Posts Tagged ‘8bitrocket’

  • Join the 16K Atari Inspired Retro Re-make Contest

    The guys over at 8bitrocket are holding a coding contest.

    The aim is to make an Atari inspired game, using any web-friendly language that you like, in 16KB or less.

    When they say “Atari inspired” they do NOT mean a straight port / re-make. But instead for you to take perhaps the core concept, or game world, or environment of an Atari game, and make something new and exciting from it.

    Considering how many excellent games appeared on both Atari home computers / consoles, and from Atari / Tengen in the arcades, that is a truly staggering wealth of titles to choose from.

    To get those of you who aren’t 99% Atari (like me) started, here are some useful links:

    Atari Arcade Games (134 games from APB to Xevious)

    Atari Games (another 68 arcade games, from from 720 to Xybots)

    Atari 2600 Games

    Atari 5200 Games

    Atari 7800 Games

    and of course, Atari ST games – here’s a listing from my site the Little Green Desktop, and another from Atari Legend.

    There are literally thousands of games to choose from, and remember you are not trying to port or accurately re-create them. You simply need to draw inspiration from them, and re-make them in a modern way. I agree 16K is limiting. But limitations breed creativity 🙂

    The full rules / details can be found here: http://www.8bitrocket.com/2010/11/19/announcing-the-8bitrocket-16k-retro-re-make-contest/

  • My interview with 8-bit Rocket is now live

    8bitrocket

    Jeff over at 8-bit Rocket has just published an interview he conducted with me.

    If you can wade through some of the waffle for long enough then hopefully you’ll take away a few ideas re: Flash game development. Plus a few parts about my early geek life and how it influenced the type of games I make today.

    It was good fun doing the interview, and I thank Jeff for the opportunity.

  • The 8bitrocket 24-hour game challenge

    Over on 8bitrocket Jeff is going through the motions of creating a game in 24 hours (that’s just 24 man-hours.. not all spent at once) and is blogging about the process.

    The game he has settled on is a loose remake of the Atari 2600 game Air-Sea Battle. In his first entry he’s spent an hour going over the different game types, how this could map to various levels within the game, and what his next steps will be.

    I have to admit I found the post very interesting. Both from the point of view that I’d love to do something similar (a 24-hour game challenge for myself), and also because I think he’s spent too long on stage 1 🙂 Planning is crucial, no doubt about it, but I think the plan is far too complicated at the moment and has too many differing factors in there (game stages, different potential level designs, etc). So I’ll be curious to see how many items on his list actually make the final build, because 24-hours for a complete game with original non-ripped graphics (kudos to him for using them) is actually a very short time.

    I also think because he is such an experienced programmer I bet it will take him a lot longer than say someone like Emanuele Feronato, who claims to create whole games in 45-minute plane trips (when you see the code, you appreciate why). I do wonder if Jeff will fall into the trap of wanting to make it sound on a code-design basis as well as game-design – and that takes precious time. Can’t wait to see how this plays out 🙂