• GameSetWatch Reviews A Flash-Based MMO With Some Of My Games

    One of my favorite sites, GameSetWatch.com has recently posted a review of a kid’s based MMO that I have done some work for. While the review is not really favorable, the cool part is that they highlight a couple of the games on the site, and BOTH of them are…

  • 8bitrocket Diatribe: Micro Retro Mash-up, Air Battle Hour 3

    I have now moved into the 3rd hour working on the first game for my Micro Retro Mash-up. The game is based on the Atari 2600 launch title, Air-Sea Battle. I have chosen to create just an Air battle using part of my existing Boids of Death game engine. I…

  • 8bitrocket Diatribe August 4, 2008

    New Indie / Punk-Pop Music Clips! I have had a little time weekend to go back through my collection of Acid and Magix loop libraries and create some new clips that you can use in your games. There are 14 new clips, and they have all been extracted from much…

  • Some Computer Advice From a Freakin’ Genius

    Here is a bit of computer advice from a freaking genuis.. If you move into a modern new house from an old crappy one, and you plug your lap-top into a random available outlet, make damned sure it is not an outlet that is currently operated by: A dimmer switch…

  • New Little 8bitter doing much better

    Thanks to everyone who wrote to, prayed for and kept Jeanne, little Justin Rhys, and I in your thoughts. He is starting to do much better, and if everything continues to improve hopefully will be home in a couple days.  -Jeff

  • 8bit Jeff Out For A Bit: Baby Son Born, But He Needs Positive Thoughts

    Jeff will be out for a few days as his baby son was born today.  However, the boy has a few “complications”, and it would be really cool if any of you out there who have enjoyed and made use of his tutorials, ideas, games, etc. could  think positive thoughts,…

  • Tutorial Update: Basic Blit with Transparency

    Tutorial Update: Basic Blit with Transparency Super cool 8bitrocket.com reader, MR. K, asked a very interesting question today. He asked if this tutorial included transparency because both the screen background and the helicopter background are black. Some how I completely missed that point when I created the original tutorial. The…

  • Terry Paton Code Library and Retro games

    Terry Paton, who’s great retro inspired games have been featured on these pages, has a incredible set of code and templates free for all to use. Some of my favorite include: The Flame Particle Class The Map Scroller The Viewable range The Shuffle Grid The follow the mouse rotation Nodes…

  • Free Beer (prototype)

    https://intotheverticalblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/freebeer.swf (Use arrow keys to move)   You use the arrow keys to move.  You try to “drink” (run over) as ,any beers as possible in the allotted time.    The more you drink the harder it is to control.   Each level adds new challenges to make it harder…

  • The Transient Programmer #5: The Last Day, FREE BEER Revisited

    OK, so this happens to be the last day I will spend as a transient” programmer. By 7:30 tomorrow I will finally have another house to move-into. However, tonight has been pretty difficult. It’s 4:00 AM, and sleep is not coming easily. The hotel got old about 2 weeks ago.…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web Mash-up: July 28, 2008

    A selection blogs, articles, tutorials, games, and more that might be on interest to Flash game developers (or any other game developers). This week we have things you can learn from creative programmers, a couple entries on sponsorships and contests, game planning, path finding, creating a game arcade portal, a…

  • 8bitrocket Diatribe July 27, 2008

    New Royalty Free Music Loop Section! Our brand new royalty free music loop section has just launched. I took the “BETA” off tonight and added another 100 or so new pieces of music. Over the last 10 years Steve and I have produced close to 300 custom songs for various…

  • 8bitrocket Royalty Free Music And Sound Loops Beta!

    We just put live a new section here at 8bitrocket.com. The Music Section has been transformed into a place to listen to and download looping music files and sound effects for use in your Flash Games. The beta currently has only about 45 of the 100’s we will have for…

  • The Downside Of Going Backstage

    The Downside Of Going Backstage

    8bitrocket Goes Backstage I usually don’t talk about this, but besides working on Flash web sites and games at my day job and in my spare time, I also run the official web site for the 80’s new wave/rock band The Alarm. I struck-up a friendship with the lead singer…

  • 8bitrocket Goes Backstage

    8bitrocket Goes Backstage I usually don’t talk about this, but besides working on Flash web sites and games at my day job and in my spare time, I also run the official web site for the 80’s new wave/rock band The Alarm. I struck-up a friendship with the lead singer…

  • 8bitrocket Diatribe July 24, 2008: Mini Retro Challenge: Design Doc

    After examining the concept I have so far, I have decided that this game may not be very fun to play. So, I have merged my ideas for the Air Sea Battle game with my idea for a casual game based on a collection of smaller retro games.This will allow…

  • Old Skool Hackers Reading List

    I took a break from game making tonight to focus on a subject that fascinated me in the 80’s and early 90’s but absolutely scares the bee-jeezus out of me now: Hackers! (always with the exclamation points, FULTON!). Anyway, the word hacker means many things to many people. In the…

  • Forums Are Down…Maybe For good

    I noticed that the forums were filled with spam today, so I took them down for repair.  However, I’m considering taking them down for good.  They get little use, and since we added “comments” in the blog back in February. Should we instead enhance the “comments” for the blog and just…

  • 8bitrocket Diatribe July 21, 2008: Air-Sea Battle Hour 1: Research and Plan

    So, I have decided to make a game like the Atari 2600 (and Arcade classic) Air-Sea battle. I don’t know if we ever owned this cart, but I am sure I played it many times. By the time Steve and I had a 2600, the games had improved well beyond…

  • Dispatches From The Transient Programmer #4: Stuff I Took For Granted: Then And Now

    Now that I have moved out of my single-family house, and I have been back visiting my parents often at their house where I grew-up, I realize that I will probably never be able to provide my kids with the same type of house that I grew-up in. Yes, I…

  • 8bitrocket Diatribe July 20, 2008: A game in a day…

    Or there abouts. I have been thinking a lot lately about how I am going to have time to create viral, ad supported games when my second child is born in a couple weeks. I have been through this before and the time schedules for the entire house will be…

  • Creating Free Sounds and Music for your Flash Games

    Many Flash game developers work for months polishing up a game’s graphics and game play only to realize that they lack one important element: a suitable sonic experience for the user. While some users want no sound at all, (it’s always a good idea to have some sort of volume…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web Mash-up: July 17, 2008

    A selection blogs, articles, tutorials games, and more that might be on interest to Flash game developers (or any other game developers). This week we have entries ranging from generating 3D cube primitives to efficient game development. We also have 6 new retro-styled games to check out. Flash game Blogs…

  • Flash Retro Game Showcase #7: July 15 2008

    Steve has been collecting a decent back log of well made retro games, but has not had a chance to add them to the showcase in a couple weeks.  To help him out a little, I have chosen 5 new deserving entries into our showcase. MJ1912 First up is a…

  • Atari Movie: War Room Debate On The Upcoming Atari movie

    Not much on the proposed Atari movie front for the past couple weeks, but I did stumble on this episode of  an online  “show” named The War Room in which these four guys, (most which know very little about Atari), debate the idea of the Atari movie,  It’s pretty entertaining.…

  • Dispatches From The Transient Programmer #3: Digital Dream Home?

    I’ve been working for the past few days on a game to salute one of the “amenities” at the hotel here, namely the “Free Beer”. The game is named “Free Beer” and in it, you simply make an attempt to drink as much “free beer” as possible before you get…

  • Dispatches From A Transient Programmer #2: Free Beer

    As a transient programmer (with a family) we are living in a “suite” hotel.  I never realized the the true purpose of these establishments until a few weeks ago when I went looking for a place for us to stay during our “gap”. At a regular hotel, you get a room,…

  • Fresh Kill Five: July 9, 2008. A Biased pick of cool Flash games

    This week we take a look at 4 games by MyGame.com and a great new pinball title by gamingyourway.com. I only call this a biased pick because I choose mostly retro style games to showcase. Plus, we all bring our own biases to the table when we critique anything, so…

  • 8bitocket Diatribe July 8, 2008

    iWoz never an Apple Fanboy Back in the 80’s I was an Atari fan boy. The 2600 was the first video game system that Steve and I would kill for, and to this day I still play my Atari ST and 800 favorites via emulation. That being said, I always…

  • Dispatches From A Transient Programmer #1: The Move

    I believe that crime stories in the local newspaper are written in way to make the reader feel more comfortable about their surroundings, no matter how awful the story, so that people will stay put and continue to buy newspapers. A good example of this is the use of the…

  • Free Flash 4th Of July Interactive Fireworks Show

    This is just a quick reminder to say that you can enjoy our Free Fireworks Flash interactive Fireworks show on the 4th Of July (or any other day).  I originally built this Flash “interactive toy” to entertain my 4 year old daughter (now 10)  in 2002 when we could not get…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web Mash-up: July 3, 2008

    This one is more MASHY than usual. Along with the regular Flash only focused material, this week I decided to concentrate on the world of game creation as a whole, and especially retro game programming. I have mostly chosen only those sources that I feel will aid Flash game developers…

  • Tutorial: AS3. The basics of tile sheet animation (or blitting).

    In this article we will discuss the anatomy of a basic AS3 Flash blit operation, which is useful for rendering game graphics at high speeds. The information in this tutorial can be applied to almost any 2d development language that allows the use of bitmaps and transparency to render a…

  • Doublestuff! 8bitrocket.com Mid-Year Stats Report

    Back in December we looked at our 2007 stats. We had just reached our first milestone by getting an Alexa.com ranking and we were so excited we posted our final traffic for the year. Here is a summary of that post: From December 14 2006 until Dec 14 2007: 1.…

  • 8bitrocket Diatribe June 20, 2008

    The World of 8bitrocket Things have been busy here at 8bitrocket towers. Steve is moving to a new house and I am preparing for a new baby to arrive into my old one. These little life experiences have left little time for brand new games and tutorials, but we do…

  • Designing Arcade Game Graphics – A free book!

    I have been researching and writing a few new basic tutorials on using blitting for arcade games. In my search for some simple graphics to use, I once again came across the Ari Feldman sprite libraries. Along with his incredible, free library of sprite sheets, Ari has made something even…

  • Management Sucks Finally Finds A Suitable Game!!

    Finally, a game about work. I’ve been looking for a good Flash game to launch the Management Sucks game repository for some time. Idea Killer from Othmar Wicke (http://www.otwic.com/) is just the type of game I have been looking for. In this one you play a jaded customer of an…

  • Atari Movie Report: June 25 2008

    Today we start a regular column reporting all the news we can find about the upcoming Atari movie.   Today we have a great new interview with Nolan Bushnell from cbsnews.com : GameCore: During the early video game craze, was it true Hollywood actually pitched the idea of a Kramer vs. Kramer…

  • Flash Game Development Inter-web mash up : June 24, 2008

    The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. This week we take a look at new Flashgamelicense features, Mochiland articles, GameJacket opportunities, optimization, source control, Color Fill (again), Law Of The West Pinball, as3gaming.com, and PixelWelder’s custom event broadcaster class. What’s new in Monetization?: Flashgamelicense…

  • 8bitrocket Diatribe June 23, 2008

    Another Two Gone It seems that corporate America and creative talent just don’t seem to mix very well these days. Steve and I work at a rather large American company and we have been fighting all powers that be for 12 years now to ensure that we keep a cutting…