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For Those Still Compiling We Salute You : 10 Reasons Classic Game Programmers Matter
A while back, coworker and I were talking today about the recent interview with Steve Woita in Retro Gamer magazine. We’ve…
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8bitrocket.com Joins Up with Oracle-Retro!
The denizens of 8bitrocket.com have “beat around the virtual bush” for many weeks about the new “large company” they are working…
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Hotel Room Chrysalis
As 8bitjeff awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic code de-bugger. He…
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The Game Shift 001: Thoughts On Week 1
I recently moved from working in a highly structured corporate development environment at one of the world’s largest toy companies to…
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Atari 800 In A Hotel Room
Jeff and I are still in S.F. doing a 2-week tour of duty with our new employer before we head home…
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Management Sucks 001: No, It’s Not “Just Business”
While working as a developer and then later as a manager for “The Monolith” for 15 years, I learned a lot…
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Atari Greatest Hits Vol.2 For The DS Now Available
Atari hs just sent us a press release for their “Greatest Hits volume 2” for the Nintendo DS. We loved the…
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Road Test: Adobe “Wallaby” Flash->HTML5 Converter Preview Version
A couple days ago, Adobe released a preview version of “Wallaby”, their Flash->HTML5 converter. It’s been a badly kept secret for…
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Listen to the live LAPD radio stream mixed with random ethereal music
OK, so this is way off topic (game and retro-wise), but you can expect a little more in this “random awesomeness”…
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The Pac-man Dossier Kicks Ass!
If you are at all interested in building a maze chase game in the Pac-man genre, or are just interested in…
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The current state of 8bitrocket Towers
It has been a long, eventful two months to begin 2011. I have not found the time to write much on…
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An Inspirational Story For Dreamers Everywhere
We apologize for being very quiet lately. Yes, we have a couple things to announce that will forever change the content…
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Flash Is So 2011, HTML5 Is So 2014
Here’s a secret: Flash is far from dead, in fact it’s being adopted at a higher-rate than ever on multiple mobile…
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Retro Blaster, Pumpkin Man and Jack’s Beach Blitz added to Google Chrome App Store
I have started to add some of our arcade games to the Google Crome App Store. Retro Blaster Asteroids on steroids…
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Ultimate Unscramble #1 and #2 Now In Google Chrome Web App Store
I went ahead and added a couple more free educational games to the Google Chrome Web App Store today: Ultimate Unscramble…
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Palindromes Plus Now In Google Chrome Web App Store
I just tested out one of our games, Palindromes Plus, in the Google Chrome Web App Store. You can check it…
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Quick Guide To wmode And Flash Embedding
When embedding Flash .SWFs in HTML, there are several choices you can make for the wmode parameter. I’ve always been a…
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Flash Player 10.2 Released: Stage Video Is Finally Here – But What Is It?
I can recall Adobe talking about stage video for a long time. It’s a new feature in Flash Player 10.2…
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Are Apps Dead?
The Wall Street Journal has a story this morning about a meeting of mobile business entrepreneurs in New York, where some of sentiment…
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Game Programming Tool Kit: A Binary Search in AS3
Every game programmer needs a basic set of tools to use in building his/her games. In this series we will cover…
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Shorter, More Game Focused Tutorials Targeting More Technologies Are Coming
OK, now that our HTML5 Canvas book is in production, we are planning a return to game tutorials that have been…
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Back to the blog…mobile tales
It is has been quite some time since I last sat down to blog about what has been going on around…
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Book Review: Replay: The History Of Video Games by Tristan Donovan
I can honestly say that The new book Replay by Tristan Donovan is the best book about the video game history…
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Flash Game Competition (Stanford, Adobe, Mochi, JayIsGames & more!)
In conjunction with the Stanford Dance Marathon / Hackathon 2011 (?!), Stanford University is throwing a three week long Flash Game…
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Keeping Up With The Mochis #2: A Creeping Realization
So while looking over the contest entries for the 2011 Mochis, I was struck by one common emotion: despair. Why?…
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Keeping Up With the Mochis #1: Bio Break
Jeff and I have been asked by the fine people at Mochi Media to help judge the 2011 Mochi Awards for…
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How Now? The Good News And The Bad News
The good news: The game you are working on is brilliant, amazing, and from a theoretical game design perspective, is worth…
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What Now? Random Answers.
Yes, we do want to hear from you, contact us. No, we don’t want to display your gambling ads. Yes, Flash…
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Now What? Random Thoughts…
Hmm. What’s next? We seem to be at a crossroads. The end of something, and the beginning of something else. But…
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8bitrocket Atari Inspired 16K Retro Re-make contest winner(s) announcement!
We had a very tough time choosing the winner(s) as every game was excellent. Some made excellent use of technology, some were…
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Help Beta Test The Flash Develop to Mac Bridge
The Genius Squad (I mean that in every non ironic and non flippant manner) over at FlashDevelop.org has created a FlashDevelop…
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Gamasutra Warns Of The Coming “Gamepocalypse”
Over at Gamasutra they have a greta new article by Tadhg Kelly named What Games Are: The Mac App Store And…
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16K Contest : Final Public Vote Tally
Here are the final public votes. We will put this together with our votes and announce the First and Second place…
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16K Contest Voting: Final Chance! (Updated)
Get your votes in for the 16K contest! Only 2 more days. Update: I just looked at the voting logs and…
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Quick IOS Packager Test Results
Over the last few days I have been experimenting with creating a very simple arcade game in both HTML5 and AS3.…
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Free History of Llamasoft Book!
Via Jeff Minter’s Twitter, I just downloaded the nearly 200 page History of Llamasoft book that is being given away for…
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16K Game Contest Voting
Now it is time to vote your favorite game in the 16K contest! Voting ends in one week (Monday, January 11th)…
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16 K Contest Update : Voting Starts Next Week
Well the holidays smacked-up hard over here at 8bitrocket.com Towers, but we are preparing for the final voting for the 16K…
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Last Review Of Our Book For The Year
I just found this nice little review of our book here at zhione.com . “The essential guide to flash games written…
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PhotonStorm’s Cat Astro Phi an indie game of the week selection at Gamasutra
Cat Astro Phi, by PhotonStorm’s Richard Davey, is one of the brilliant games selected this week for the Gamasutra “Best Of…
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Play the 8bitrocket 16K Atari Retro-Remake Entries
The deadline has passed for entering a game into the 8bitrocket Atari Inspired Retro-Remake contest. We have received a number of…
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16K Heli
16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: Heli (Play it) Game Inspiration: Choplifter (Atari 800) (Atari 7800) (click screen shot…
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16K Must Destroy Your Heart
16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: Must Destroy Your Heart (Play it) Game Inspiration: Berzerk (Atari 2600) (Atari 5200)…
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16K Niculus
6K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: Niculus (Play it) Game Inspiration: Nebulus (Atari ST), Tower Toppler (Atari 7800) (click…
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16K BattleWire16K
16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: BattleWire16K (Play It) Play the upgraded, commercial version at Kongregate. Game Inspiration: Battlezone…
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16K DDDD
16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: DDDD (The Diabolical Dungeons of Dr. Devil) (Play It) Game Inspiration: Rogue (Mastertonic…
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16K DABOMB
16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: DABOMB (Play it) Game Inspiration: Kaboom (Activision – Atari 2600) (click screen shot…
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16K Axe Quest
16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: Axe Quest (Play It) Game Inspiration: Golden Axe (Atari ST) (click screen shot…
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16K Lander
16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: 16K Lander (Play it) Game Inspiration: Atari Lunar Lander Arcade Game (click screen…
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16K Fate Of The Universe
16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest Entry: Game Name: Fate Of The Universe (Play it) Game Inspiration: Pong (and maybe Jedi Arena)…
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7 hours left to enter the 16K Atari Inspired Retro-Remake Contest
It is currently 5:00PM PST. We have already received a number of very well made games, so the competition is fierce. …
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Atari 16K Retro Remake Contest Nears Final Date
This Sunday evening, at 11:59 Pacific Standard Time, is the deadline for entries into the 16K Atari Retro Inspired Re-make Contest.…
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HTML5 Canvas Book: Amazon Pre-Order + ES5 JS API Now Available
I just saw that our HTML5 Canvas book is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com. That is the cover (above). I…
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HTML5 Canvas Book Update : First Draft Delivered!
Tonight I finally finished the last chapter of the first draft of our book on the HTML5 Canvas. The text has…
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How Great Is AtariMania.com? Find out for yourself…
There are two Atari sites that I visit every day. The first is one that all Atari fans know about, the…
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Target Now Sells Our Book!
I was just doing my cursory “search of the internet to see if anyone has written anything about our book, The…
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16K Atari Inspired Retro Re-Make Contest Update
Here is the latest news on the contest: The biggest news is that we are going to extend the contest end…
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Indie, Web , Flash, Retro Game Development Interweb Mash-up – Dec 5, 2010
16k Contest Update We added a new Sponsor and prize to the 16K game contest. There are 10 days left to…
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Chrome App Store Coming In December? Plus, Mozilla Has An App Store Too!
According to Wired.com, the Google Chrome App Store is set to launch is early December. As well, Mozilla has announced…
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8bitrocket 16K Contest Update: New Prize Added!
So we are now 15 days from our 16K contest deadline. We have had a lot of interest and we are…
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Silverlight Apps For The Xbox Live Arcade? They May Come Soon.
Earlier this year we predicted that Microsoft would start to focus Silverlight on their own platforms as it loses ground to…
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What Can Be Made In 16K? Atari 5200 16K ROM Games
Here is some 16K inspirations for you. The following are videos of some Atari 5200 games made in 16K or less.…
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Indie, Web , Flash, Retro Game Development Interweb Mash-up
Here is the “mash-up” for this week. I have had a little time to visit some of my favorite blogs, magazine…
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The Mac / Flash Develop / Parallels decision…sort of
For the last 30 days (according to the Flash Builder 4 trial countdown) I have been trying to get FB4 on…
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Announcing the 8bitrocket 16K Retro Re-make Contest ** Small Rule Update
Note (12/8/2010): The Prize package has been extended and the end date moved to December 19th at 11:59Pm PST. Note (11/19/2010):…
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Review: Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 For The Nintendo DS
Playing retro games is much adu about nuance. If the little things do not feel “right”, the overall game is…
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Active.Tutsplus HTML5/RIA Roundup Includes Our Thoughts
Active.TutsPlus.com recently ran an article about HTML5 that rankled a few feathers among developers. Their intentions were good, but the result…
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Microsoft Kinect Day 4: Lightsaber Dreams
So I have to admit, one of the reasons I bought a Wii on release day was the because I thought…
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Kinect Day 3 : 5:00 AM Workout, plus Detecting All sizes
So I’m on to day #3 of my Microsoft Kinect adventure (not to be confused with Microsoft’s Kinect Adventures, the pack-in…
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8bitrocket Flash, Indie Game, Retro Interweb In-Box Round-Up
I have been sunk deep into a couple projects over the last couple weeks and during that time I have not…
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Microsoft Kinect Day 2: Punching And Kicking My Way to 180 lbs With No Excuses.
Day 2 of Microsoft Kinect has been spent playing Ubi Soft’s “Your Shape Fitness Evolved” which would be the most metrosexual…
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Microsoft Kinect: It Sees My Feet!!!
I’ve had my microsoft Kinect for excatly 1 hour now, and i’m totally hooked. All of the things that frusted me…
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Kraft NFL Huddle To Fight Hunger Augmented Reality Game Goes Live
The latest project of mine to go live is a cool little “Augmented Reality” game that I coded in conjunction with…
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Help me find a good AS3 IDE On The Mac
For the last three years I was very happy using the incredible Flash Develop via Parallels and XP on my Mac.…
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Adobe Max Day 2: Dave Berzack And Filthy Mouthed Puppets
The Adobe Max day 2 general session was a well produced set of fake TV shows designed to entertain the creative…
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Geo Blaster Basic on the HTML5 Canvas
Steve and I are currently working on an HTML5 Canvas book for O’Reilly (in our spare time). It is giving us…
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Adobe Max Flash Game Update: 3D, Controllers & Terry Paton!
We just got out of the Adobe Max 2010 general session. There was a lot of information about where Adobe is…
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Adobe Max 2010
8bitsteve will be @ Adobe Max next week in L.A., so we will try to report any public news in real-time…
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Atari Haunted House – Wii Contest Winner
We’d like to congratulate Syd Lexia for his winning entry in our “Wii Atari Haunted House Contest”. We asked readers to…
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Mac Steam: A Bonus!
So here is something really cool I just discovered. I decided to install the Mac version of Steam, so I could…
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PBS Kids Dr Seuss Flower Finder Goes Live
The first project of mine (from this new venture) to actually go live is The PBS Kids Dr. Seuss Flower Finder.…
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“Yes On 21” Video Contest Entry
This is little off-topic diatribe for a Sunday Morning. My wife and I created a video entry for a “Yes On…
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Intellivision Lives DS (2010): Signed And Numbered for $19.99
Honestly, while I played the Intellivision 100’s of times at my friend Eric’ Barth’s house back in 5th and 6th grade,…
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A Completely Biased Opinion Of Our Book
I’m not sure if this makes sense, but it’s not easy for me to recall everything that we wrote about in…
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Simply Brilliant: Dulldudegames
One of our super-brilliant readers, “AndyGoesToHollywood”, sent over link to Dulldudegames because he wanted us to take a look at Iain…
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Porting a DOS Game To Windows: A Development Story
I thought this story might be of interest to some of the visitors to our site. Steve and I spent a…
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Retro Gaming Round Up Atari Edition Podcast with Ted Dabney Interview
Listen To The Podcast Being self avowed Atari Nerds for more than 33 years now, Steve and I are always game…
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Simply Brilliant: XKCD New Map Of Online Communities
Take a look at the map. We definitely fit into the “Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions”, and are nearly entrenched in “Niche…
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Games I’ll Play Again: Retro-styled Flash Game Micro Reviews
Again I find myself with a few minutes between asset delivery and code re-writes and instead of doing something practical like…
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8bitrocket.com Milestone: 1000 Posts!
I just wanted to note that, with yesterday’s content updates, we have reached a cool 1000 updates. I hope you have…
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Simply Brilliant: Keanu Is Sad / Sad Keanu Meme
This is not game related so I created an entire new category on the blog for things that I feel are…
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Review : Atari Haunted House – Wii : Plus Win A Copy!
Note: This is the first a new series of articles where we review new games from a retro/viral/indie/web game developer/technical writer…
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Going Solo #7: The bright spots
It has been a little over two full months since I left my cushy corporate job and decided to make my…
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In-App Buyer’s Remorse : Will It Kill Mobile Games?
My friend told me a story yesterday about an iPhone app that his young son loves to play. It’s a virtual…
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10 Reasons Why Flash Is Still My Favorite Game Development Platform
Yes, we have been dabbling in HTML5 and even in Silverlight. We have touched on Unity, Java FX and worked in…
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Google Chrome App Store Will Open Soon..
The Chromium Blog has a new story today about the Chrome App Store. Here are the highlights: Developers can (and…
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SPIL Games Thinks HTML5 Will Overtake Flash by 2012: An Interview
“SPIL GAMES expect that by the end of 2012 at least 50% of all new games to be HTML5.“ -Scott Johnson,…
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Atari 7800 Expansion Module + An Interview With Kurt Vendel
Yesterday, Legacy Engineering announced a pre-order for their newest product, The Atari 7800 Expansion Module. Pre-orders receive a 10% discount (for…
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An Interview With Electrotank’s Jobe Makar
Jobe Makar is is one of the people who inspired 8bitrocket.com the most in the past 10 years. From his multiple…
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AtariMania.com has full PDF editions of all Atari User Magazines
The awesome, though seemingly under-appreciated site, Atari Mania, has hand-scanned (a lot of f***ing work I might add) versions of the entire 43…
