Monthly Archives: April 2010

The Essential guide To Flash Games: Facebook Page: Please “Like It”

Posted on April 30, 2010 by 8bit_admin

OK, there is nothing really special to note here, except that we have created a “Facebook” page for the “Essential Guide To Flash Games“.  We would really appreciate it if you could go over there and “like” it so it … Continue reading →

Posted in Essential Flash Games Book | Leave a comment

Terry Paton Gives Our book A Nice Review!

Posted on April 29, 2010 by 8bit_admin

One man Flash Game factory Terry Paton has reviewed our book on his site, and he had some very nice things to say: “The examples give a great understanding for how game engines work. Once you’ve gone through the various … Continue reading →

Posted in Essential Flash Games Book | Leave a comment

Atari History Orgasm Hits AtariAge.com Forums As Nolan Bushnell Shows Up to Defend Himself

Posted on April 29, 2010 by 8bit_admin

It was an unprecedented moment in the history of Atari fandom, and it happened over the past few days.  After, it was announced last week that Nolan Bushnell would join the board of directors of Atari SA, the message boards … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari Nerd | Leave a comment

Steve Jobs Vomits His Own Useless Drivel About Flash. Yawn

Posted on April 29, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Today “Steve Jobs” published a blog/article/story called “Thoughts On Flash” at Apple.com.  It’s a painfully boring read, mostly because we’ve read it all before.  He adds nothing new, and in fact, continues to spread lies and 1/2 truths about Adobe … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Game Development | Leave a comment

Gaming After 40′s Video Podcast Is Exceptionally Retrotastic

Posted on April 28, 2010 by 8bit_admin

In the past week as I’ve been home sick with pneumonia, I’ve had some time to peruse Dale Dobson’s Gaming After 40 blog. I have to say, I really like what I see. Dale takes a skewed and humorous, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari Nerd | Leave a comment

Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Review – Dungeon Master

Posted on April 28, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Retro Scan: Original Atari ST Action Review – Dungeon Master I was sifting through the treasure trove that is Steve’s garage the other day when I came across a classic issue of ST Action magazine. The issue is May 1988 … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari Nerd | Leave a comment

No More Printed Game Manuals For “The Environment”, or “Pay Twice For What You Used To Get For Free”

Posted on April 26, 2010 by 8bit_admin

The Gamer’s Blog has a very interesting story about Ubi Soft jettisoning printed game manuals as a “green initiative”.  thsoundman writes: “No more man’u’als? Ubisoft announced this week that they will be ditch’ing the trend of print’ing instruc’tion man’u’als for … Continue reading →

Posted in Mid-Core Gamer | Leave a comment

The Myth Making Of Nolan Bushnell: The Malcolm McLaren Of Video Games? Updated:

Posted on April 26, 2010 by 8bit_admin

For many years, I naively believed that Nolan Bushnell invented the modern video game.  I be lived he created the first video game company (Atari in 1972), I believed he created the first home video game (Atari Pong), and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari Nerd | Leave a comment

No Flash On The iPad Problem: Current Popular Social Games

Posted on April 26, 2010 by 8bit_admin

No Flash On The iPad Problem: Current Popular Social Games One large potential problem (or opportunity)  Apple might face in the near future, because of the lack of a Flash player on the iPod/iPad platform, is compatibility with the current … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Game Development | Leave a comment

Game Engine Re-Use: Jeff Vogel Is My Hero

Posted on April 23, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Here at 8bitrocket.com we love game engines and engine reuse.  Damn, we even wrote a book about it!  It seems that we are not alone. In a post published today, Spiderweb Software’s Jeff Vogel does a fantastic job defending his … Continue reading →

Posted in Game Design And Theory | Leave a comment

8-bit YouTube Retro Video Interweb-Mashup

Posted on April 23, 2010 by 8bit_admin

8-bit YouTube Retro Video Interweb-Mashup A few people have sent over video links in the past couple weeks. I decided to take a look through YouTube for other various 8-bit, game/pop-culture and other 8bitrocket style videos for today’s mash-up. First … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari Nerd | Leave a comment

For Flash Games Developers, Working With the HTML 5 Canvas Is A Lot Of “Roll Your Own”

Posted on April 22, 2010 by 8bit_admin

I’ve been working with the HTML 5 Canvas for the past couple weeks (in my spare moments) trying to implement one of the simplest games from CH.1 of our book, The Essential Guide To Flash Games with it. The game … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Game Development, HTML 5 Canvas | 7 Comments

“Gaming After 40″ Blog Hits The 8bitrocket.com Sweet Spot

Posted on April 21, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Hey, for all you guys (and gals too I suppose) who are interested in blogs about the history and current state of video games,  I just discovered a very well-written and insightful one named “Gaming After 40“  Here’s a note … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari Nerd | Leave a comment

Nolan Bushnell once again is part of Atari!

Posted on April 21, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Nolan Bushnell once again is part of Atari! It seems that Atari co-founder and all-round 70′s icon of arcade amusement and fun (think Pong, Atari 2600, Asteroids AND Chuck E. Cheese) has been re-added to the present day Atari’s board … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari Nerd | Leave a comment

Spectacularly Nerdy 8bitrocket Computer Desk Circa 1992

Posted on April 19, 2010 by 8bit_admin

My sister just found this photo.  It’s Spectacularly nerdy.  It’s a photo of me (Steve) sitting at the “8bitrocket.com” computer desk (the desk Jeff and I shared in the bedroom we shared until we graduated from college).   I think the … Continue reading →

Posted in 8bitrocket History | Leave a comment

Jeff at DRUPALCON Monday

Posted on April 18, 2010 by 8bit_admin

I will be attending Drupalcon tomorrow for one day to give a short presentation. My day-job used Drupal to create a new site that has been very successful and I am going to lock-step with my Open Source brethren for … Continue reading →

Posted in Web Site Development | Leave a comment

Ace The Super Villain’s Alloy Tengu 2 DX Featured on the Yo Yo Games Site

Posted on April 17, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Ace The Super Villain’s Alloy Tengu 2 DX Featured on the Yo Yo Games Site No, it’s not a Flash game, and it isn’t even playable in a web browser (yet), but The Yo Yo Games site (the makers of … Continue reading →

Posted in Game Reviews | Leave a comment

Ning Is No More, Please join Us On Disqus, Integrated Into The site

Posted on April 16, 2010 by 8bit_admin

So we had to shut-down our Ning.com site today.   We did not want anyone to use it any longer, as Ning.con is having problems, and need to have something solid to support our books and tutorials.   Please join us using … Continue reading →

Posted in 8bitrocket History | 1 Comment

Disqus Testing : Please Help By Posting A comment

Posted on April 16, 2010 by 8bit_admin

So now we are testing the Disqus comments engine.  Please help by posting a comment. (I know it’s ugly, we have not played with the CSS yet)

Posted in 8bitrocket History | 4 Comments

Js-Kit Echo Testing New Comments System Please Help: Update: Buggy As All Hell

Posted on April 16, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Update: It seems like Js-Kit is buggy as all hell.  I’ll be moving on to Disqus later today.  It will allow me to import old comments too.  We are testing our new JS-Kit comments system below.  Please help us by … Continue reading →

Posted in 8bitrocket History | Leave a comment

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 2 – Rotation with and without a Matrix

Posted on April 14, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 2 – Rotation and with and without a Matrix. In this second lesson we will explore a couple different methods for rotating the Bitmap object from Lesson 1. We will first try simply … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 3 Comments

Awesome Content Aware Fill Function in Photoshop CS5

Posted on April 14, 2010 by 8bit_admin

 Awesome Content Aware Fill Function in Photoshop CS5 This is such a cool function. This will certainly make the jigsaw puzzle and dress-up game makers excited at the possibilities! All kidding aside, this is why Photoshop costs $799!

Posted in Flash Game Development | Leave a comment

Try Out The 10 Games From Our book

Posted on April 14, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Here are links to the 10 Games we Create in Our Book. Some are rudimentary, some are very complex.          

Posted in Flash Game Development | Leave a comment

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 1 – Creating a basic dynamic tile sheet.

Posted on April 12, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 1 – Creating a basic dynamic tile sheet. We talk a lot about Blitting and BitmapData on this site, but we rarely take a step back and look at the container class for … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 1 Comment

Exploring The HTML 5 Canvas For Flash Developers #2: Tracking The Mouse To Draw On The Screen

Posted on April 11, 2010 by 8bit_admin

After a week where confusion about the future of the Flash platform has been piled on to developers by moves outside their control, we present the second in our series of HTML 5 Canvas for Flash Developers.  We call these … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-HTML5 Canvas, Tutorials | 1 Comment