Some new videos

I've been trying to make regular updates to my YouTube channel lately, so if you're not subscribed to my channel, do so! In the meantime, here's two of the latest video additions. My loose goal will be adding one a week. I've recorded gameplay footage for a new Let's Go Retro video, now I just have to find the time to get it made!

New games from PAX East 2012:

A tour of my game console collection:

My first game, Ghost Zapper

I've played with game makers in the past, but really haven't done anything beyond the tutorials offered. I've been using a new program called Construct 2, which makes your game in HTML 5 and it's pretty easy to use. I had a good time making this admittedly pretty bad game, and that's what really counts. Basically I made a little Ghostbusters rip off, where you control the proton gun on the bottom of the screen. You can move the proton gun left and right with the A and D keys, and you use the mouse to aim the gun, holding the left button to fire a proton stream. After holding the stream on a ghost for a second, it will be zapped. You also have 3 ghost bombs, which you can use with the W key, taking out all ghosts on the screen. Rinse and repeat until you're out of lives. I think my high score right now is around 570 points. You can play the game  by clicking here. Feel free to leave a comment below. Even if you don't like it, you can say that too, it won't hurt my feelings!

Old GameStop signs! Fun!

Back when I was working at GameStop, I used to find it fun to utilize my graphic design skills in ways that might help out the store a bit. At one point I decided it would be fun to make some signs that advertised our policy of checking ID for M-rated games as well as when you trade in games for cash. I made the two signs below, printed them on some heavy cardstock and laminated them. They seemed to get a good reaction and I was pretty proud of the way they came out. I think one was on the front door and one was by the register. I just happened to come across these sitting on my hard drive and thought I'd share them! Now I wonder what else is lurking in the depths of these old hard drives!

Playstation Vita Admiration and Rant

I played with a Vita demo today and was really impressed. The system just looks gorgeous, the screen's nice and big, and the size feels just right, it fits your hands really well. I played through the demo for Uncharted Golden Abyss. 

After getting kinda psyched up for the Vita, I came home and saw that they nixed the UMD transfer program.  siiiiiiiigh. For those not in the know about the transfer, Kotaku.com explains it:

Sony debuted the UMD Passport program in Japan last December alongside the release of the Vita. Japanese gamers can insert their game discs into their PSPs, register them on their PlayStation Network accounts, and pay a small fee to re-download their games on the Vita.

While I certainly wouldn't have moved over my whole PSP collection, there's certainly a few games I wouldn't have minded paying like half price to transfer over. I have all the Ys games and have barely played them yet. If I move to Vita and I can't take them with me, that really dwindles my chances of every actually popping them in again!

I think what really hurts about Sony announcing this, besides the fact that they said they'd do it and then decided not to, is that Sony's IS still offering the UMD transfer, in Japan! Why Sony US decided to back out, I have no idea, but that is really disappointing to hear.

Okay end rant. Oh, but the system does look lovely.

Adventure's Easter Egg

I had a lot of Atari 2600 games as a kid, and most of them, even the bad ones, got plenty of play time from me. But one of my all-time favorite games to play on Atari was always Adventure, a game that I still enjoy playing some 25 years later. For those that aren't familiar, Adventure was creator Warren Robinett's attempt at bringing PC text adventure-style games over to the Atari console. The game is largely based on the text adventure Colossal Cave, but in a very simplified form. Only one thing can be carried at a time, such as a key to a castle, a bridge, or a sword. You guide your little avatar, which is just represented with a square, around several mazelike screens in an attempt to get inside the black castle, get the Chalice, and return it to the Yellow Castle. There are three levels of difficulty, and since the third level randomizes where the items show up (not to mention a bat that always shows up at annoying times to steal your item and replace it with another), you can keep on playing the game and never have the same experience. 

The game was groundbreaking for its time in its complexity and scope, but also because it introduced the gaming world to the "Easter Egg", a hidden secret or surprise. As the story goes, back in the Atari days, games were made by a single person. Art, programming, sound, everything. Yet they were not permitted to have their names show up anywhere, not the box, not the manual, nothing. This was partially because Atari didn't want other companies to know who designed what and have them stolen away. It was also because by this time, Nolan Bushnell had sold Atari to Warner, and their new owners thought of them as no more than assembly line men, making a product. They thought of them as no different than someone who put together a chair to be shipped out, and didn't believe they deserved to be recognized. 

Warren Robinett decided to sneak his name into his Adventure game, by hiding a secret item, a dot, one pixel large, that was the same color as the background and required the bridge to get to. If you acquired the dot, then brought it to the room below and to the right of the yellow castle, and placed one more item in there, your character could walk through the right hand wall, revealing a new room with the flashing words "Created by Warren Robinett". Atari didn't find out about it until kids started calling in months later asking about the room. Adventure's Easter Egg is legendary, and although I love this game, I'd never tried to get to the room. Until the other day, when I decided that it was my duty as a retro game lover to make the pilgrimage to Adventure's hidden room! It took a little bit of time to find the dot, but I finally walked through the wall and found the message! I was so excited that I took a video capture of me in the room! So I used the video footage and made a short animated gif to commemorate the occasion!

Anyone interested in seeing one of the best games the Atari has to offer should give this game a try, and maybe look up how to get to the secret room!