• 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…

  • Development Diary – Micro Robot Maze #2

    Development Diary – Micro Robot Maze #2 A few weeks back I started to make my Generalized Flex Game engine built around blitting and a modified Model View Controller / State Machine structure. I needed a reference application to build on top of the engine, so I chose to make…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Flashgamedistribution.com in Beta

    I just wanted to give a shout out to our friends over at Flashgamelicense.com, who have created yet another arm of their casual Flash game empire with Flashgamedistribution.com. Currently you can sign up for the beta, and your account will be linked to your Flashgamelicense account (if you have one).…

  • iPhone Game Reviews: Rainbow Ninja

    Rainbow Ninja is a tough game to review, since it is not really much of a game at all. It’s more of test of the ability to read words and see colors. It is very similar to one of the games on the Nintendo DS game Brain Age. In that…

  • iPhone Game Reviews: Aqua Jigsaw and Jigsaw Wild From 99Games.in

    Jigsaw puzzles have been a staple of web-based Flash games for many years. The combination of hi-res images and and the mouse/web interface made a nice platform for easy to play and easy to digest small jigsaw based games. The iPhone touch interface takes this to a slightly higher level,…

  • 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…

  • Micro Chip Maze Game Engine (2009)

    Game Engine For License (cheap!) at Active Den. This Pac-Man style engine in completely driven by XML allowing for the creation of any different number of levels, enemy, candy to eat, power-ups and more. It is uses a completely blit driven screen for maximum performance.

  • 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…

  • Building A Generalized Flex Game Control Part 3

    Building A Generalized Flex Game Control Part 3 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 was unable to…

  • 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;…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Flex Game Development: When a blank screen equals success

    Flex Game Development: When a blank screen equals success The is part 2 of my series on designing a generalized game control in Flex. The control is actually in AS3, and will have no MXML, so it can easily be modified to work in the Flash IDE as well as…

  • 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…

  • Technical Difficulties (Updated!)

    We are were experiencing some technical difficulties with the hosting of the site. If you try to leave a comment you will get a .net “Yellow Screen Of Beauty” get a new Captcha Control to help prevent nefarious messages, etc. If you have a chance and would like to help…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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 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;…

  • iPhone Game Reviews: Fleck And Pseudemys From SurvivorSoft

    iPhone Game Reviews: Fleck And Pseudemys From SurvivorSoft Note: We have recently opened up the Apple/Mac/iPhone/iPod section of 8bitrocket.com. In this section we will be exploring both playing games and making games for these platforms.   Fleck Fleck arrives like a lamb and then slays you like a lion. Underneath…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 8bitrocket Micro Chip Maze Game Engine released

    8bitrocket Micro Chip Maze Game Engine released The Micro Chip Maze engine is an xml and tile sheet based pacman style game engine that can easily be re-configured and re-skinned for any site, brand or other use.  It has been built in AS3 using the latest bitmapdata techniques, so the…

  • 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).…

  • Happy New Year From 8bitrocket!

    We hope you and yours had a great 2008, New Years Eve, and will have a fantastic 2009. Make and keep those resolutions if you can.  2009 will bring a lot of new stuff to 8bitrocket.com as we look to expand our footprint by creating more games and tutorials across…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…