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PAX Aus 2018 Cosplay Highlights

November 1, 2018 By ausretrogamer

PAX Aus would not be half the event that it is without the spectacle cosplay!

We were lucky enough to have our good friends at REE Photography and Ms Ausretrogamer capture the amazing cosplay while roaming the grounds of PAX Aus. So sit back and enjoy the highlights, but be warned, you will be thoroughly gobsmacked by the spectacle!

Zel T and Combustible Props – photo by: Ms. Ausretrogamer

photo by: Ms. Ausretrogamer

Kuma and Junko (aka: Kelly Deluxe) – photo by: Ms. Ausretrogamer

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REE Photography
The new and awesome photography service that captures all of your special moments from pop culture and gaming events.

Like REE Photography on Facebook

 

 

Filed Under: Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: comics, Cosplay, Cosplayers, NPC, PAX, PAX Aus, PAX Aus 2018, PAX Aus Cosplay, PAX Australia, PAX Cosplay, PAXAus, PAXAus 2018, PAXAus Cosplay, REE Photography, video game

ToeJam & Earl Are Making A Comeback!

June 29, 2018 By ausretrogamer

Ah good ole ToeJam & Earl – we loved these two funky dudes when they landed on our Sega Mega Drive all those years ago. Well guess what, they are back!

ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove, the upcoming fourth entry of the beloved, funkadelic action roguelike series, releases later this year on consoles and PC.

Greg Johnson, founder, HumaNature Studios, has stated that, “We ARE releasing this year! Right now we have our sights set on a fall (spring in Australia) release. We will be making a specific release plan announcement in regards to dates as soon as we have that nailed down”.  Greg went on to say, “We are also going to be opening a closed beta within the next couple of weeks for our early-access backers, and we’ll be looking for your feedback! Also, the Nintendo Switch version of the game is just about ready to be submitted for certification by Nintendo, and the other console versions are not too far behind”.

This is great news peeps. We’ll keep a close eye on this and provide updates as they come to hand via our social media channels (Twitter and Facebook). Gen funky!

image source: ToeJam & Earl: Back In The Groove

 

Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: Adult Swim Games, classic game, HumaNature Studios, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Sega Genesis, Sega Mega Drive, ToeJam & Earl, ToeJam & Earl: Back In The Groove, ToeJam and Earl, video game, Xbox One

Man Walks into a Bar and Sees a Pac-Man Machine

June 26, 2018 By David Cutler

Source: Steve Ringman/The Chronicle 1981

By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

I recently walked into a hipster bar that I had never been in before. I immediately felt slightly old. Everyone there was in their early twenties; some of them didn’t look old enough to order a beer. As I made my way past the bustling, long bar, I noticed something in the back corner of the place that I hadn’t seen in a longtime.

A large group of twentysomethings were gathered around an original Pac-Man arcade machine. I hadn’t seen a Pac-Man machine since I was a little kid. It was a smack of nostalgia in a place I didn’t expect it.

Like the Rubik’s Cube or the DeLorean DMC-12, Pac-Man is an 80s icon. Seeing a vintage machine with a group of Millennials playing it, made me curious. I sat at a small booth near the Pac-Man machine and watched the young group feed the machine quarters. They were having such a blast trying to see who could reach the highest score with one quarter.

source: ausretrogamer

After a few craft beers, I wanted to try my hand at Pac-Man; but they had taken over the machine. It was entertaining watching them shriek and groan when they got devoured by a ghost. It may’ve been the first time any of them had ever played the arcade version of Pac-Man, but I still wanted my turn.

Pac-Man brings people together. From the time the game was released in arcades in October 1980, Pac-Man has been a unifier that you could play with friends. Pac-Man is cross-generational. It seems simple at first, but as you keep playing, the difficulty of each stage keeps you addicted to clear the maze.

When Pac-Man was released in 1980, movie theatre owners and movie moguls were worried that the game would hurt the film industry. Pac-Man was taking money away from Paramount and 20th Century Fox. Pac-Man’s enormous popularity was short-lived, but at its height, movie studio executives had to be worried about how long they would be competing with the bright yellow machines.

I never got to play the Pac-Man machine in that bar that night, but I enjoyed watching the twentysomethings play a game that this October will turn 38-years-old. Will there ever be another Pac-Man? I doubt it.

source: ausretrogamer

 

Filed Under: History, Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: 000000, 1980s, 80s, 80s icon, Arcade, barcade, Classic Arcade Gaming, David Cutler, DC Cutler, Midway, Namco, Pac-Man, Pacman, Retro Game, retrogaming, Toru Iwatani, video game

Review – Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles

June 20, 2018 By ausretrogamer

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles opens up like a mix of Sea of Thieves and Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild; both excelled in creating a beautiful world with a sense of wonder and adventure, which is also Yonder’s greatest strength.

After creating a character with some very basic options (although you can customise him or her throughout the game with a wealth of cosmetic options such as clothes, hair dyes and other accessories to keep things interesting) you are thrown onto the island of Gemea where the game is set and free to explore the open world at your leisure. The game world is beautifully realised; whist it doesn’t surpass Breath of the Wild (but to be fair not many have), it does an admirable job in creating a large, interesting and vibrant world with lush forests, sunny beaches and snowy mountains. Graphically, it is one of the best on the Switch.

How it looks is where the similarities end between Yonder and the aforementioned games. With no enemies to kill or levels to grind, Yonder presents itself as a slow-paced exploration game filled with rather mundane tasks. The game’s myriad of largely lifeless NPCs dish out most of the side quests, usually involving collecting various resources around the world such as fodder, wood, stones, seeds etc using a set of contextual tools introduced early on in the game. For example, using sickles to cut grass, axe to chop trees, pickaxe to mine ore and so on. There is also the ability to run your own farm by building simple structures and rearing the exotic animals found in the game to store and generate resources.

The main story quest is painstakingly simple and the only real sense of progression comes from unlocking previously inaccessible areas of the map by dispersing the ‘murk’ (a mysterious dark shroud covering certain areas) by finding enough pet fairy ‘sprites’. There is no real sense of urgency to this though, as the Murk is not at all dangerous and there is no time limit or any order in which part of the map needs to be uncovered first.

I must confess that I usually like my games with a mature and engaging storyline, deep combat mechanics and RPG-like progression systems. However, I recently played through Yonder during a month long overseas holiday and found it to be the perfect companion game for such an occasion. It is something I could pick up and enjoy for a few minutes to half an hour at a time without the stress of levelling up or acquiring better gear to take on bigger bosses. Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is all about discovering its world at your own pace and having the most relaxed time doing so, and like what my 3-year-old daughter said when she watched me play, “it’s beautiful”.

 

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House
House plays pretty much anything and everything but has almost time for nothing. A devout beat’em up fan, House enjoys a round of captain commando every now and then and can never forget spending hours in dark arcades playing warriors of fate after school. Oh yeah, his favourite console of all time is the original Famicom!

 

 

 

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: House, Indie Game, IndieDev, Nintendo Switch Review, RPG, video game, Yonder, Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles Nintendo Switch, Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles review

The 13th Doll – A Fan Game of The 7th Guest

April 11, 2018 By ausretrogamer

Return to the Stauf Mansion this Halloween with The 13th Doll!

Let’s cut to the chase – The 13th Doll is a licensed fan game developed by Attic Door Productions which takes place within the cult classic The 7th Guest universe and as such, we thought we’d let you, retro-FMV-loving gamers know about it (Ed: unless you already knew about this)! Oh yeah, the game is slated for release on Halloween (October 31st 2018) on Steam, PC, Mac, and Linux.

Where were we then? Ah yeh, the developer, Attic Door Productions has released their official announcement trailer, which you can check out below. Spooky stuff!


source: Attic Door Producitons

The game is a followup to the classic game, The 7th Guest, a puzzle based horror game set in the haunted mansion of eccentric toy-maker Henry Stauf. The game was a technological landmark upon release, as well as the followup sequel, The 11th Hour, and was one of the first games to show full motion video sequences.

The 13th Doll picks up right after the events of The 7th Guest, where the protagonist, Tad, now resides in a mental institution, a result of the traumatic experiences in The 7th Guest. A new doctor arrives in the asylum, and the pair embark on a journey to return to The Stauf Mansion to bring catharsis to Tad and cure him of his demons. Plans go awry, and both characters find themselves separated and in peril, as they try to unlock the mysteries of The 13th Doll.

Game Features:

  • Full Motion Video Sequences filmed with over 10 actors
  • 26 unique, new puzzles
  • 35 rooms in 3 environments; and
  • The return of actor Robert Hirschboeck, reprising his role as Henry Stauf!

If this tickles your spooky retro gaming FMV nerve, then you can pre-order the game right now!

image source: The 13th Doll

 

Filed Under: Announcements, Modern Gaming, Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: Attic Door Productions, classic gaming, FMV, Full Motion Video, Henry Stauf, Retro Game, Retro Gaming, Stauf Mansion, Tad, The 11th Hour, The 13th Doll, The 7th Guest, video game, Video Games

Death Squared Review – Nintendo Switch

September 20, 2017 By Aaron Clement

Death Squared broke me.

Now, I don’t mean broke as in a “made me break stuff” kind of way. Rather that on multiple occasions Death Squared reduced me to a near-blubbering mess of a person struggling to comprehend just how I’d solve the puzzle facing me. Yet eventually I’d overcome it, but that fleeting euphoria would last as long as it took for the next level to appear. I’d even go as far to say that there were definitely times where it invoked memories of another isometric problem-solving game from my past, one that also featured two characters who drove me head over heels insane at the best of times…

Reminiscence aside, Death Squared is a 2017 3D isometric cooperative puzzle game from Sydney gamedev SMG Studios. It’s based around an incredibly simple concept: Move your AI ‘bots from point A to point B. That’s it! Sounds easy in concept, right? Once you start throwing lasers, moving platforms, and needing to coordinate moves into the mix, suddenly you’re heading towards ‘broken’ territory. As an added bonus Death Squared is as couch co-op friendly as it gets, meaning that it’s another delightful game to play with people you don’t want to have to like for much longer.

While Death Squared can be enjoyed with up to 3 other people, I opted to spend the bulk of my time slogging through the 80 level single player story mode. I started out simple enough – move from the starting point to the round circles that serve as the goal. As the levels progress, more and more elements are introduced that forced me to use the tricks I’d learnt in a completely different way. The progression feels natural, and I never found the difficulty being artificially ridiculous just for the sake of slowing my progress down. There are times where it does feel like a struggle to push through lots of levels in a single sitting, with my 20 minute bus ride each day feeling like an optimal playtime before I started feeling broken and needing to stop. Your mileage may vary here, but it’s something that is negated by the more people you have to play it with.

Trying to enlist some celebrity assistance

So what about the story you ask? It revolves around a slacker named Dave (Voiced by Rice Pirate Mick) and his virtual assistant IRIS (also voiced by Rice Pirate Mick!). Dave’s a level 1 supervising technician at a futuristic robotics company who has one job: to monitor the AI Test ‘Bots (you!) as they go through their paces. Mick’s delivery and timing on his lines is fantastic, and really sells the banter between the two. This all plays out in the background as you work through the story mode along with the odd company email load screen, and complements the mode well.

When I’m Sixty-fouuuur

It’d be harder if the controls were unwieldy, but beyond a couple of times where I did something dumb and found myself getting stuck on the geometry, the twin-stick control method works pretty well. Left stick moves the Red ‘bot, while the right stick moves the Blue ‘bot, and this setup even plays into the puzzles in later stages. This can make for some rather tricky times when playing solo, as my brain would often assume the left stick corresponded to ‘bot on the of the screen, only to have the other one suicide off a ledge. I even tried giving one of the Joycons to my 5 year old, but he proved to be more frustrating than trying to just do it myself. To him, watching the colourful square dive off the edge and explode was the absolute height of hilarity! The edge detection on the platforms can be a little touchy at times, as I’d find a bot tumbling to its doom despite swearing I had ample space to maneuver. These moments were rare though, which is reassuring for a game that involves some fairly precise movements at times.

Booooom

One thing I’ll say is that this is a game that feels more at home on the Switch than any other platform I’ve seen it on (which is to say, Death Squared is on pretty much everything!). Given the Switch ships with two Joycons by default and the “pick up and play” nature of the system, this makes Death Squared a really good first game to grab if you’ve just gotten the console and want some co-op games to play. Add a pro controller or two into the mix, and there’s a party right there!

Did I mention it’s also only $14.99 on the Nintendo eShop (and slightly higher on other platforms)? Given there’s a good 8-10 hours of play in the story mode, and many, many more hours in the Party or super-hard Vault, Death Squared is definitely worth checking out.

Death Squared was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch. Played story mode to completion, and ran through a handful of the Party mode levels. Review code provided with thanks to SMG Studios.

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blahjediAaron Clement
Tassie based retro gaming guy. Co-host of the Press Play On Tape Podcast. Father of 3 and married to the very tolerant Kellie Clement. Coffee powered!

Follow Aaron Clement on Twitter and Instagram

 

 

Filed Under: Modern Gaming, Retro Gaming Culture, Reviews Tagged With: Aaron Clement, blahjedi, Death Squared, Joycon, Nintendo Switch, Review, video game

Jam It: White’s Men Can Jump

July 10, 2015 By ausretrogamer

JamIt_C64_TitleAt our recent Commodore Club meet we had the pleasure of meeting Leigh White from Throwback Games and got to play a pre-release of his upcoming C64 basketball game, Jam It.

We were so blown away by the game, we couldn’t believe that one person was responsible in the creation of this amazing piece of software for the C64! Think NBA Jam TE on a vertical half court with heaps of features and stats to keep the most ardent of basketball fans interested. Add some tight gameplay mechanics with loads of intensity and 4 player support in the mix, and you have a game that is super addictive and fun. Sports games players will be salivating on their joysticks with this one! It truly doesn’t get any better than this on the C64!

We bailed up the creator of Jam It to ask him a few questions that we know all of you are busting to find out about. Let’s go and shoot some hoops with Leigh White!

AUSRETROGAMER [ARG]: Hey Leigh, let’s start by telling us a bit about yourself and how you got into making games?
Leigh White [LW]: I’m relatively new at making games. When I had a C64 as a kid I attempted some things in BASIC and did a lot of type-ins from books and magazines, however Jam It is the first game I’ve actually completed.

I started it in late 2010 just as a side hobby to take my mind off work. My day job involves maintaining IT systems and in whatever spare time I had I was practicing guitar and writing music as a distraction. For whatever reason during a lunch break, I did some research on XNA Game Studio and had the idea of attempting to make an overhead race car game. I thought I’d soon give up and return to guitar (who wants more hours of the day in front of a computer!?!?) however I stuck with it for a couple of weeks and got a very basic prototype going.

At the same time I was doing some experiments in assembly language on the C64 to see how difficult it would be to write a game. To explain better – as you don’t decide on a whim to do this! – when I was younger, I spent ridiculous amounts of time on the C64 and I still enjoy playing games today on emulators – equally as much as playing modern games. There’s also a couple of online outlets who sell C64 games made by current developers and I was getting into those.

Anyhow, with my C64 experiment I had reached the point where I had a basic prototype tennis game and started having ideas for a basketball game. So now I was at a cross-roads. I knew making a game was going to take a lot of time and would take away time from music. The choice was then to make a game for the C64 (where there is a very limited audience, and the chance of a huge financial reward is zero) or make a game for a modern platform (mobile, PC and console gaming was growing rapidly, and lots of money to be made if you get everything right) … so I chose the C64 …

A lot of it actually came down to determining the reality of what I could realistically complete. For modern games, the sky is the limit with what you can create, whereas on the C64 (or any retro platform) you have very restrictive limits with what you can do with graphics, sound and memory. Having those limits meant there would be a forced end point regardless of me having millions of other feature ideas. I also knew I’d enjoy doing the C64/basketball thing as they were a big part of my life growing up.

I had the basketball game clearly in my mind and thought maybe I could have it done in 12-18 months and if I enjoyed the experience, move on and attempt a modern game. Well here I am now 4 and a half years later, Jam It is being released on the 12th of July 2015 and I’ve got more C64 game ideas than before!

The man behind the brilliant Jam It C64 game, Leigh White
JamIt_Leigh_landscape

ARG: How did the idea of Jam It come about?
LW: The main inspiration was from a C64 game One on One – Dr J vs Larry Bird. It was one of the first games I had as a kid and considering it’s age, it is actually an excellent basketball game. It gets a lot of things right with the gameplay – how it’s all about out maneuvering your opponent to get a clear shot close to the ring, letting you post up, do fading shots, dunk and manage your energy.

The only issue I thought, it was a bit too slow – only until now, playing on an emulator in NTSC mode I realised why this is. I *think* the game was made in the US – or at least for that market – where NTSC systems/TVs have a faster refresh rate. We then got the same game with no changes to compensate for the slower PAL refresh rate, and hence, the sluggishness.

There was also another not well known game on the C64 called GBA Basketball. It was a 2-on-2 full court game with great graphics, some more tactical play elements and 2 players as team mates option but felt restrictive compared to ‘One on One’. For example, you couldn’t do fading jump shots and dunks were a fixed animation and didn’t have the action ‘wow’ factor you get in watching a pro game of basketball. Regardless, it was still fun but not in a way you’d initially expect.

So really Jam It is a mash-up of these two games from my younger game playing days with some extras added along the way. My aim from the start was to make players feel the excitement you get from a real game. To achieve this, the direction I ended up taking was to make it more an intense arcade sports action game. There is a lot of strategy involved but it’s all about making quick decisions in the moment, much like the real game.

As an overall package, it really is an attempt to fit as much into 64KB that is what you get in pro-basketball – the dunks, extreme shots, exciting plays, nail-biting finishes, action replays, stats and cheerleaders!

Thrilling 3 pointers!
JamIt_3pointers

ARG: How long did the entire project take – from the ideas phase to completion?
LW: The best conservative estimate I have is around 750-800 hours … I’d actually say it’s more. My routine is generally to get up very early in the morning and work on it for anywhere between 30 minutes to a couple of hours before work. After most sessions I’ll make a backup, but sometimes I’ll be working for hours on just one bug. I’m up to backup version 439. Some of those might only have been about 30 minutes work, whereas others might have 5+ hours.

Mind you, this is all spread over 4 and a half years which I actually feel that has benefited the development. This is in the sense that I’ll have an idea but I won’t be able to try it at least for a day or two. By the time I get around to coding, the idea might have morphed into something better or been scrapped entirely. Similarly, for ideas that I have put in the game – I play them for a bit, get a break and return to play them in another session and have time to decide if they really add to it or not. There’s plenty of features that have been ripped out entirely to make way for new ones.

Let’s see that alley-oop on instant replay!
JamIt_AlleyOop

ARG: What was the hardest part of making Jam It?
LW: Apart from spending hours trying to detect bugs caused by the game randomly overwriting its own code, I’d have to say dealing with the memory and CPU constraints. The limitations are a positive and negative in the sense that you really have to identify and prioritise early on what the important things you want to happen are, and build those in. It becomes very problematic if you later think of another great feature but to put it in means sacrificing an existing feature because you’ve run out of memory or CPU cycles.

What I mean by ‘CPU cycles’ is that the C64 on a PAL (Australian) TV refreshes 50 times per second. Within that 1/50 of a second you have 19565 CPU cycles to work with in executing game code, so you need to be efficient with what you write, especially when some instructions can take 6 cycles just to store a value in a memory location!

The other difficult thing was not knowing if I would ever complete it. I hit a few big bugs which made me question if I’d be able to get through them, and even in the early stages, just programming the code to get the ball to make its way to the ring from any position on court was problematic. There’s actually a clever algorithm for achieving this called ‘Bresenham’s line algorithm‘ and was devised way back in 1962! It’s great having the algorithm but I then had to translate it into assembly language suitable for my purposes. In a modern language you could knock it out in under 20 lines of code, but in my case it was 80+ lines of instructions.

It really wasn’t until I was about 3/4 of the way through making the game that I was confident I could complete it. I had left sound and music fairly late in the process and it was yet another challenge, but it would be pointless releasing the game without that. There’s a great tool on PC called GoatTracker for writing C64 music. The thing is, you really need to understand how the C64 sound chip works while getting a good work out in the hexidecimal numbering system.

Comprehensive stats for the statistician in you!
JamIt_Stats

ARG: There are lots of great features in Jam It (we love the slo-mo shot and instant replay among many others) – what is your best feature in the game?
LW: I really like the slo-mo (highlight) shots too. That came out of an accident while searching for a graphical bug. I had to make the play slow down dramatically as soon as the player jumped with the ball to spot the issue. As soon as it happened, I thought this was a great way to get more extreme looking dunks into the game. The way it works now is you get 3 ‘highlight shots’ per game, and can activate one whenever you have the ball. The next shot you take will be in slow motion, giving you the opportunity to do Jordan-esque dunks or take a crazy long distance shot. If you time it correctly, you’ll get a guaranteed score, so they’re handy when you’re a long way behind or as a buzzer beater.

The action replays I’m also really happy with – the idea was borrowed (stolen!) from ‘One on One’ and makes a huge difference in multi-player games where you can show off the amazing shot you just did. It actually takes up a fair bit of memory but it’s worth the sacrifice. Every second screen refresh, the game writes all of the sprite objects’ position, animation frame and colours to memory which can then be triggered for playback after a goal is scored.

The commentary can be entertaining too. After a goal is scored there’ll be a random phrase generated. Some of these are pre-written but many of them are a random arrangement of basketball jargon and obscure adjectives.

Aside from the usual basketball things like being able to shoot, you can do alley oop pass/dunks, defensive switches, steal from your team mate and block their shot. It’s even possible to give yourself an alley oop dunk – you won’t see that in NBA 2K games! This one wasn’t deliberately put in the game – it was an accidental discovery during testing – and not sure that it’s legal in the game but that doesn’t matter.

Enjoy the half-time show!
JamIt_hires_cheerleaders

ARG: We enjoyed playing the pre-release at our recent Commodore Club meet, how has the feedback been so far?
LW: The feedback has been way better than I ever imagined. I first took it to AVCon 2014 in Adelaide, which is a huge gaming/cosplay expo. I didn’t even think I’d get accepted – since it is a game for an old system – but I did, and went with no expectations. To my surprise, kids, parents and gamers alike were very positive about it – they could pickup the controls easily even if they didn’t understand basketball and appreciated that for all the detailed touches to replicate the basketball experience (within the 8 bit world constraints), it doesn’t take itself too seriously with its gameplay firmly leaning to an arcade game feel. I even find myself struggling with new basketball games getting used to all the button combinations. On the C64 you’re limited to one button and surprisingly that’s enough to be able to do all the actions that you need.

The thing that has really helped is that it supports anywhere from 1 to 4 human players, making it a great social and competitive game. The solo player mode has enough challenge with bonus unlockables to give you incentive to play through too. Once you start adding extra human players, that’s when it really stands out – there’s nothing more competitive than seeing 4 players locked in a tied game with 10 seconds left on the clock!

I also had the opportunity to run a demo of it for a few hours at PAX Aus 2014 and the Freeplay Fete 2015 and the response was equally as positive. Many people who had C64s in the ’80s were shocked but happy to hear that there were new games being developed today. I’m hoping that this adds to the support for other developer’s games in the C64 community – it’s a hobby purely done for the enjoyment and nostalgia rather than any possible financial reward.

Jam It – it will be a slam dunk!
JamIt_comingJuly12

ARG: When will Jam It be officially released and where can we get our grubby mits on this awesome game?
LW: It will be available to purchase as a digital download on July 12 2015 at itch.io ($2.99USD) – with the digital download you can play it using an emulator (needs to be installed on your PC/Mac/console/handheld) or on your C64 if you have a suitable hardware add-on.

The download package will include a pre-configured copy of the VICE C64 emulator for Windows so you can get started straight away. Anyone who is still unsure about emulation can just drop me a message via the contact form on our site at Throwback Games and I’ll try my best to assist.

The great thing about VICE is that it can emulate the C64 Protovision 4 interface adapter so you can run 4 controllers. Instructions for how to do this are included with the game.

Keep an eye out on the following sites for a direct link to purchase the game when it becomes available: Throwback Games, Facebook and on Twitter.

There is also a Commodore 64 cartridge, disk and tape release in the works. These are almost ready and release dates will be announced very soon after the digital download. Keep an eye on the above sites and also: Psytronik (disk/tape) and RGCD (cartridge).

Whet your b-balling appetite!

ARG: Any future projects you could reveal to us here?
LW: If Jam It miraculously sold amazingly well (i.e. in the hundreds of copies), then I might consider making a conversion for modern systems just to make it more accessible to a wider audience. I also like the idea of writing a comprehensive ‘making of’ package including key versions of the game with features that never made the final cut.

I have a couple of C64 prototype games sitting there, one being a tennis game, which again, supports 1-4 players, so it would make a good follow up to Jam It (ARG: Oh man, yes please!). The other is a split screen motorbike racing game, similar to Excite Bike for the NES, but with the added bonus of 2 human players to race against each other (ARG: I think I am going to faint!). You can do flips to build up bonus turbo boosts and it has the working title of ‘Motorman’.

There’s a lot of ideas but the issue is having time more than anything else. I don’t think I could justify quitting my day job to make C64 games at the moment!

Leigh’s next BIG gaming projects for the C64?  – Tennis and Motorman!
JamIt_Tennis

JamIt_Motorman

As we shoot our last hoop with Leigh, we say our goodbyes and wish him all the best with the Jam It release. We reckon the game will be a slam-dunk success on the C64!

If you have a C64 or if you prefer to play via emulation, do yourself a favour and grab Jam It – it is jam packed with awesomeness! Seriously, for a game this damn good, you would expect to pay ten times the asking price of $2.99USD! Buy it now so Leigh can quit his day job and make more brilliant games!

JamIt_Leigh_HDRimage source: Throwback Games

Filed Under: Retro Gaming Culture Tagged With: C64, Jam It, Leigh White, New C64 games, retro computing, Retro Gamer, Retro Gaming, Throwback Games, video game

Meatballphobia: The Retro-Inspired Puzzler

November 12, 2013 By ausretrogamer

mball

This week marks more than just the release of the PS4. Mark down November 12 in your diary. If you like grey matter challenging puzzlers with a quirky premise, then Meatballphobia is your perfect tonic.

Featuring 50 brain-teasing levels of increasing difficulty, Meatballphobia focuses on relaxed problem solving instead of competition. You can play the game at your own leisure — there are no locked levels, no high-scores to beat and no timer. If you get stuck on a level, don’t stress, just go ahead and pick another stage. You can always return to that pesky level that had you in a spin.

Even though Meatballphobia plays like a modern game, its pedigree is from the 8-bit era; from the CGA palette, pixelated sprites, to the engaging chiptune soundtrack — it’s all carefully crafted to take you back in time.

Meatballphobia (Windows/Linux) will be available via Desura on November 12 (PDT) for $2.99USD. The Android version is available on Google Play and Amazon for $1.50USD.

 

Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: meatballphobia, puzzle, retro inspired, video game

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