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7/11/2009 Flash Indie Game Interweb Mashup - Mochiads Games Edition July 10, 2009

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Flash Indie Game Interweb Mashup - Mochiads Games Edition July 10, 2009

SinceI did a Mash-Up last week on blog entries, I thought it would be fun totake an entire mash-up to focus on my favorite subject - actual games!Since GameJacket's demise has come to pass, there has been in influx ofdevelopers placing games on Mochiads. So, I am going to playanddo a review with hyperbole and hopefully constructive criticism (orglowing praise) for each of the current games listed on the MochiPublishergame page. There are 9 'Recent' games and9'Featured' games on this page. Some are duplicates, but what the hell,I will focus on the 'New' rather than 'Featured' games as Mochi hasalready sullied the 'Featured' ones with their stamp of approval and Iwant to give a chance to them all.

I have enough time to giveeach game 1 or 2 solid plays, so to be fair, none of mygrades may meanmuch, but hey, it's my blog and I can write what I want to.

Here are the games I will review: Shore Siege, On Fire, Fly The Excremator, Bugy, Super Strawberry Clock 2, Phrase Crazy, Space Slots, Finder, and RoastBeefSandwich.

The (ad and thumbnail scores don't count in the final game score. Theyare there for my enjoyment).

7/10/2009 Silverlight 3 Released And Ready For You To Make Some Awesome Games - Maybe

New Silverlight Games Dev Blog Entry : Microsoft has finally released their new version of Silverlight, Silverlight 3. All the dev tools are now available here: http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ .

However, if you want to develop on a Mac, you will need to use something like Eclipse4SL, which, when we tested it a few months back, was stil la bit buggy. However, it's worth trying again.

One of the most interesting new features of Silverlight 3 is support for 3D planes and BitMap caching. It still seems like they are still playing catch-up to Flash though. If they really wanted to make splash, why not leap-frog Adobe instaed of looking like an also-ran?.

7/9/2009 RESULTS! Quiz: Can You Name These Classic Computer Games From Their Old-School Reviews ( Num. 1)

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry : A Couple weeks ago I posted the following quiz. It takes parts of old-school game reviews and challenges you to name the game. I thought this one was EASY. However, it was not, it was really hard and I have learned my lesson. Here is the quiz again, with the answers below:

7/9/2009 Atari 2600 Game Quiz: Name The Games From The Manual Excerpts

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry : Atari 2600 Game Quiz: Name The Games From The Manual Excerpt

Many Atari 2600 games had manuals that were nothing short of...bizarre. Some of the descriptions and back-stories created, even for some of the most well-known games of the time, were astonishingly, wonderfully odd.

Below are clues to 10 different Atari 2600 cartridges. Some are easy to figure out some are not. All the clues were taken directly from the game manuals. How many of them can you name? Leave a Comment Below with your answers. The first to get all 10 will win...something.

7/7/2009 Top-10 Alternative Ideas for The Universal 'Asteroids' Movie

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry : Last week, Universal announced that they had won a 'bidding war' for the rights to turn Atari's Asteroids coin-op into a feature film. Almost immediately, game pundits and art critics alike pounced on the news, and scoffed at the idea of a Hollywood version of Atari's classic game. Many of these comments came in the same form: They mostly feared a movie that was literal translation of the game.

So, I have decided to help-out the film makers by suggesting my Top-10 'Alternative' story lines for a movie based on Atari's Asteroids coin-op.

10. 'Ass-teroids!' In the spirit of Joysticks!: A period-piece teen-sex romp set in Ft. Lauderdale, Spring Break, 1980. The National Video Game Championships are being held that week in Florida, and coincidentally, so is the National Wet T-Shirt Contest. When their home-town orphanage suddenly cannot make the balloon payment on the predatory loan given to them by the evil banker and land developer Wilson Everett Skruyou II, our heroes must spring into action. Marvin P. Martin and his 3 best friends - Buster, 3D, and Danny (the bookish hidden beauty Danielle) must find a way to win both competitions at the same time so they can use the combined prize money ($50,000) to save the day. Standing in their way is W. E. Skruyou III (college-age the son of II) and his Alpha Sigma Sigma fraternity brothers who have also made the trip and are formulating their own brute-force plans to win both contests. Zany antics, R-rating romping, heart-warming realization, spontaneous clapping, and hilarity all ensue. (apologies to 80's Ending)

(9 more after the jump)

7/6/2009 Absolutely Brilliant Lost Garden Article On Flash Game Monetization

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Absolutely Brilliant Lost Garden Article On Flash Game Monetization

If you have even a passing interest in making games full time, you have to read Flash Love Letter Part One by Danc on the Lost Garden blog. He ever so eloquently describes in detail the current revenue streams for Flash game developers and points out the various ways to make money directly from players - like the old days of Shareware, and new revenue possibilities.

For everyone who is suffering to make a living off of Mochi pennies and game licenses, this is a must read. Mochi and licensing are still a great way to make some money, but there has to be more avenues to help pay for the creation of games, doesn't there? Check it out.

7/3/2009 Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : July 3, 2009

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : July 3, 2009

I was sick this past week (it's still lingering on), and today(actually July 4) is a USA holiday - a couple hundred yearsago some dudes in funky white wigs decided they didn't want to paytaxes to an island, I think it was Hawaii, but then again, I went topublic school, and played Atari non-stop, so it could have been theFalklands. We celebrate this by blowing shit up!So,this one will be shorter than usual, but I'll catch up next time.

Let's Start ByHighlighting A New Releases that caught my eye...
- Push is an awesomely retro, butvery unique in a modern puzzle game way
- Waterwerks is a really really fun,well made game. I'll never understand Kong ratings...
- TheDig is a little like Dig Dug, your kids will enjoy it, I'msure (don't tell them that you played a game like it in 1982 though).
- Daemons is a very well polishedgraphical adventure. It scared me though...
- Maze Roll is also an very nice,unique puzzle game...

7/1/2009 New Retrogaming Times Monthly article on ST game developer Michtron

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry :

New Retrogaming Times Monthly (free online magazine) features my first Atari Playfield article on ST game developer Michtron . Richard Davey (www.atari.st and www.photonstorm.com) was invaluable help on this article.

I have been reading this splendid on-line magazine every month for along time, but over the last year, Atari and especially Ataricomputer coverage has been minimal. So, I have volunteered to do amonthly column on Atari ST and Atari 800 games. This month features theearly ST game developer, Michtron.

There are also 18 other articles in this issue, ranging from a tribute to Michael Jackson, to a movie review of the video game inspired film, The Wizard, and all kinds of other goodies in-between for various systems and consoles.

If you would like to contribute to the magazine and see your favorite computer or video game system covered, please contact Bryan Roppolo, the current, very hard working editor of this great, free, web-only magazine. (Squize, that means you and your Amiga).

The Atari Playfield names is a tribute to the long running Atari Playfield column in the great, now defunct, Computer Gaming World Magazine.

6/30/2009 A Personal Journey To Find The 'Meaning' Of Software Development

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

I believe that I was born to be a computer programmer. Somewhere, deep in my soul, there is a need to organize my thoughts in ways that are both new and interesting, but also foundational and reusable at the same time. I've always felt that there is something atypical about this kind of work, and about the people who have chosen to do it. Not that it is better or worse than any other profession mind you, but that it was very unique, and at the same time both interesting and powerful.

However over the years, I have learned that this is not exactly a commonly-held belief.

6/30/2009 Hackers and the Beautiful System

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

Hackers and the Beautiful System

On the heels of Steve's wonderful post on the joys of being a creative programmer, we get an idiotic Infoworld post on why American programmers are so bad...because they are hackers?

I like to think that the Hacker Ethic (creative, open exploring of systems and solutions) helps to create beautiful systems, but Neil McAllister seems to think that hackers are actually 'hacks' - kids with no coding skills or business knowledge that must be streaming out of our university system if he felt the need to write such a long piece on the subject. He got one thing right, most university students can't code worth shit because coding is assumed to be the 'dirty' job in a Six Sigma - like development process system. There are virtually no classes on proper coding in a university IT departments...

6/28/2009 Time Warner Interactive , Midway: The Soul Of Atari Might Still Be Alive...

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry :

I just read this news story that Time Warner Interactive is planning to buy Midway Games.This would stand as just another boring game industry story for me, if it was not for the 'Atari' connection.

You see Atari was bought by Warner Communications in 1976. When Warner 'sold' Atari in 1984, they kept the arcade business and named it Atari Games.They sold it to Namco in 1985.WhenNintendo struck gold with the NES, Atari Games created a home division named Tengen, and continued to make games...

6/25/2009 Favorite Video / Computer Soccer (Football) game of all time

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry : Favorite Video / Computer Soccer (Football) game of all time

In support of the USA's remarkable 2-0 win over the vaunted powerful Spanish side in today's Confederation Cup semifinal, I wanted to up the quiz anti with a poll of sorts. I have played a number of Soccer (Association Football) games over the years and I wanted to list my 10 favorites in order. Are your favorites on this list? If you are an American, Soccer hater, then can just say 'Madden is the only Football game that matters', but I would rather you give an answer to the poll. Mind you, this is a list of my favorites, not technically the 'best', but the ones I find the most fun to play again and again.

1. Kick Off 2 (ST/Amiga)
2. Kick Off Player Manager (ST/Amiga)
3. New Star Soccer (3 and 4) (PC/MAC)
4. Sensible World of Soccer (ST/Amiga)
5. Fifa (series) (Genesis / PS2)
6. Winning 11 Series (PS2)
7. Microprose Soccer (ST / Amiga)
8. Pele's Soccer (2600)
9. NASL Soccer (Intellivision)
10. Super Mario Strikers (Nintendo Systems)

Which do you choose? I have surly not played all of the best footie games, so what am I missing?

6/25/2009 R.I.P. Michael Jackson: Remember His Video Game

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry :

I suppose you could call this 'gallows humor'. Iactually liked much of Michael Jackson's early 80's output, so I'm fairly sad to see that he could not turn himself around. Anyway, this 'Moonwalker' Game came out at just about the time Jackson took his final turn into 'Neverland'.

Commercial For The Game

(More videos after the jump including a news report and an 'Angry Video Game Nerd' review)

6/23/2009 Quiz: Can You Name These Classic Computer Games From Their Old-School Reviews ( Num. 1)

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry :

Quiz: Can You Name These Classic Computer Games From Their Old-School Reviews ( Num. 1)

In this quiz we will give you a few lines of a review from a classic computer and/or video game. Your job: Name The Game. Leave a comment with your answers below. The first person to get all 10 will win something worthless and virtual.

1.'Computer speech synthesis has just been revolutionized by a product by Don't Ask Software. Unlike all the other systems, [this product] requires no special hardware. That's right, [it] provides the highest-quality computerized speech currently available for ATARI computers, and does it with software only. All you need is an ATARI 400 or 800 with at least 32K RAM and one disk drive.'

2.'The scenario of [the game] takes us back several years to the Middle Eastern desert where 64 Americans are being held captive in several sets of barracks. The [game] arrives on a starry night with a full moon beaming. As pilot, you push the stick forward to lift off in search of the first of four groups. You spot them, find a clearing and land. Be careful not to crush the hostages. .'

(8 more after the jump)

6/22/2009 Kyobi added to the 8bitrocket Arcade Showcase as Hall Of Fame Gold Medal Recipient

New World Famous Flash Retro Showcase Blog Entry : Kyobi added to the 8bitrocket Arcade Showcase as Hall Of Fame Gold Medal Recipient

Richard Davey(Photonstorm)'s retro-remixed, physics based puzzler, Kyobi, has been added to the 8bitrocket Retro Arcade Showcase as a Gold Medal Winner. It joins just 6 other titles with the honor, including Richard's previous game, Abominaball.

Kyobi has everything that a great game should have to be successful in today's fickle market. Rich has done an excellent job honing his knowledge of great 16 bit titles into a modern game with a retro flavor that we can't get enough of. Great work, Rich!

Here's what Richard had to say about Kyobi:...

6/22/2009 Interview with PhotonStorm's Richard Davey

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

Interview with PhotonStorm's Richard Davey

Richard Davey has created some excellent games for the freelance Flash portal market in the past year including (but not limited to) Kyobi and Abominaball. Both has been featured in our Hall of Fame Arcade Showcase as Gold Medal winners. The combination of modern game-play, retro sensibility, and an excellent eye for finishing touches and polish has made the 8bitrocket team big fans of Rich and his games. His excellent blog, PhotonStorm (named after a great Jeff Minter title) and his dedication to the Atari ST (www.atari.st) makes an interview with Rich a perfect fit for 8bitrocket and our dedicated readers.

(Kyobi)

(Abominaball)

8bitrocket:
Richard, Kyobi is doing EXTREMELY well. How did you come up with the idea for such a unique physics based block puzzle? ...

6/21/2009 ...palindromes... re-revisited or I love mindjolt.com

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : So, just as I have given-up on ...palidromes..., mindjolt.com put it up a couple days ago, and the game plays have gone through the roof. It has averaged 45,000 each of the past few days. I knew the old girl had some life in her yet! I know 45,000 plays on average won't save the world, but I can bask in the glow of relative success for minute right...right? This comes right after I have finished .+.palindromes.+. plus too. It makes me want to re-think my position on word games. They night actually be a good place to put some effort.

6/19/2009 Interview With Simon From Game Jacket

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : A short interview with Simon from GameJacket was recently posted by FlashGameMontezation Very interesting:

Badim: 1k$ Advance - it was good or bad thing? at least in short-term(few
months-1 year)
Simon: When GameJacket first went live inFebruary '08, we had no developers and no games and only a small budgetto spend on marketing our service. We evaluated the market and saw whatthe competition were doing and felt that the advance might help somedevs sign with us. This was not a cash give-away. As those whosuccessfully applied to this scheme already know, there were strictrules for acceptance and only games that had a very strong chance ofsuccess were accepted - It was a payment in advance for future adrevenues. We had only planned to run this incentive for the first fewmonths, but it was successful and didn't costs us anything so we keptit alive.

Read the rest here: FlashGameMontezation

6/18/2009 Cool Stop-Motion Video Game Tribute That You Probably Have Seen But I Have Not (until today)

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry : I was searching the Indiecade Web site for some kind of interesting story, and I came across this awesome stop-motion film by Pez. Watch Centipede, Frogger, Asteroids, Space invaders and Pac-Man all re-made with household objects. Brilliant! I may be a bit late on this, but it's still awesome.

6/17/2009 Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : June 17, 2009

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Flash indie game interweb-mash-up : June 17, 2009

I was on vacation last week, so I missed doing one of these (well, Iwouldn't say I missed it, but I didn't get a chance to do one). I wason vacation, so I must have had more time than usual to grind out amash-up, right? Not! With a 1 year-old and a 4 year-old happy thatdaddy was home from the evil corporate world for a week, I had evenless time than usual to troll your sites, mess with your games, drinkyour beer, leer at your women and laugh at your message board posts onmaking $1000 a day from Flash games...

Let's Start ByHighlighting A New Releases that caught my eye...
- Play Fruiti Box from RichardDavey (finally available after a 6 month wait).
- Hovernautsis a new 8 v 8 player at a time multiplayer retro-styled action-based deathmatch! Now, that's a mouthful, and I was only able to play by myselfbecause it is in beta and I am probably in the wrong country (the AtariST obsession aside). So, do me a favor and EVERYONE play WilliamGelpi'snew game so I have someone to lose to. You can create anaccount or just play as a guest, but it looks really fun, and was evena blast just buzzing around in single player mode...

6/17/2009 Post-Retro: Have We Entered The Era After 'Retro Games'?

New Game Design And Theory Blog Entry :

There is a sense these days that the concept of 'Retro' games is disappearing. This does not mean that there are no retro inspired games being made, but it means that 'retro' has been enveloped into the mainstream, and there really is no 'retro' any longer. 'Retro' is mainstream. At E3 this year, games that would have been shoved off into far corners and dismissed as 'retro' in years past, were right up-front (i.e. Super Mario Wii, Nostalgia, Final Fantasy VII). This proved that 'retro' is so all encompassing that the term means almost nothing if applied to these games.. These are just 'games' (good games mind you) and are tagged 'retro' only for the most superficial reasons. In sense, these are 'classic' games with 'classic' game play, that don't necessarily have to have a 'retro' aesthetic.

At the same time, there still is a very healthy community for actual 'retro gaming': Playing games on old systems old systems and emulators , or writing games specifically for old hardware. This is a truly is 'retro' activity and should be treated as such.

However, a new game design movement is emerging that is very difficult to describe with the current set of accepted game genres (i.e. casual, core, retro, viral, mobile etc.). The new movement consists of new concepts, presented in retro fashion, but are not really retro games. These are not remakes, re-mixes, arrangements, remakes of old games with new graphics, or retro collections, nor are they pure play games for retro consoles. These games are something entirely different from genre I like to call: Post-Retro.

6/16/2009 .+.palindromes.+. launches on Mochi, first entry in Dictionary.com word game contest

New 8bitrocket History Blog Entry :

Last week I noticed that Mochi is running a new contestin partnership with dictionary.com for 'word games'. Since I just released '...palindromes...'two months ago, I thought hat maybeI could get it into the contest.

I emailed Andrew Shen at Mochimedia, and hetold me that toenter the contest I would have to remove ...palindromes... from their system, and then add it back again so that the date wouldshow that I had released it within the contest period.

Now, even though...palindromes... was not very popular, there are still portals that feature it using the Mochi game feed. By removing the game, I would basically render the game unplayable to the few people who actually like it!

Instead of removing ...palindromes...I decided to make a new version.

6/12/2009 E3: Gaming Cameras For Motion Control: Have They Really Thought This Through?

New Mid-Core Gamer Blog Entry :

Both Microsoft and Sony announced camera-based game control solutions at E3 2009. At the same time, Nintendo has said they rejected this kind of technology years ago in favor of the Wii-mote.Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President said recently:

'Until they say when they're releasing it, how much it costs and what software it comes with, we won't know whether that is the route we should have taken. However... I think they couldn't choose to release exactly the same thing.' (link)

I have to say, that while the demos for Project Natal were neat, I tend to think that Nintendo is on to something.

Here is a question for you: Have you ever played a game that uses a camera as the control mechanism? I have owned both the Eye-Toy for the PS2 and the camera for the XBox 360. While I like them both, but they both have some major problems. While these are not exactly what Microsoft and Sony have announced (but in part, they are the same too), there are some fundamental problems with camera control that go beyond any kind of new tech:

Take a look at this Microsoft demo before we begin.

6/11/2009 Game Jacket Goes Under

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Game Jacket Goes Under

I am sad to report that Game Jacket has gone under and all games will cease being hosted today. It seems they were not able to get a new round of funding and had to close their doors. Gone are the $1000 up fronts and .50 minimum CPMs. We had a pretty good relationship with those guys and especially in the early days (last year) they had a pretty good reputation for paying on time and being honest and easy to work with.

Lately though, there were some grumblings among developers about late payments and even some non-payments. This probably has a lot to do with their funding problems of late.

Let's hope everyone from GJ lands on their feet, and all developers have access to the original versions of their games (back ups at least). Also, if you had a game on the system, it would be best to re-upload it a new non-GJ version to any portals still hosting it. We have a couple that will need to be replaced. (Squize, that means a new version of the space invaders clone for us if you have one).

Mochi is the obvious choice to replace the GJ ads, so hop on over and sign up if you have not already.

6/8/2009 Mad Avenue Blues: The eCPM Is Low For Everyone!

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

This video has been making the rounds of people in the advertising industry since it was posted last week. It's focus is the Madison Avenue advertising industry, but many of the topics included should be very familar to viral Flash Game developers. So you think games are getting bad eCPM and you think it will get better soon? After watching this, I just don't think so.