.  This means that you…

  • 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…

  • Geo Blaster Basic on the HTML5 Canvas

    Steve and I are currently working on an HTML5 Canvas book for O’Reilly (in our spare time). It is giving us a chance to investigate the Canvas in detail and we are applying our game development skills to small and medium sized projects as examples for the book. Geo Blaster…

  • 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…

  • PBS Kids Dr Seuss Flower Finder Goes Live

    The first project of mine (from this new venture) to actually go live is The PBS Kids Dr. Seuss Flower Finder. No, it is not an arcade game like I am used to, but I was able to complete the entire build with Flash Develop, using the CS5 IDE to…

  • “Yes On 21” Video Contest Entry

    This is little off-topic diatribe for a Sunday Morning.  My wife and I created a video entry for a “Yes On 21 Video contest“.  Proposition 21 is a California State initiative to help save the nearly 300 state parks in the state that are threatening with closure if money can’t…

  • 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…

  • A Completely Biased Opinion Of Our Book

    I’m not sure if this makes sense,  but it’s not easy for me to recall everything that we wrote about in The Essential Guide To Flash Games.  Like any long-term project, the minute it was complete, I took a deep breath and then dove into something else.  At this point,…

  • Simply Brilliant: Dulldudegames

    One of our super-brilliant readers, “AndyGoesToHollywood”, sent over link to Dulldudegames because he wanted us to take a look at Iain Lobb’s simply brilliant game design tool. I am very impressed, especially with the platformer widget. I don’t think there is any way to have it show you the code…

  • Porting a DOS Game To Windows: A Development Story

    I thought this story might be of interest to some of the visitors to our site. Steve and I spent a lot of time playing DOS games in the 90’s and also our share of time writing a few of our own. In this article (originally in he April 2010…

  • Retro Gaming Round Up Atari Edition Podcast with Ted Dabney Interview

    Listen To The Podcast Being self avowed Atari Nerds for more than 33 years now, Steve and I are always game to hear information on the controversial start-up, on-going business, and eventual crash of the original video game giant. In this edition of the Retro Gaming Roundup the team uncovers some interesting…

  • Simply Brilliant: XKCD New Map Of Online Communities

    Take a look at the map. We definitely fit into the “Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions”, and are nearly entrenched in “Niche Market Mountains” while actually drowning in the “Bay of Drama”, clinging to a life raft floating passed “Tech Blogs” our our way to in the giant “Sea Of Opinions”. At…

  • Games I’ll Play Again: Retro-styled Flash Game Micro Reviews

    Again I find myself with a few minutes between asset delivery and code re-writes and instead of doing something practical like working on Solar Fortress or Lunch Battle (or any of the 100 other games I have started and not finished), I am playing other people’s games. Here are a…

  • 8bitrocket.com Milestone: 1000 Posts!

    I just wanted to note that, with yesterday’s content updates, we have reached a cool 1000 updates.  I hope you have enjoyed our  nearly four years of  games,  videos, podcasts, news items, blog posts, interviews, stories, memories, tutorials, reviews, gossip pieces, emotional responses, link baiting, alarmist warnings, and outright pandering.…

  • Simply Brilliant: Keanu Is Sad / Sad Keanu Meme

    This is not game related so I created an entire new category on the blog for things that I feel are “simply brilliant” and need to be shared. I would have just “liked” this to my Facebook page, but there is no like button on the page. My favorite part…

  • Review : Atari Haunted House – Wii : Plus Win A Copy!

    Note: This is the first a new series of articles where we review new games from a retro/viral/indie/web game developer/technical writer perspective.  Since we are not a game review site, we don’t want to review every game out there, but games that fit our perspective (retro evolved, retro remakes, indie…

  • Going Solo #7: The bright spots

    It has been a little over two full months since I left my cushy corporate job and decided to make my own schedule, manage my own projects and “make my own shit”. The schedule and project part is going great. I have two good projects in the can with two…

  • 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…

  • 10 Reasons Why Flash Is Still My Favorite Game Development Platform

    Yes, we have been dabbling in HTML5 and even in Silverlight.  We have touched on Unity, Java FX and worked in Xcode for the iPhone.  However, after I tried the Flash CS5 IDE a few weeks ago, I realized that nothing has changed.  I still love Flash, and I can’t…

  • Google Chrome App Store Will Open Soon..

    The Chromium Blog has a new story today about the Chrome App Store.    Here are the highlights: Developers can (and should) sign-up for a Google Web Store Payments Account (USA only right now) App Preview is now available so you can see how you app will look when the…

  • SPIL Games Thinks HTML5 Will Overtake Flash by 2012: An Interview

    “SPIL GAMES expect that by the end of 2012 at least 50% of all new games to be HTML5.“ -Scott Johnson, SPIL Games SPIL runs some of the biggest game portals on the planet (e.g. gamesgame.com).  As far as online web games go (mostly Flash) , their operation is MASSIVE:…

  • Atari 7800 Expansion Module + An Interview With Kurt Vendel

    Yesterday, Legacy Engineering announced a pre-order for their newest product, The Atari 7800 Expansion Module.  Pre-orders receive a  10% discount (for a limited time).  The Atari 7800 Expansion Module includes: Built in High Score keeping capability (compatible with approx 20 existing titles and any HSC coded games/programs in the future)…