bitrocket Retro Games Inter-web mash up:October 08, 2008

The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Retro Game Fans.

This time we cover new stuff on Recycled Gaming, Retro Thing, Classicgaming.com, Lemon64, Atari Mania, Lemon Amiga, c64audio, Atari Age, and RetroGamer.

lash Game Development Inter-web mash up: October 08, 2008

The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers. (New Format: less scatological, more awesomeness). I have separated the Retro content and the survey of new games into separate posts to help keep this organized (and shorter). Last week's post was just too damn long. I think it scared some people off.

This time we cover new swf and Actionscript protection methods;The FGL 5 Hour game contest (well, 1 entry);More Mr. Sun game design wisdom; A great AS3 preloader; Adsense for Flash games, Game dev diary entries; tutorials and more.

aking Games: Pumpkin Man Beach Blitz Part 1

Last weekend (not two days ago, but 8 days ago), we decided it would be a good idea to make a second version of Pumpkin Man for Halloween. It started off as quick re-skin with the hero negotiating a beach setting to rescue his girl from the clutches of evil. After sitting down with Mari and Steve for a GAMESTORM, I decided that while it would be EASY to just do a re-skin, I was sick of the Pac Man style control and confinements of the Pumpkin Man engine. One game play element that I had left out of the original was the ability for the hero to pick up a weapon and shoot his way out of trouble. So, with that in mind, instead of the relatively simple re-skin they wanted, I set about to make more changes to my game engine than were necessary to transform Rugby into American Football...

orry this podcast was a few days late.  This weekend was filled with so much family(kid's birthday, soccer games)  and personal stuff (high school reunion), it was difficult to get this one edited and out the door . 

This week we have a session about creating viral games specifically for holidays.  since Halloween is coming up, we focus on that, but really, the discussion could be about any holiday.  The question is: Should you make holiday themed viral games? If so, what should you make? We try to answer this one.  Plus some news and other stuff.

Today's podcast is bumpered by the song "Ballad Of Buffalo Love Machine", the missing theme song from our 1989 ultra-indie movie of the same name.  This song was created by me, Jeff,and Ian Legler in about 2000.

Youcan download the podcast here: http://www.8bitrocket.com/podcasts/gamestorm8.mp3

lash Game Development Inter-web mash up:October 01, 2008

The latest in Blog entries and articles that might interest Flash game developers.

Wow, it's already October. This year has flown by but the freelance (and corporate) Flash game industry is as strong and vibrant as ever. This time we cover GPL and MIT licenses; Game dev diaries, time tracking, and time tracking software; A couple game contests; great Flash blog sites; People skills game developers need; social media sites for game development; Multiplayer game mistakes; how not to get distracted while making games; AS3 BitmapData dynamic fine scrolling; Flash CS4; a bunch of retro stuff, LOADS of Flash games, and much much more.

ne of my favorite gaming podcasts, GameTheoryShow has bitten the dust today.    The show featured Gary Witta, Colin Campbell and Kris Graft (among others),  discussing games and the game industry in a way that harkened back to the best game journalism from publications like Next Generation.   

The show made our list of the Top 10 Grown-Up Gaming Web Sites/8-bit "Olympic" Themed Video Games  from August of this year.

It's sad to see them go.  Since Colin and Kris now work for Edge-Online one can hope that they will create  podcast from their new home, but it certainly will lose something without the Hollywood-bound Gary Witta. 

Truly a sad day for people who like to block-out everyone else at work and dive into their projects while listening to interesting minds talk about interesting things.

f you know me, you know that I love a good movie or tv show that covers one of my favorite subjects, especially if it is non-fiction. However, the selection of these types of movies and tv programs that cover the world of video game and computer history has never been very expansive. Sure, crappy movies based on video games are plentiful, but not films in which you might actually learn something useful about the subject. However, there are some good titles to find (and few to avoid). Below is a list we have compiled of everything that either exists today, did exist at some point, or one day will exist.

More Games Added to the 8bitrocket Retro Showcase

In our search for the best retro inspired Flash games on the infobaun, we have come across to two developers who each have created multiple games we feel need to be added to our showcase. Both deflogic and Jess Hansen have great portfolios full of well crafted, retro-inspired games. We have chosen 7 of them here: Elektra, Swarm, Replicator, Flatland, and Dante's Inferno from deflogic; Kablammo! and AdvanSnake from Jess...

uneScape, First Impressions

RuneScape is a free Massively Multi-player RPG