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Announcements

Unleash Your Creativity With Nintendo’s Game Builder Garage

May 6, 2021 By ausretrogamer

Game Builder Garage NintendoLEARN TO MAKE GAMES FROM THE MINDS AT NINTENDO WITH GAME BUILDER GARAGE FOR NINTENDO SWITCH


Have fun learning to create games with the new game-making game launching on 11th June


Have you ever dreamed of creating your own video game? That dream can become a reality with Game Builder Garage, launching exclusively for Nintendo Switch on 11th June. With this new software launching in Nintendo eShop and in stores across Australia and New Zealand, kids and parents – and everyone in between! – can have fun learning to create and share their own video games. By connecting colourful creatures called Nodon, anyone can enjoy learning how to create their own game through fun, guided lessons that cover the basics of visual game programming, and no prior experience is necessary! To get an idea of what Nodon look like and how they work in the game, as well as getting a taste of the types of games you can create, check out the Game Builder Garage announcement trailer below:


source: NintendoAU

Nodon are creatures with big personalities that are used to help build your games from the ground up. There are dozens of Nodon in Game Builder Garage, each with a unique function, and you can learn how to build games just by connecting them in various ways. For example, you can create and move a human-like character with an analogue stick just by connecting Stick Nodon with Person Nodon! Thus you will get to learn the basics of game programming in a fun and intuitive way. You’ll be able to create a wide variety of different types of video games too – from side-scrolling platformers, to kart racers, to space blasters!

When you first boot up Game Builder Garage, you can start with Lesson Mode. Here, you will meet the colourful and quirky Nodon, the creatures that you will use to learn the basic concept of visual programming in step-by-step, interactive lessons you can take at your own pace. These lessons are designed to be fun, engaging and perfect for people of all experience levels, with checkpoints in between for players to test their knowledge by solving small puzzles or tasks.

In Free Programming mode, you can bring your own game ideas to life by putting all the skills learned in the lessons to the test. With the simple press of a button, you can swap between the programming and game screen to quickly try out your creation and see how it plays.

If you’re looking for a little inspiration, you can exchange and download games with friends and family over the internet or via a local wireless connection.* This is a great way to not only show off some of your own creations, but also to check out games created by other players. You can even go into Free Programming mode to pull the curtain back on the programming of games uploaded by other players to study them and learn some tricks of your own!

While Game Builder Garage can be controlled with a Joy-Con controller, Nintendo Switch Pro Controller or the controls of Nintendo Switch Lite**, you can also build games using a compatible mouse that is plugged into the USB port on the Nintendo Switch dock. This control option might be easier for people who love the feel of a mouse when navigating the software.

Game Builder Garage launches on 11th June, with a suggested retail price of AU$49.95.

** If playing on Nintendo Switch Lite, additional accessories (sold separately) are required and gameplay controls may differ. Visit the Nintendo Support website for more information.

 


Press release supplied by Nintendo Australia



Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: 333399, coding, ff6600, Game Builder Garage, game coding, game dev, game development, GameDev, IndieDev, Learn to code, learn to create video games, nintendo, Nintendo ANZ, Nintendo Australia, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, NintendoAU, Nodon, Video Games

Haggis Pinball Unleashes Fathom Revisited

April 27, 2021 By ausretrogamer

It is a proud day for us Australians when our very own pinball manufacturer, Haggis Pinball, takes on the might from the US with their brand new pinball release!

Hot on the heels of their maiden Celts pinball machine (Ed: which is ace!) is the newly announced Fathom Revisited, which comes in two trim levels; Classic and Mermaid Editions. The company is giving their Clan Haggis members first crack at these machines (till midnight April 28), and then the order banks will be thrown wide open.

With competitive pricing (Classic Edition $9,500 / Mermaid Edition $11,500), bulletproof build quality and revised game code, Haggis Pinball has just captured the imagination and attention of all pinball lovers around the world, us included!

What makes this new announcement even more intriguing is the fact that Haggis Pinball were successful in obtaining the licensing rights (from Planetary Pinball Supply) to (re)make 5 classic Bally pinball machines from the early 1980s, starting with Fathom. Since this business model of remakes has been proven successful by Chicago Gaming Company (CGC), Haggis Pinball has definitely scored a major coup.

With their build quality being top notch, Haggis Pinball is fast becoming the hot pinball manufacturer in the world. With their move to newer and larger premises and with a build capacity of 50 machines per month, they are definitely a force to be reckoned with in the pinball world.

For more information about Fathom Revisited, head to This Week In Pinball or listen to the latest Pinball Profile episode with Jeff Teolis and Damian Hartin (Haggis Pinball CEO).

PS: Read our interview with Haggis Pinball CEO, Damian Hartin from November 2019 right here.

Haggis Pinball CEO, Damian Hartin
image source: Haggis Pinball

 


Filed Under: Announcements, Pinball Tagged With: Bally, Bally Fathom, Bally Pinball, CELTS, Clan Haggis, Damian Hartin, Fathom, Fathom Classic Edition, Fathom Mermaid Edition, Fathom Revisited, Haggis Pinball, Jeff Teolis, pinball, pinball news, Pinball Press, Pinball Profile, pinballpress, Planetary Pinball Supply, PPS, Series Ticket, TWIP

Recalbox 7.2 – The Awesome New Update!

April 23, 2021 By ausretrogamer

Recalbox 7.2 – released on April 23 at 9pm (GMT+2)!

Hey peeps, here is some awesome news that the Recalbox folks have shared with us – this Friday, April 23rd, at 9:00pm (GMT+2), they will finally launch their long awaited 7.2 update, packed with heaps of new features, new systems, functionalities and optimisations!


source: Recalbox via YouTube

To recap what is new and improved in Recalbox 7.2, which there are many, we thought we’d share the major highlights right here:

MAJOR NEW FEATURES:

Light-Gun Games!

Play more than 250 lightgun games on many different systems (Arcade, Megadrive/MegaCD, Dreamcast, and Playstation to name just a few), no configuration needed! Now gathered under a new “LightGun” virtual system.

Better 3D performance on Raspberry Pi 4!

The team has optimised Recalbox, allowing almost all N64, Dreamcast, Naomi & Atomiswave games to run at full speed on Raspberry Pi 4!

Overclock the Raspberry Pi 4!

And for even more performance, we’ve tested and chosen 4 optimal overclock settings on the Raspberry Pi 4. Overclocking your Pi will increase the frame-rate on CPU and GPU intensive games.

Improved PSX/N64/PSP performance on ODROID-GO Advance/Super

Play almost all PSX, N64, and PSP games at full speed on both ODROID-GO Advance & ODROID-GO Super!



NEW FEATURES:

New systems!

5 new supported systems are added to the nearly 120 systems already supported in Recalbox:

  • Watara Supervision: This cheap Game Boy clone was manufactured by Watara in 1992. It was later licensed to several third-parties, and released under many different names. 69 games have been officially released.
  • PICO-8: A virtual console similar to the TIC-80 with over 4000 games available, largely popularised by the incredible success of “Celeste”, the famous platformer initially developed by Noel Berry and Maddy Thorson on Pico-8 in 2015, before being released on all modern platforms in 2018!
  • Pocket Challenge V2: A Japanese handheld console that specialises in educational games.
  • Elektronika BK: BK (БК), Russian abbreviation for “бытовой компьютер” – “home computer” is a series of Soviet 16-bit home computers, developed under the brand Electronika by NPO Scientific Center. Elektronika BK was the only “official” Soviet home computer. The BK-0010/BK-0011 and Terak 8510/A were manufactured from 1984 to 1993 and sold at the price of 650 Rubles, which was… almost 4 months of average salary!
  • EPOCH SuperCassette Vision: The 2nd generation EPOCH console released in 1984 and counting a total of 30 officially released games and 3 unreleased. The porting of this Japanese emulator to Libretro is a Recalbox exclusive!

Dual JoyCon support (Nintendo Switch controllers)

Recalbox now supports both left and right JoyCons! In addition, you can use both JoyCons as a single combined controller!

Bluetooth Audio

Connect your Bluetooth headphones or speakers! (just pair them like you would a controller, for now).

New cores

3 new emulators are also available, depending on your hardware:

  • Libretro NeoCD added as NeoGeoCD core: loads CDs so much faster!
  • Libretro DOSBOX Pure: Don’t struggle with complicated DOS setups anymore! These games
    have never been more plug & play!
  • Libretro-craft: A Minecraft clone available on x86 & x64 platforms only.

Hide pre-installed games

Pre-installed games are no longer copied into the user share. They stay on the system and can be hidden/shown using an option from the settings menu.



IMPROVEMENTS:

Main menu

The main menus have all been rewritten. They’re now faster, consume less memory, and are more intuitive. The most useful options have been moved so they’re faster to access. Reboots can now be delayed. This way, you can configure everything you need to before having to restart.

New options have been added:

  • Swap A & B buttons: change the way you validate and cancel actions.
  • Factory reset: reset all configurations (only keeps your games, saves, and scraped data)

Sound

In-game video sound/music is now available! You can choose between the following sound mode:

  • Background music only (EmulationStation music)
  • Video sound only (scraped videos)
  • Background music AND video sound mixed
  • Background music OR video sound (when playing videos in the new Gameclip screensaver)

Internal Scraper

The internal scraper has been greatly enhanced:

  • Improved menus. Now more intuitive, less clicks required to get things done.
  • Better region priority management: get better metadata for your region.
  • Ignore file referenced from .cue/.m3u and other multi-file roms: no more scraping the same
    game twice!

System

  • Check image integrity when updating Recalbox
  • Added a new Reset to Factory Settings option to reset all Recalbox & emulator settings
    without losing any user data: games, saves, screenshots, music, etc.

Emulators

Many emulators have been updated and/or reconfigured for new features, or to achieve better performance.

  • Dolphin updated to version 5.0-13178.
  • Stella (A2600) updated to fix lots of bugs (eg: Pitfall II)
  • Supermodel updated to version 839
  • UAE updated to support CHD
  • Np2Kai (PC98) updated to fix several issues
  • Odyssey² updated to add Europeans/French models (new RetroArch options)
  • Mupen64plus-next updated for better compatibility and performance! This core is now available on almost all platforms and performs very well!
  • FBNeo updated to support latest game additions
  • Libretro Duckstation is now available on all platforms!
  • Beetle-Saturn updated to improve compatibility (PC only)
  • Amiberry updated to version 3.3 for better performance & new options
  • Libetro-Parallel-n64 updated and fixed on almost all boards (except low-end PIs)
  • VIC20 is now shown as its own system, instead of only being available under C64
  • Videopac+ is now available as its own system, instead of being available as Odyssey² sub-model
  • Libretro MAME has been optimised to run full-speed on low-end PCs.
  • ScummVM updated to v2.3.0 and merged with ResidualVM



BUG FIXES:

Lots of bug fixes, as usual:

  • Fixed the ODROID-GO Advance v1 controller
  • Fixed the 8bitdo NES30 Pro rev1 controller mapping
  • Fixed missing BIOS MD5 & other minor errors in BIOS database
  • Removed useless BIOS files (PalmOS)
  • Fixed the Retroarch shortcut on ODROID-GO Advance
  • Fixed shaders on ODROID-GO Advance
  • Fixed lost support of open and WPA-PSK-SHA256 WiFi keys
  • Correction a fan problem with the NESPi 4 Case

TECHNICAL FEATURES:

Buildroot

Buildroot has been bumped to version 2020.11.

Kernels

Linux kernels have been bumped to:

  • 5.4 for the ODROID XU4
  • 5.8 for both x86 and x64
  • 5.10 for all Raspberry Pis
  • Both ODROID-GO Advance & GO Super use a special Rockchip 4.4 kernel.

PulseAudio

We’ve moved from a purse ALSA audio backend to PulseAudio! Recalbox now supports more audio devices — and even Bluetooth audio!

image source: Recalbox


 

There you go peeps, to say we can’t wait for Recalbox 7.2 would be a massive understatement!



Filed Under: Announcements, Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: classic gaming, Emulators, free retro gaming, Geek, Lightgun, Linux, nerd, oldschool, PICO8, Raspberry Pi, Recalbox, Recalbox 7.2, Retro Gamers, Retro Gaming, Retrogamer, Video Games, Vintage gaming

The New Pinball Hall Of Fame in Vegas

April 22, 2021 By ausretrogamer

We have fond memories of our times in Vegas. Travelling to the US was never complete for us without popping into the desert city to catch a show, fly over Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon, and of course, hit the Pinball Hall of Fame (PHoF).

Since our last visit at the Pinball Hall of Fame in 2015, a lot has changed! Pinball Hall of Fame’s Tim Arnold bought a large parcel of land on the strip (4925 Las Vegas Blvd South), which allowed for a huge building to be erected (25,000 square feet to be exact!) to house the many many pinball and arcade machines that the PHoF had in their old location (on and in storage. When we stumbled upon Debbie Courson Smith’s Facebook post about her visit to the new Pinball Hall of Fame, we were quite chuffed to see how far along Tim and his crew had come since we saw an empty lot that long ago.

According to Debbie, this was a soft launch, with the grand opening scheduled for July. Once air travel is safe, we know where we are going again 😉

PS: If you want to see how the old Pinball Hall Of Fame looked like, check out this post.

image source: Debbie Courson Smith via Facebook

 

 

Filed Under: Announcements, Pinball, Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: Arcade, arcade parlour, Las Vegas, New Pinball Hall of Fame, Old School, PHOF, pinball, Pinball Hall Of Fame, pinball machines, Pinball Museum, Pinball Press, pinball wizard, pinballpress, play pinball, Sin City, Tim Arnold, Vegas Strip, Viva Las Vegas

New He-Man related Documentary, ‘Faking Filmation’ is now LIVE on Kickstarter!

April 12, 2021 By ausretrogamer

Faking FilmationWhen we got the email from Rob McCallum about a new MOTU related doco, we sat up and took note. We had previously backed the Power Of Grayskull documentary, which was darn awesome. So when Rob’s email advised us of the new Faking Filmation Kickstarter, we knew we had to jump on it right away!

The Faking Filmation documentary delves in the history of cartoons, with lots of attention to Filmation – the pioneering animation studio that helped start ‘Saturday Morning Cartoons’ and revolutionised weekday afternoon cartoons with He-Man and She-Ra.

But wait, there is more! This new project tackles all that cartoon goodness and wraps it around the story of He-Man mega fan, James Eatock, who has spent the last 3.5 years crafting his own unofficial He-Man cartoon called, “The Return of Faker.” James was just about to release the unofficial cartoon when he was hit with a cease and desist letter preventing him from doing it. Now, he’s on a mission to overcome this obstacle and share it with the world – how awesome is that! 

If you want more Masters of The Universe documentary content, or a look at cartoon history, or you just want to see James’ amazing work (and his process to pull it off), then jump on the Faking Filmation Kickstarter right now!

Faking Filmation Kickstarterimage source: Faking Filmation via Kickstarter

 

Filed Under: Announcements, Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: 282828, 80s, Cartoon, cartoons, Documentary, Faking Filmation, Film, Filmation, Geek, He Man, Heman, James Eatock, Kickstarter, Masters Of The Universe, Mattel, MOTU, NBC, nerd, Nintendo Quest, Orko, Power Of Grayskull, Retro, Rob McCallum, She-Ra, Skeletor, tbt, The Return of Faker, throwback, Universal, VHS tape

PSA: Free Fusion Retro Books

April 6, 2021 By ausretrogamer

Fusion Retro BooksThe good folks at Fusion Retro Books have announced that they have a number of their books and magazine PDF collections FREE of charge for a limited time!

Go and check out the freebies and download what you like. Be quick, as this won’t last much longer! Happy reading.

source: Fusion Retro Books

 

Filed Under: Announcements, Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: Amiga, C64, Chris Wilkins, Crash Annual, Crash Magazine, Free Fusion Retro Books, Free Retro Books, Fusion Annual, Fusion Retro Books, Geek, History of Ocean Software, magazine, retro books, retro computing, retro gaming books, tbt, The Story of US Gold, throwback, ZX Sprectrum, Zzap 64, ZZap! 64 Micro Action Issue 1, Zzap!64

Funny April Fool’s Jokes

April 1, 2021 By ausretrogamer

Don’t you just love April Fool’s day? Well, it depends, if you are at the end of an elaborate April Fool’s joke, then the answer is probably no. We have fallen for a few April Fool’s jokes over the years, so we know how that feels.

But, today is a day to reflect on some pretty cool and very clever April Fool’s jokes from some well known brands from around the world.

We wonder if anyone fell for any of these…………


 

First cab off the rank, it’s EB Games’ The Drip Limited Edition Apparel! Actually, they plan to release this apparel to raise money for charity, so it’s all in good fun!

The next few are food based, so don’t get your taste buds too excited peeps!

Oh gosh, we would love this Tim Tam Spread! Sorry Nutella.
source: Imgur 

Introducing the Domino’s Bread – so yummy! Well at least you won’t have garlic breath 😉
source: Imgur

Um, would anyone like a Coriander Biscuit from Subway?
source: Imgur

Saving the best food based April Fool’s joke for last! Would you DARE to drink this?
source: Imgur

Ok, enough of the food based April Fool’s! Let’s see what else we found today!

Oh look, SBS is releasing 3 exciting features on their On-Demand service!
source: SBS

Introducing Jeep Chameleon, a new colourway with revolutionary nano-guanine molecular technology to blend seamlessly into the wilderness.
*If you find it, you can keep it.

One for gamers, match your PC RGB aesthetic with Razer’s Rapunzel Chroma Hair Dye—the world’s first RGB haircare product for a look that’s always lit!

source: Razer

And last but not least, our friends at Ikea Australia got creative with their new range, IKEA HUND COUTURE – Haute Couture Outfits for Dogs!

source: IKEA Australia

 

Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: April, April 1, April 1st, April Fools, Domino's, EB Games, fun, Funny, gaming, Geek, geeky, IKEA, Jeep, jokes, subway, Video Games

2021 World Video Game Hall of Fame Finalists

March 23, 2021 By ausretrogamer

We have featured The Strong’s ‘World Video Game Hall of Fame‘ finalists from previous years on here, so for 2021, we were quite chuffed to see a number of our favourite video games make the final 12 cut!

From FIFA International Soccer, Tron, Mattel Football, to Pole Position, StarCraft and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?, we would say that most retro gamers would be quite satisfied with this year’s hall of fame inductees.

Oh yeah, gaming fans can vote for their favourite finalists from now until March 25 (US time) as part of the Player’s Choice ballot at World Video Game Hall of Fame.

image source: The Strong

 

Filed Under: Announcements, History, Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: 2021 World Video Game Hall of Fame Finalists, Animal Crossing, Call of Duty, FarmVille, FIFA International Soccer, Guitar Hero, Mattel Football, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Pole Position, Portal, Retro, Retro Gamers, Retro Gaming, retrogaming, Starcraft, tbt, The Strong, The Strong Museum, throwback, Tron, Video Games, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?, World Video Game Hall of Fame

Over 700 PS2 Prototypes And Unreleased Demos Unleashed by The Hidden Palace

March 22, 2021 By ausretrogamer

Whoa, this is mind blowing – last night, the video game preservation group, The Hidden Palace, released over 700 PlayStation 2 prototypes, early builds, E3, and press release demos in a massive (900GB) dump the group referred to as Project Deluge.

Introducing – Project Deluge, one of our biggest endeavors yet. Presented to you – over 700 PlayStation 2 prototypes have been archived for your enjoyment. This part is only the beginning, so stay tuned for more! https://t.co/D8doin5GZK Enjoy and have fun! pic.twitter.com/cxQs1vm2QF

— The Hidden Palace (@HiddenPalaceOrg) March 21, 2021

You can read more about this massive undertaking here.

 

Filed Under: Announcements, Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: early builds, gamers, PlayStation 2, Project Deluge, prototype, PS2, PS2 demo, PS2 E3, PS2 prototypes, Retro, Retro Gamers, Retro Gaming, retrogaming, tbt, The Hidden Palace, throwback

Free Retro Gaming Encyclopaedias

March 11, 2021 By ausretrogamer

Who doesn’t like free stuff? We sure do and that is why it is our duty to tell you about these latest retro gaming freebies!

PDF publisher, DaddaRuleKonge, have a swag of their popular retro gaming systems encyclopaedias all for free! No matter if you are an arcade, Atari, Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation, SNK, Vectrex or toy fan from any era, there are enough free encyclopaedias here to satisfy anyone’s interests!

Oh yeah, even though these are free (for now), you can also pay/name your price to say thank you to DaddaRuleKonge for their hard work.

So what are you waiting for, go and get downloading!

 

Filed Under: Announcements, Retro Gaming Culture

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