• Survey: What Are Your Preferred Flash Development Tools?

    OK, now for our first survey.We’d like to know what your preferred tool set is for Flash development:Head on over to here to take the survey. (Is this a cheap tactic to try to get you to check out our new forums and social interaction features? Yeah, probably).

  • 8bitrocket.com Now Using The Ning.com Social Networking Platform

    We’ve needed to create a bit more depth to this site for a long time, and with our book coming out next month, we thought it might be time to add forums and other “social” aspect back to 8bitrocket.com. We dabbled in with a message board a couple years ago,…

  • Ultimate Unscramble #2:Countries And Flags (2010)

    The Ultimate Unscramble Series Continues! This time you must unscramble the names of countries. Be sure to use the Flags hints as a guide.

  • Balloon Saw (Essential Flash Games book demo) (2010)

    Game Demo From Essential Guide To Flash Games Book (2010)

  • World’s Worst Jigsaw Puzzle Collection Launches

    Today we announce the launch of a set of 20 games that took us less than 40 hours to complete: The World’s Worst Jigsaw Puzzle Collection We have noticed that many developers create very simple jigsaw puzzles and launch them with Mochi ads. While this is a legitimate way to…

  • Blaster Mines

    Survive each level by blasting all of the mines in the 360 degree scrolling sector. When your shield is depleted, your game is over. Your ship will follow the mouse and auto fire.

  • Tutorial (AS3): Using Fonts Embedded At Compile-Time

    Tutorial (AS3): Using Fonts Embedded At Compile-Time I am continuing to explore the use of external assets embedded at compile time in AS3. Today we will look at how to embed and use a font in this manner. The Embed compile-time directive is available to users of the Flex SDK,…

  • Flash Inter-Web Mash-Up Feb 15, 2010: The Mail bag.

    Flash Inter-Web Mash-Up Feb 15, 2010: The Mail bag. I have received an interesting array of emails over the last 2 weeks, some good, some bad, some CGA with speaker sound… (all of these are the good ones). Ace’s Retro Picks: First let’s take a look at some New Grounds…

  • AS3 Tutorial: Controlling the Main Timeline of a SWF Embedded at Compile-Time

    AS3 Tutorial: Controlling the Main Timeline of a SWF Embedded at Compile-Time Today I was working a a new piece of the Essential Flash Games framework that allows sponsor swf files to be embedded at compile time and displayed before a game reaches the title screen. I am using Flash…

  • GamesChart’s Barry White Responds (redux)

    GamesChart’s Barry White Responds (redux) Last week I did a some coverage of GamesChart and it sparked a little controversy. It seems that one of the principals behind the new venture is none other than Barry White from the now defunct GameJacket. You can’t forget Barry as he has the…

  • I Just Want To Say This: I Love Flash!

    I’ve been spending the last year or so looking and/or forced to develop in other technologies thatare not Flash.  I’ve seen Python, Google App Engine, Silverlight, HTML 5, PHP, Drupal, Joomla, C#, Coco, Android Java, and even Unity.  While all of these technologies have their, there is one thing they…

  • Matt Barton Interviews The Creator Of the Choose Your Own Adventure Series

    Matt Barton, author of Dungeons And Desktops and co-author of Vintage Games has posted a very cool interview with one of my heroes, R.A. Montgomery, the creator of the classic 80’s  “Choose Your Own Adventure” book series.

  • New 8 Bit Weapon Sony Loop Library

    New 8 Bit Weapon Sony Loop Library We make a lot of loop-based music here at 8bitrocket. One of our favorite tools is Acid by Sonic Foundry (and now Sony). Sony always has new sets of loop libraries to fill the need for unique and new game music construction. For…

  • Ill Advised CIO Magazine Article Asks: “Is it Time for the Web to Abandon Flash?”

    Ill Advised CIO Magazine Article Asks: “Is it Time for the Web to Abandon Flash?” Bad information can be annoying, but bad information in the hands of decision makers can be downright dangerous. An article that was posted today by CIO magazine is just such a thing. The article is…

  • Updated! GamesChart (Game Jacket Guys Get Back Into The System?) – Barry White Responds

    Updated! – Barry White Responds. GamesChart (Game Jacket Guys Get Back Into The System?)  Barry White left a message below with some very detailed information on GamesChart. “I do just want to point out that we are in very early Developer Beta, so there”s lots of things that haven”t been…

  • Essential Flash Games Book: Flak Cannon Plus Game Play

      Here is a short video of the “Plus” version of “Flak Cannon” from the “Essential Guide To Flah Games Book”.  I have taken the game beyond the scope of the book.  A free tutorial will be available later this year that describes how to take the game described in…

  • PurpleFloyd’s HTML 5 Canvas Platform Game Running On An iPod Touch With Touch Controls

    Purple Floyd just contacted us to tell us that he has created an iPod Touch/iPhone compatible version of his platform game.  You can see it running in the video above. What does this mean?  Well, it means that very soon developers can make games that are formatted to the iPod…

  • Apple/Adobe/HTML 5 Saga: Who Is Big Brother Now?

    Apple/Adobe/HTML 5 Saga: Who Is Big Brother Now? Well, I never expected to be writing about HTML5 years before it will be finished, but the whole iPad/No Flash support saga has me up at night wondering if we need to move sooner than later. First off, far from Apple relenting…

  • Ultimate Unscramble #1: HTML Color Words (2010)

    Learn arcane HTML coding as you play a mediocre word game! Swap letters to unscramble the words. Pay attention to the color and hex code hints.

  • 8bitrocket Video Gripe-Cast: HTML 5, Flash and The iPhone/iPad

    8bitrocket Video Gripe-Cast: HTML 5, Flash and The iPhone/iPad In this Podcast full of sour grapes and gripes, Steve and Jeff wonder out loud why Apple doesn’t play nice with Flash apps on their hand-held platforms while at the same time having developed and contributed the canvas to HTML 5.…

  • Why Does Apple Hate Flash: The HTML 5 Canvas Might Be The Answer

    Why Does Apple Hate Flash: The HTML 5 Canvas Might Be The Answer Many people on the web have been questioning why Apple “really” hates Flash and why it has not been included in the iPod Touch, iPhone, or new iPad. Everything from “Flash runs slow” to “Flash is not…

  • 8bitrocket Inter-Media Mash-Up: January 28, 2010

    8bitrocket Inter-Media Mash-Up: January 28, 2010 Its no secret that I have had my head buried in the proverbial sand over the last month, slogging through page after page of revisions on the book we are writing. I have not had too much time to visit blogs and have not…

  • Tables Turned: One Of My Favorite Game Jounalists Interviews Me

    Last week I spent over an hour talking with one of my favorite game journalists, Tom Chick, about one of my favorite games of all-time, Roller Coaster Tycoon.    Actually, we seemed to discuss many things other than Roller Coaster Tycoon, but it was still fun. You can listen to it…

  • Video: Mochi Media’s Jameson Hsu Answers Our Question About Shanda And Developer I.P.

    <object name=movie width=425 height=344 > Millionaire Tycoon Jameson Hsu From Mochi Media removes his monacle for a bit to talk about the Shanda Buyout And Mochi game intellectual property. We asked Jameson a question about how Shanda will treat developer intellectual property in the Mochi system. This was his response.…

  • iPad Flash Support For Web Sites? Apples Fumbles This One Badly

    So it looks like the new iPad, the one that apple claims is  the “Best Way To Surf The Web”, does not support Flash.    That  means that any full-form web site that uses Flash for ANYTHING will not work correctly.  This is not just games or animations, but all sorts…

  • Mochi Media Bought By (Alleged) Ex-Chinese Gold Farmers? (updated)

    Update: Jameson Hsu of Mochi Media confirmed yesterday (1/27/2010) that Shanda does not intend to do anything with developer I.P. that would jeopardize Mochi’s standing in the development community.  This is great news.  We will continue to follow this story and report anything that might be of note. Original story: How did…

  • Down The Road – Before The Corruption: An Overly Sentimental 40th Birthday 8mm Film Retrospective.

    Down The Road – Before The Corruption: An Overly Sentimental 40th Birthday (today) 8mm Film Retrospective. This video includes 8mm film of us (twins Steve and Jeff Fulton from 8bitrocket.com) from 1970-1983. All the time before we were “corrupted” by getting our own Atari 800 computer or discovering the rock…

  • Flash Indie Game Review Mash-up: January 19, 2010

    Flash Indie Game Review Mash-up: January 19, 2010 I am going to “clear” out the notebook (so to speak) and review a list of games that people have sent me over the last few weeks. I have not had time to do reviews in that time, but I as encourage…

  • Today Only: 100% Of Your Purchase At Popcap.com Goes To Haiti Relief

    Today only, you can load-up on PopCap.com games (some of the best games ever made) and every penny you spend will go to the Haiti relief effort. If you have been waiting around to buy such games as Zuma, Book Worm Adventures, Heavy Weapon, Feeding Frenzy, Peggle or Bejewelled, today…

  • Ever Wondered What Some “Reviewed” Book Pages Look Like? No? Too Bad.

    Have you ever wondered what the pages of a book look like when they are in the middle of being reviewed by multiple people?  No?  Too bad. Here are some examples anyway.  See all those different colored balloons to the right?  Those are are the digital voices of people who know much…

  • Flash Game Developer Jens Winterstein Digs Into Our Music Loops For “Running Blue”

    We just recieved this nice email from Flash Game Developer Jens Winterstein. He recently dug into our library of free music loops to use in one of his games:   Hello 8-bit rocket, my name is Jens Winterstein, I’m an independent flashgame developer from Germany.I was searching the net for…

  • The office politik: Twilight v. The Atari 800

    The office politik: Twilight v. The Atari 800 Ok, so I really want to write something about Flash games or indie games, or retro games, but every ounce of my energy for and interest in those topics is being funneled into the final revisions for the book. I would love…

  • I Play/Read All This Stuff At Once???

    I noticed yesterday that I have too many games being played and books being read at exactly the same time.  All of these games/books are being played/read at different times, when I’m doing different things. -Mac: M.U.L.E. (new version)-PC (Mac Bootcamp): Dragon Age Origins-PC Laptop:  (no game) making a video…

  • R.I.P. Art Clokey: Creator of “Gumby” and “Davey And Goliath”

    Art Clokey was one of the masters of “stop motion” animation. He is best known for the “Gumby” cartoons. Gumby : The Small Planets There were a few episodes the dealt with space. This one stands out as the best….and most bizarre. “My beautiful arpeggio ruined!”   Art Clokey was…

  • Writing A Technical Book: The Stuff No One Tells You

    We are finishing-up the final parts of the book “The Essential Guide To Flash Games“. The Amazon release date is wrong, as the whole process is about a month behind. We are sorry for anyone who expected to get this thing next week, but honestly, (HONESTLY), the book is much…

  • Flash Retro Game Inspirations: Atari 2600 Outlaw

    Flash Retro Game Inspirations: Atari 2600 Outlaw (Atari 2600 Outlaw in the great Stella Emulator) I literally have an entire pile of started, but unfinished retro games sitting in folders on my development machine. I start and never finish at least 10-15 games  a year based on some whim, (examples:…

  • Tunnel Panic

    Tunnel Panic is very simple game. As your ship flies through the retro, 8-bit tunnel, simply press the space bar to move it up. Dodge everything and stay alive for as long as you can. You get more points the longer you make it through the tunnel.

  • My Interview with Arnie Katz (Co-Founder Of Electronic Games magazine) Up At Gamastra

    My interview with Arnie Katz is now up at Gamasutra. If you don’t know who Arnie Katz might be, here is the intro I wrote for the interview: Arnie Katz was a pioneer of video game journalism. In the late 1970s he, along with Bill Kunkel, started Arcade Alley in…

  • Merry Retro Gaming Christmas Inter-web Mash-Up from 8bitrocket.com

    Merry Retro Gaming Christmas  Inter-web Mash-Up from 8bitrocket.com Here are some retro-gaming Christmas treats for your viewing / reading pleasure. First some Christmas related retro gaming commercials and then some retro gaming Christmas stories and finally a survey of some of the new Mochi Flash Christmas games I could find.…

  • What Happened To Silverlight Games? (Or, Why Flash Is Still The Platform Of Choice For Web Games)

    As you may recall, we started this year experimenting with technologies beyond Flash. First, we started to review iPhone games because, well, my wife got an iPhone Touch and I wanted to start looking at the games and explore the possibility of making them. Next, we looked into Microsoft Silverlight.…