Men From Earth Projects

Hello there.

Sorry its been a while since I wrote on this blog. All this "micro-blogging" has made writing anything of substance seem such a chore.

I have a bunch of nerdy things to talk about. Firstly, retro-gaming. I went to REPLAY last month which is a fantastic retro-game event that happens not far from my home. It was fun, saw interesting stuff old and new, and had some fascinating chats with industry people. What I didn't see nearly enough of was classic games from the 8-bit era of home computing. Arcade games, yes very nice. But the games I played at home are what got a hammering, and I genuinely believe that they have stood the test of time better than any age of gaming. I am confident that this is not nostalgia speaking, because I lived through two amazing ages of computer game history. Firstly, the 8-bit ZX Spectrum and its rivals; and then the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST. Systems from both these eras can be emulated on PC very easily and I have played games from both relatively recently. What I found was that the 8-bit games, while often simplistic visually were the most original concepts and well coded. They felt polished; as if the coder (and it often WAS just a lone coder, perhaps a teenager in his bedroom) knew the machine inside and out. I can still recall how it felt to move to a 16-bit machine - it was like a giant leap forward in every respect. And yet when I came to play 16-bit games that I had remembered fondly I was horrified to see how clunky and badly coded they feel. We were really taken in at the time by the jump up in graphics resolution, which is funny because many of them look horrific now - worse in some respects than the 8-bit graphics which were often 'pixel-perfect'.

Which moves me onto my next subject: Android. That is, Google's operating system for mobile devices. I have no interest in using my blog to further a war between Android users and iPhone fans, but the similarities between the rival home computer systems of the 1980's are obvious. Playground arguments over which was better - Spectrum or C64 - are parallelled with online forums raging over which of the two smart phone systems is superior. From the little I know, it seems they both have a place. The iPhone is probably most like the C64 - a solid piece of reliable hardware that seemingly offers more than its peers; while the Android system with its "open" philosophy, encouraging bedroom coders to flood the market with their home-grown software reminds me very much of the way Sinclair targeted the hobbyist market in the UK. Without any intended malice towards the Apple product, I just want to say that I am really enjoying Android and I think that the smartphone revolution could well bring back the bedroom software market with more games developed by just one person.

I really wish I still had copies of all the software I wrote back in the Eighties. The 3-screen platform game I wrote. The skiing game with level editor that I created. I know it is really easy to make claims like this, but if you can believe this: I actually coded a 'game' sometime around 1985 which was a concept very similar to Tamagotchi.

Ah, the benefit of hindsight.

Off to the REPLAY Expo today! Will be tweeting along the way - hope to see you there, or else follow me on Twitter!

Finally... page 2 of my comic "Self Published Simon"!

Dar