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Google Chrome Web Store: Finally, A REAL Place To Sell Flash Games To Consumers?
Maybe I’m the last to find out about these things, but The Google Chrome Web Store looks like the first really promising way to monetize web apps written in Flash, HTML 5, Silverlight, etc. It appears to work on the sample principle as the iPhone store, but make apps available…
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Essential Guide To Flash Games Chapter 13 Part 1. Modified BasicScreen and new ImageButton class
Essential Guide To Flash Games Chapter 13 Part 1. Modified BasicScreen and new ImageButton class The Essential Guide To Flash Games only contains 12 chapters, so what is chapter 13? Chapter 13 and beyond will be additions to the book and efg framework that build on what has been created…
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HTML 5 Canvas: Using Processing.js To Develop Canvas Apps
This weekend, a friend of mine named Mike Foti noticed my pained expressions when I was talking about the HTML 5 Canvas, and he decided to help salve some of my injuries from my first few tests by pointing me towards a project named processing,js. processing.js is an MIT Media…
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GameDev.net Gives The Essential Guide To Flash Games 4 Gs!
GameDev.net has reviewed The Essential Guide To Flash games, and has given it 4 Gs! Here is a good quote: “The level of the book starts off quite simply. While it might help to know a bit of computer programming, knowledge of ActionScript or the “Flash way of doing things”…
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EGM Magazine Spring 2010 Review: EGM Returns In Stunning Fashion
I was never a huge fan of EGM magazine. Its’ name was too close to Electronic Games, and it always appeared to be written for a generation of gamers just beyond my grasp. However, with few options, I subscribed in 2008, only to have the magazine go out of business…
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HTML 5 Canvas: Creating Gaudy Text Animations…Just Like Flash! (sort of)
Since I have not posted anything about the Canvas in a few weeks I wanted to show some of the experiments I’ve been working on. Everyone knows that animating text in Flash is very easy and has been around since the technology began. It seems to me, that if the…
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Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Interview with Jeff Minter (1988)
Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Interview with Jeff Minter (1988) A couple weeks ago I was hunting around in Steve’s garage and found the May 1988 issue of ST Action magazine. I scanned in the review of Dungeon Master in that issue and put it on the site. This…
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Virtual Pinball , An LCD Cabinet: My Pinball Dreams (Nearly) Realized?
I love pinball, and the last few years virtual pinball games like Pinball Hall Of Fame: The Williams Collection has satisfied some of my thirst for classic, kinetic, pinball action. However, there is nothing better than standing-up and playing a real pinball machine. However, the days of pinball machines are…
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The Essential Guide To Flash Games: The Infomerical
I believe this speaks for itself.
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Fixed Stand-Alone Flash Player 10.1 Will Be Not Be Released Until The Final Version Of 10.1 Player
Earlier this week I found out (and tested) that Adobe had fixed bitmapData.hitTest() in the latest RC2 version of the Flash Player. However, the stand-alone player delivered with CS5 was not updated. This means that you still have to test all your code in a browser, and not in the…
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Listen to Steve Woita On The Retronauts Podcast!
This comes via Gaming After 40. Frequent 8bitrocket.com visitor, Atari veteran, Flash game developer, Steve Woita talks about his work at Atari Games/Tengen on the the latest Retronauts podcast. It’s great to hear his voice, and hear is take (as well as his colleagues) on his time at Atari Games.…
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Retro Game Disasters: Super Breakout On Xbox Live Arcade Game Room
I love playing retro games, but sometimes those retro games simply do not translate to modern platforms. A very good example is the Super Breakout arcade game (originally designed in part by Ed Logg). Super Breakout is one of my favorite arcade games, and also one of the best arcade…
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Adobe Fixes bitmapData Collision Detection issue in Flash layer 10.1 RC2!!!
I’ve had an open issue with Adobe for the past 6 weeks that was so grievous, I did not even want to talk about it openly: Flash Player 10.1 crashed to the desktop when trying to run the game Flak Cannon from “The Essential Guide To Flash Games”. I was…
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Apple in Anti-Trust Violation?
I read a small blurb in the local newspaper today (The Daily Breeze – yes, that’s the actual name of the paper) that states Apple might be in anti-trust violation over the rule that only Apple tools can be used to create iPod, iPad applications. This is a facet of…
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Random Thoughts: Should Google Buy Adobe?
Here is a random thought I had this weekend: Should Google buy Adobe? Will they buy Adobe? Here is why I ask. I appears to me that Google is the odd man out when it comes to development for its’ own mobile platform. Microsoft is going proprietary with their Windows…
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Essential Guide To Flash Games Errata F.A.Q.
Unfortunately when you write a book, some things get lost in the translation from manuscript to the final product. This is a running list of things that need changing or clarification for the book “The Essential guide To Flash Games”. Even though we did everything possible to avoid these errors,…
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Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 3 – Scale from the center with a Matrix.
Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 3 – Scale from the center with a Matrix. In this third lesson we will explore a method of scaling the object from Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 using a Matrix operation. Like rotation, we could simple apply the scaleX and scaleY properties…
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Flash And Flex Developer Magazine Gives “The Essential Guide To Flash Games” a Gobsmackingly Great Review!!
The current issue of Flash and Flex Developer Magazine (free download) has two articles about “The Essential Guide To Flash Games” book. The first is part one of “Creating An AS3 Game Framework” which is Chapter 2 of our book. It will be continued in the next issue. The second…
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The Essential guide To Flash Games: Facebook Page: Please “Like It”
OK, there is nothing really special to note here, except that we have created a “Facebook” page for the “Essential Guide To Flash Games“. We would really appreciate it if you could go over there and “like” it so it can get a bit of promotion. We might actually buy…
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Terry Paton Gives Our book A Nice Review!
One man Flash Game factory Terry Paton has reviewed our book on his site, and he had some very nice things to say: “The examples give a great understanding for how game engines work. Once you’ve gone through the various chapters and the game tutorials you should come out the…
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Atari History Orgasm Hits AtariAge.com Forums As Nolan Bushnell Shows Up to Defend Himself
It was an unprecedented moment in the history of Atari fandom, and it happened over the past few days. After, it was announced last week that Nolan Bushnell would join the board of directors of Atari SA, the message boards at Atariage.com lit-up with excitement and terror. Some Atari fans…
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Steve Jobs Vomits His Own Useless Drivel About Flash. Yawn
Today “Steve Jobs” published a blog/article/story called “Thoughts On Flash” at Apple.com. It’s a painfully boring read, mostly because we’ve read it all before. He adds nothing new, and in fact, continues to spread lies and 1/2 truths about Adobe and Flash. His points are so easily debunked, I’m not…
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Gaming After 40’s Video Podcast Is Exceptionally Retrotastic
In the past week as I’ve been home sick with pneumonia, I’ve had some time to peruse Dale Dobson’s Gaming After 40 blog. I have to say, I really like what I see. Dale takes a skewed and humorous, but loving view at video games. In fact, his view very…
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Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Review – Dungeon Master
Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Review – Dungeon Master I was sifting through the treasure trove that is Steve’s garage the other day when I came across a classic issue of ST Action magazine. The issue is May 1988 (the first year of the publication) and it is filled…
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No More Printed Game Manuals For “The Environment”, or “Pay Twice For What You Used To Get For Free”
The Gamer’s Blog has a very interesting story about Ubi Soft jettisoning printed game manuals as a “green initiative”. thsoundman writes: “No more man’u’als? Ubisoft announced this week that they will be ditch’ing the trend of print’ing instruc’tion man’u’als for new games under the ‘green’ ini’tia’tive. While no other pub’lish’ers…
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The Myth Making Of Nolan Bushnell: The Malcolm McLaren Of Video Games? Updated:
For many years, I naively believed that Nolan Bushnell invented the modern video game. I be lived he created the first video game company (Atari in 1972), I believed he created the first home video game (Atari Pong), and the first cartridge based game system (The Atari 2600). I believed…
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No Flash On The iPad Problem: Current Popular Social Games
No Flash On The iPad Problem: Current Popular Social Games One large potential problem (or opportunity) Apple might face in the near future, because of the lack of a Flash player on the iPod/iPad platform, is compatibility with the current set of popular social games. It is no secret that…
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Game Engine Re-Use: Jeff Vogel Is My Hero
Here at 8bitrocket.com we love game engines and engine reuse. Damn, we even wrote a book about it! It seems that we are not alone. In a post published today, Spiderweb Software’s Jeff Vogel does a fantastic job defending his use of a game engine he has re-sued and nursed…
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8-bit YouTube Retro Video Interweb-Mashup
8-bit YouTube Retro Video Interweb-Mashup A few people have sent over video links in the past couple weeks. I decided to take a look through YouTube for other various 8-bit, game/pop-culture and other 8bitrocket style videos for today’s mash-up. First up is a Lego / 8-bit mashup (sent by Alan…
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For Flash Games Developers, Working With the HTML 5 Canvas Is A Lot Of “Roll Your Own”
I’ve been working with the HTML 5 Canvas for the past couple weeks (in my spare moments) trying to implement one of the simplest games from CH.1 of our book, The Essential Guide To Flash Games with it. The game is a very simple shooter (Pixel Shooter). It’s maybe, the…
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“Gaming After 40” Blog Hits The 8bitrocket.com Sweet Spot
Hey, for all you guys (and gals too I suppose) who are interested in blogs about the history and current state of video games, I just discovered a very well-written and insightful one named “Gaming After 40” Here’s a note from the About page: “I’m in my early 40’s and…
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Nolan Bushnell once again is part of Atari!
Nolan Bushnell once again is part of Atari! It seems that Atari co-founder and all-round 70’s icon of arcade amusement and fun (think Pong, Atari 2600, Asteroids AND Chuck E. Cheese) has been re-added to the present day Atari’s board of directors. Gamesutra has a nice article about this interesting…
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Spectacularly Nerdy 8bitrocket Computer Desk Circa 1992
My sister just found this photo. It’s Spectacularly nerdy. It’s a photo of me (Steve) sitting at the “8bitrocket.com” computer desk (the desk Jeff and I shared in the bedroom we shared until we graduated from college). I think the photo speaks for itself: Above you will notice the following:…
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Jeff at DRUPALCON Monday
I will be attending Drupalcon tomorrow for one day to give a short presentation. My day-job used Drupal to create a new site that has been very successful and I am going to lock-step with my Open Source brethren for a day and let the LAMP/DAMP soak into my bones.…
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Ace The Super Villain’s Alloy Tengu 2 DX Featured on the Yo Yo Games Site
Ace The Super Villain’s Alloy Tengu 2 DX Featured on the Yo Yo Games Site No, it’s not a Flash game, and it isn’t even playable in a web browser (yet), but The Yo Yo Games site (the makers of Game Maker Software) have featured the fun cool, scrolling blaster…
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Ning Is No More, Please join Us On Disqus, Integrated Into The site
So we had to shut-down our Ning.com site today. We did not want anyone to use it any longer, as Ning.con is having problems, and need to have something solid to support our books and tutorials. Please join us using Disqus. Right now it is solely for blog comments, but…
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Disqus Testing : Please Help By Posting A comment
So now we are testing the Disqus comments engine. Please help by posting a comment. (I know it’s ugly, we have not played with the CSS yet)
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Js-Kit Echo Testing New Comments System Please Help: Update: Buggy As All Hell
Update: It seems like Js-Kit is buggy as all hell. I’ll be moving on to Disqus later today. It will allow me to import old comments too. We are testing our new JS-Kit comments system below. Please help us by adding something. The old comments have been removed (for now)
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Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 2 – Rotation with and without a Matrix
Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 2 – Rotation and with and without a Matrix. In this second lesson we will explore a couple different methods for rotating the Bitmap object from Lesson 1. We will first try simply using Bitmap.rotation property. Next we will do the same operation…
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Awesome Content Aware Fill Function in Photoshop CS5
Awesome Content Aware Fill Function in Photoshop CS5 This is such a cool function. This will certainly make the jigsaw puzzle and dress-up game makers excited at the possibilities! All kidding aside, this is why Photoshop costs $799!
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