• 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…

  • 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…

  • 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)…

  • 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…

  • Interview with PhotonStorm’s Richard Davey

    Interview with PhotonStorm’s Richard Davey Richard Davey has created some excellent games for the freelance Flash portal market in the past year including (but not limited to) Kyobi and Abominaball. Both has been featured in our Hall of Fame Arcade Showcase as Gold Medal winners. The combination of modern game-play,…

  • …palindromes… re-revisited or I love mindjolt.com

    So, just as I have given-up on …palidromes…, mindjolt.com put it up a couple days ago, and the game plays have gone through the roof.  It has averaged 45,000 each of the past few days.  I knew the old girl had some life in her yet!  I know 45,000 plays…

  • Interview With Simon From Game Jacket

    A short interview with Simon from GameJacket was recently posted by FlashGameMontezation Very interesting: Badim: 1k$ Advance – it was good or bad thing? at least in short-term(few months-1 year) Simon: When GameJacket first went live in February ’08, we had no developers and no games and only a small…

  • 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.

  • Post-Retro: Have We Entered The Era After “Retro Games”?

    There is a sense these days that the concept of “Retro” games is disappearing. This does not mean that there are no retro inspired games being made, but it means that “retro” has been enveloped into the mainstream, and “retro” does not really exist any longer as it’s own genre..…

  • 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…

  • .+.palindromes.+. launches on Mochi, first entry in Dictionary.com word game contest

    Last week I noticed that Mochi is running a new contest in partnership with dictionary.com for “word games”.  Since I just released “…palindromes…” two months ago, I thought hat maybe I could get it into the contest.  I emailed Andrew Shen at Mochimedia, and he told me that to enter the contest I would have…

  • E3: Gaming Cameras For Motion Control: Have They Really Thought This Through?

    Both Microsoft and Sony announced camera-based game control solutions at E3 2009.  At the same time, Nintendo has said they rejected this kind of technology years ago in favor of the Wii-mote. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President said recently: “Until they say when they’re releasing it, how much it costs and what…

  • Game Jacket Goes Under

    Game Jacket Goes Under I am sad to report that Game Jacket has gone under and all games will cease being hosted today. It seems they were not able to get a new round of funding and had to close their doors. Gone are the $1000 up fronts and .50…

  • Mad Avenue Blues: The eCPM Is Low For Everyone!

    This video has been making the rounds of people in the advertising industry since it was posted last week. It’s focus is the Madison Avenue advertising industry, but many of the topics included should be very familar to viral Flash Game developers. So you think games are getting bad eCPM…

  • Book Review: American Nerd, The Story Of My People by Benjamin Nugent

    I did not think that I would write a review of this book.   I start reading dozens of books like “American Nerd” ,but in all honestly, it is the rare one that I actually finish.  Even though I am a huge fan of non-fiction, I’m really not a fan of…

  • 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 Indie Game Report #3 – Indiecade 2009

    E3 2009 Indie Game Report #3 – Indiecade 2009 One of the best things at this years’ E3 was Indiecade 2009 preview.  Indiecade is a group that puts on events to showcase and promote independent games and indie game developers. It accomplishes this by staging a series on international events…

  • 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,…

  • E3 Retro / Indie Report #2

    E3 Retro / Indie Report #2 What can I say? So far, E3 2009 has been a little underwhelming. Most of the big companies are here except Atari (other than the Ghost Busters car and some people dressed up in Ghost Busters costumes), but the web / indie / and…

  • E3 Retro Report #1: Watch Steve Wiebe Try To Break The Donkey Kong World Record

    You can keep-up on Steve Wiebe attempt to break the donkey Kong World Record with the video feed below. http://www.justin.tv/widgets/jtv_player.swfWatch live video from G4TV – Steve Wiebe Donkey Kong Cam on Justin.tv

  • Press Space To Win Is Pretty Awesome

    Press Space To Win is pretty awesome I was trolling message boards and portals this morning because of my inherent need to procrastinate rather than work on the three games I have going at once. On the Mochi boards I found a link to a  YouTube video of this game…

  • 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…

  • About US: Mission Update : Inform-Instruct-Inspire

    Inform. Instruct. Inspire. Yesterday Jeff and I decided we wanted to clarify why we have this web site.    Sometimes I think of  it as a Frankenstein’s monster of a concept.  It’s a blog, but not one.  It’s a community, but not really.  It has games, but it’s not game portal. …

  • Solar Fortress Chronicles: Hours 18 – 20

    Solar Fortress Chronicles: Hours 18 – 20 Note – I am rapid (wishful thinking) prototyping a retro game in my spare time and keeping a diary of what I do each hour of the project. In the last couple weeks I have had some major distractions and have not been able…

  • 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)…

  • The History of 8-bit Computer Games in The USA #1 : CGW Nov/Dec 1981

    The History of 8-bit Computer Games in The USA #1 : CGW Nov/Dec 1981 I never read Computer Gaming World Magazine when I should have. When I finally purchased a PC in 1992, I started to read it and kept doing so as a subscriber until it died late last…

  • 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…

  • Diatribe: Writer’s Block and Video Ads

    I’ve had writer’s and programmer’s block for about a week now.  I’m sorry there have not been any “interesting” blog entries coming from me since then.   To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the reception to “…palindromes…”.  While I knew it was not a blockbuster, the Flash game…

  • 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…

  • How can Casual game designers use the list of top selling comsumer items?

    How can Casual game designers use this list? In the Sunday newspaper (yes, I still get one of these ancient documents) this morning there was a list of the top 10 selling consumer products (in the USA I presume). I’m not quite sure how accurate the list is, or how…

  • Wiiware Support For Flash Met With Fear, Derision:Analysis

    Reports came out this week that Nintendo would start supporting Flash as a development platform for Wiiware. While there was some positive support, for the most part, this news was met with derision, fear and hand-wringing from the Wii gaming communities.   At Cubed3: “Nintendo does have strong policies and…

  • ST Amiga Format Magazine ONLINE (For real!!!)

    ST Amiga Format Magazine ONLINE (For real!!!) On the heels of yesterday’s find of ST Action scanned reviews on Atari Mania, I hopped over to wonderful Amiga Magazine Rack site to find that they have all of copies of the combined ST Amiga Format magazine scanned for your perusal. The…

  • ST Action Magazine Online! (Some at least) on Atarimania.com

    ST Action Magazine Online! (Some of at least) on Atarimania.com Back in 1988, one of the few places to get Atari ST or Amiga imported games (or any games for that matter) were in specialty shops such as Computer Games + in  Orange County, CA (well before Marissa, Ryan, Summer…