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lunes, 16 de marzo de 2020
Newly-Made High Quality Controllers For Vintage Consoles
When you see new controllers being sold for your retro video game systems in your local retro video game store and in many online stores, they are typically of the atgames, Tomee, Cirka, Retro-bit, Gamerz-Tek or Hyperkin quality, which is essentially no-quality. When you buy these controllers, expect cheap plastic, stiff or rattling buttons, thin and short wires, useless turbo options and terrible D-pads. Occasionally one can find quality products that go above and beyond and try to compete or exceed the quality of original, first-party controllers. Let's take a look at some of the respectable options for your classic consoles.
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domingo, 15 de marzo de 2020
jueves, 5 de marzo de 2020
Keeping Up With KeeperRL: Alpha 28 Released, Improves Mod Support
It has been a while since we last spoke of KeeperRL. The hybrid blend of dungeon building sim with roguelike features seems to be doing rather well, with a growing community and regular progress updates. The latest alpha has just been released, and this time it has a flavor for modding.
Aside from the regular bugfixing and gameplay improvements, this build adds upgraded mod support and an in-game downloader for community content. As with most roguelikes, the developers seem to have realized customization is key to maintain community engagement, a very positive assessment in our regard. You can read the full changelog here.
For those who are not reminded, KeeperRL comes in two versions: a gratis package with plain ASCII graphics and no sound, and a commercial package including pixel art graphics and soundtrack, available for 12.99 EUR on a variety of digital stores. The program code is entirely Free Software, licensed under the GPLv3.
Code license: GPLv3
Assets license: Proprietary (commercial version), CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 (gratis version)
miércoles, 4 de marzo de 2020
Five Excellent Documentaries About Gaming Culture And Gaming Industry
1-) Indie Game: The Movie - is the first feature documentary film about making video games. It looks specifically at the underdogs of the video game industry, indie game developers, who sacrifice money, health and sanity to realize their lifelong dreams of sharing their visions with the world.
2-) Screenland - A documentary series that immerses viewers in the artists, makers, designers, players and coders who are revolutionizing the new digital worlds through screens all around us.
3-) Atari: Game Over - For the documentary, the filmmakers excavated the landfill site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where many E.T. game cartridges were buried. The excavation dig took several months of preparation, and was finally carried out on April 26, 2014. Although the digging had only been planned to go as deep as 18 feet, it actually went to 30 feet. Around 1,300 of the approximately 700,000 games buried were unearthed.
4-) King Of Kong A fistful Of Quarters - the documentary follows Steve Wiebe in his attempts to take the high score record for the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong from the previous holder, Billy Mitchell.
5-) AlphaGo - In October 2015, AlphaGo became the first computer Go program to beat a human professional Go player without handicaps on a full-sized 19×19 board. This documentary shows this awesome battle between human versus machine.
2-) Screenland - A documentary series that immerses viewers in the artists, makers, designers, players and coders who are revolutionizing the new digital worlds through screens all around us.
3-) Atari: Game Over - For the documentary, the filmmakers excavated the landfill site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where many E.T. game cartridges were buried. The excavation dig took several months of preparation, and was finally carried out on April 26, 2014. Although the digging had only been planned to go as deep as 18 feet, it actually went to 30 feet. Around 1,300 of the approximately 700,000 games buried were unearthed.
4-) King Of Kong A fistful Of Quarters - the documentary follows Steve Wiebe in his attempts to take the high score record for the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong from the previous holder, Billy Mitchell.
5-) AlphaGo - In October 2015, AlphaGo became the first computer Go program to beat a human professional Go player without handicaps on a full-sized 19×19 board. This documentary shows this awesome battle between human versus machine.
#GoGamers
What The Heck Is Going On?
So, at this point, I'm a week late for a new episode. Don't fear, a new one is coming. Probably next week. I recognize that I've skipped weeks before and haven't ever said why, except perhaps in passing. Normally, it's because I'm off performing my two weeks of annual training for the National Guard. But not this time.
It's like this. I need to get my life to a better place. Mainly with my health, but also my relationship with my wife and kids. I have high blood glucose and I need to get it under control. I've drastically altered my diet and am exercising more. That means earlier mornings, which require earlier nights. That means less time for recording and editing and everything else that goes into making the podcast.
If you're reading this, I assume you're a regular listener. For that I thank you. I owe you quite a bit. For example, I owe you more and better content. It's coming. Exactly what form that is, I don't know.
But back to my main point.
I'm exercising more, eating better, working harder on my Cub Scout commitments (I'm Cub Master for the Pack my son is in), working harder in my National Guard posting (Senior Platoon Trainer NCO for Officer Candidate School), and wanting to do more "hobby stuff." All of this takes time. Unfortunately, all of these things take a higher priority than simply banging out a podcast when it comes due.
Now, there is some cross-pollination in there. It's especially evident when it comes to my National Guard pursuits and my hobby. For example, Henry Hyde will be publishing an article I wrote as a direct result of my recent military education. Additionally, I'll be writing about my experience in planning a staff ride for the Officer Candidates. More on that later. Furthermore, I'm planning more articles for Henry.
As for the hobby stuff, I want to spend more time with my kids. Luckily, they both want to paint figures with me and play more games. Anticipate that generating more content for the podcast and maybe more blog posts here. For example, the projects I'm actively pursuing include:
- A semi-secret Seven-Years War project
- My son's 40k Orks
- A Full Thrust project using Halo ships
- A microarmor game I'm developing with my brother Chris
- Rommel in 3mm
- The Commands & Colors Epic Fantasy (not BattleLore) project (and I might have a writing partner for this one now)
- The space station project I talked about previously for sci-fi skirmish (possibly Oldhammerish)
Lots of other stuff is ruminating as well. What can I say, I'm a gaming magpie from way back. In the meantime, I'm trying to read more history, historical fiction, self-help, US Army doctrine publications and even the occasional hobby magazine!
I'm a busy guy. Part of this little pause has been taken up with some thought, soul searching, prioritizing, planning, and figuring what the hell I'm doing next. Part of that is going to take me becoming more personally disciplined in how I go about things. I've never scheduled "free time" before, but I might have to start.
We're all busy. So, I hope you can understand why I might be late with the podcast. I hope you'll forgive me. One of these days, you might even think what I produce was worth what you paid for it.
That is all.
It's like this. I need to get my life to a better place. Mainly with my health, but also my relationship with my wife and kids. I have high blood glucose and I need to get it under control. I've drastically altered my diet and am exercising more. That means earlier mornings, which require earlier nights. That means less time for recording and editing and everything else that goes into making the podcast.
If you're reading this, I assume you're a regular listener. For that I thank you. I owe you quite a bit. For example, I owe you more and better content. It's coming. Exactly what form that is, I don't know.
But back to my main point.
I'm exercising more, eating better, working harder on my Cub Scout commitments (I'm Cub Master for the Pack my son is in), working harder in my National Guard posting (Senior Platoon Trainer NCO for Officer Candidate School), and wanting to do more "hobby stuff." All of this takes time. Unfortunately, all of these things take a higher priority than simply banging out a podcast when it comes due.
Now, there is some cross-pollination in there. It's especially evident when it comes to my National Guard pursuits and my hobby. For example, Henry Hyde will be publishing an article I wrote as a direct result of my recent military education. Additionally, I'll be writing about my experience in planning a staff ride for the Officer Candidates. More on that later. Furthermore, I'm planning more articles for Henry.
As for the hobby stuff, I want to spend more time with my kids. Luckily, they both want to paint figures with me and play more games. Anticipate that generating more content for the podcast and maybe more blog posts here. For example, the projects I'm actively pursuing include:
- A semi-secret Seven-Years War project
- My son's 40k Orks
- A Full Thrust project using Halo ships
- A microarmor game I'm developing with my brother Chris
- Rommel in 3mm
- The Commands & Colors Epic Fantasy (not BattleLore) project (and I might have a writing partner for this one now)
- The space station project I talked about previously for sci-fi skirmish (possibly Oldhammerish)
Lots of other stuff is ruminating as well. What can I say, I'm a gaming magpie from way back. In the meantime, I'm trying to read more history, historical fiction, self-help, US Army doctrine publications and even the occasional hobby magazine!
I'm a busy guy. Part of this little pause has been taken up with some thought, soul searching, prioritizing, planning, and figuring what the hell I'm doing next. Part of that is going to take me becoming more personally disciplined in how I go about things. I've never scheduled "free time" before, but I might have to start.
We're all busy. So, I hope you can understand why I might be late with the podcast. I hope you'll forgive me. One of these days, you might even think what I produce was worth what you paid for it.
That is all.
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