Home Brew Section

[clarance]

I would like to see some shots of the physical packages when released - game manual, box art and all that - make a big old fuss about new-old releases and what you get for your money, how the whole package looks. I realise that it's a minority of homebrew releases that get an actual physical release, but even so, it would look good on the page methinks.

[NorthWay]

if there's interest and the powers that be are happy with the idea, i'll happily write about them. =-)

There could happily be a tiny boilerplate thing each month (perhaps adjusted for the platforms reviewed for same month) on devices that emulates random or sequential access units. I'd like to have an A8 one for my 800XL. A suggestion for a PC based emulator would probably be needed too.

[TMR]

I'd like to have an A8 one for my 800XL. A suggestion for a PC based emulator would probably be needed too.

Either an SDrive or an SIO2SD is worth having as an SD card solution (i prefer the latter personally, although the configuration buttons are sometimes a little fiddly to navigate with) and the most accurate emulator going right now is Altirra, although Atari800Win Plus will be fine for the majority of games and is a little less resource hungry.

[sscott]

I would like to see one or two 5 or 10 line game listings like they had as game features back in the day (well they had in Atari User anyway), more detailed reviews might be a little more helpful but as most the products are free it's not that much of a gamble to try out a game!
Wonder if back to the 80s/90s is also due a 're-imaging'?

[Cafeman]

This brightened my day a bit! I look forward to the revised homebrew section. There are some good suggestions in this thread. As far as consoles, you ought to start with "Pac-Man Plus's" (Bob D.) 7800 homebrews - just look at the AtariAge 7800 forums for more info. The last one I bought was a port of Moon Cresta (the only port of Moon Cresta?) and I loved it. Scramble was released afterwards , and he keeps on surprising us.

On the 5200 side, there is an upcoming homebrew planned to be finished before the end of 2012, as part of the 5200's 30th year anniversary, 5200 Gauntlet. It has speech too. You can't review that (yet), but you could put it in a sidebar if you wanted too. It's also the CV's 30th anniversary, but I don't play CV anymore so I'm out of the loop there.

On the 2600 side, there are several BATARI (Atari Basic) coded games and some are pretty cool - I suggest you look into Jack & the Beanstalk as a recent example. Some fun ideas in there.

I like the idea mentioned above in this thread to have a bit more info in each 'review', like the game's features, or especially the box, manual, goodies, or other artwork.

[Sokurah]

This sounds good. I like it the way it is - I've actually been worried that it might end up being cut down sometime in the future, so reading that the section will be expanded is really good news to me.

I don't have time to personally check every homebrew community, but when reading RG I'm relatively sure that if there's anything really good happening on that front, then I'll probably hear about it in the magazine.

However, currently focus is (usually) on a relatively small amount of different platforms, so if focus could somehow be expanded and we could get more platforms covered, then that would be great for everyone.
...and more interviews/postmortems too.
Let's see what happens. I'm for one looking forward to seeing an improved Homebrew section.

[the_hawk]

in the last year or so we have had stuff like:

Atari 7800
Arkanoid

WILDLY off topic, but I just did a quick google search & couldn't find out much about this, is it a ROM image or is it available on a cart, and where can I get it?

Ditto for Scramble.

Playing Arkanoid on the 7800 with a the paddles would be great.

[Mayhem]

ROMs for the games are usually available in their respective threads on AtariAge, in the 7800 section.

[NorthWay]

BTW, wouldn't it be good to have some links to where you can order these goodies on the net? Like in Darran's first posting preferably.

[the_hawk]

ROMs for the games are usually available in their respective threads on AtariAge, in the 7800 section.

Thanks for that, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be listed there though.

http://www.atariage.com/system_items.ht ... TypeID=ROM

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.ph ... orums&st=0

[Mayhem]

Forum threads... Scramble is available, I've played it on my CC2. Can't recall Arkanoid though.

[HEAVYface]

could it be expanded to include things like modding consoles, arcade boards etc (like MVS to AES conversions these exotic sounding things like super cpu(?) for c64 - anything interesting being done to augment older hardware

i know nothing about the above but would find it an interesting read apart from a few words i've read on them retrogamer.

[Babbage]

for people just joining the party like me it would be nice to have some round ups of top five all time PC/ONline titles etc - as I have to admit to not really even knowing homebrew was out there until I started reading RG.

[Arcadian]

I would like to see some shots of the physical packages when released - game manual, box art and all that - make a big old fuss about new-old releases and what you get for your money, how the whole package looks. I realise that it's a minority of homebrew releases that get an actual physical release, but even so, it would look good on the page methinks.

Totally agree with the above ... some of the Psytronik packaging for example is drop-dead gorgeous!

[ChipTune]

The homebrew section needs to be expanded definitely.. with every nook and cranny of the last 30 years of gaming pretty much covered from all angles by RG over the last 102 issues (wink) the mag needs to cover retro gaming from a new perspective.. there is only so much you can read about the speccy / c64 etc etc. after all.

being a Retro gamer isnt just about playing old games, but games that hold on to the look, playability, and spirit of the games of yesteryear.

I recommend going here:

http://www.tigsource.com/

http://www.indiedb.com/


for a start

yes there is a lot of tat made with a retro feel.. but there are some truely epic games that have the playability of a mario title and the graphics of a nes / c64 / speccy game.

Games like:

Spelunky
La Mulana
cave Story
VVVVVV
Excavatorrr
Lone Survivor
Stealth Bastard
Shoot First
Hack Slash Loot
Rocky Memphis
Abbey Des Mortes
Hydorah

just to name a few.

Dont go down the route of covering too many of the indie games on the xbox as most of them are utter garbage, with only one or two exceptions that stand out as truely 'good' - Escape Goat and Cursed Loot for example.


A good coverage of whats happening in the indie scene would be enough, the hottest remakes released / in progress, the best homebrew titles on older systems (like the psytronix releases for the c64) and battlekid / super bat punch on NES.


It needs to be carefully as I think the homebrew section currently is quite dull, with some dire flash-like xbox indies and some duff old atari / spectrum homebrew titles.. this doesnt do much for the indie / homebrew scene and so there does need to be a big shakeup.

It will be great to see new retro games in the mag and please ignore all the sad old farts who censored and moan just because they want to see screenshots of Manic Miner month after month after month while getting all teary-eyed thinking about the 'good old days'.

RETRO GAMING IS ABOUT SPIRIT NOT RELEASE DATE!!!!