My Girlfriend Chloe Sagal's Game "Virus Jigglin' Fever" Got Greenlit On Steam!

Last weekend, the Steam community greenlit Virus Jigglin Fever; a game designed by my girlfriend Chloe Sagal. It's a retro-style game: part Arkanoid, part Dr.Mario, where the Hazmat-suited player attempts to quarantine and eliminate virus outbreaks. It's also available for Android on the Google Play Store. If you want to contribute to help Chloe create more projects like this, please consider donating to her Patreon.

New Storify Account To Archive My Livetweets Of Dumb 80s Movies/Cartoons.

So hey, in case you wanted a glimpse of my social media feed that isn't me grumbling about social justice/gender stuff or picking fights with minor celebrities/politicians or whatever, I put together a Storify account specifically for nerdy stuff. It has livetweets of 1980s cartoons and movies (like The Golden Child and the G.I.Joe animated film) and also a master thread for production-related tweets about my upcoming video game project "Never Go To Work".

Overworld Map For The Game Dragon Half On PC-Engine

It took forever, and isn't perfect (one day I may sit down and remove all the move counters, characters, and such from it), but I put together a full overworld map for the eccentric Dragon Half board game/RPG for PC Engine Super CD.

Harbinger Monthly - Mid-1990s Anime Disk Magazine.

 Going through the pile of 3.25 floppies I have lying around, I stumbled across this guy from 1994. Like the label says, the disk contains Issue 12 of Harbinger Monthly, which was an anime-dedicated diskmag that I had ordered when in high school. Unfortunately, I couldn't get much of it to run after installation:

 

 Really tho, the software part of it was just fancy curation; the meat was all in files that could be pried open with a text editor. On each disk was a series of articles that included reviews, release dates and plot synopses for various anime series.

It also included video game tricks, codes, and ratings for various anime-styled games as well as grainy screencaps of various cartoons. It even had a pretty cool soundtrack, in the form of module-formatted tracks that would play in the background. It also included quirky rantings from the curator, who called himself KarNage (who you can see talking about Vampire Hunter D  and Bubble Gum Crisis in these archived 20 year old anime group threads).

Just a little, awkward piece of pre-Web 1.0 filesharing I had lying around I wanted to put out there.

Some (Sad) Photos From When I Sold My Retro Video Game Collection.

In the summer of 2013, I completely relocated from Austin, Texas to Portland, Oregon. In the process I gave away and/or sold the majority of my possessions. Amongst said possessions was my retro game collection I'd been acquiring/holding onto since the mid-1990s. According to the timestamp on the phone pics; I took in the games on August 16, 2013. And the above is only part of it. Sorting through it all required all of the available counter-space at the North Austin Game Over videogames location.

It included sytems, games, and accessories for SNES, Genesis, Turbografx-16, Atari 2600 (with 150+ games), Sega Master System, Gameboy, and TI-99/4A (with games, controllers, and text-to-speech synthesizer). I'd already sold my NES with games and accessories directly to a friend earlier that month. It's really difficult to decide whether this or selling my record collection hurt worse. But hey, a fresh start, and emulators are getting fancier all the time.

Every Video Game Reference In The Scott Pilgrim Movie.

From OC Weekly.

ZOMG - Let's Play Clash At Demonhead

Zo My God (or however you pronounce that), this edition of Let's Play where they tackle Clash At Demonhead is awesome.

Billy Big Bang Blitz From Clash At Demonhead Cameo In Scott Pilgrim Game.

You can see him starting at the two minute mark, with the blue hair and gun. This was found via a Youtube profile devoted to the character.

Gauntlet: The Third Encounter.

Never thought of or even heard of this game before Engadget made the claim that the Android logo was ganked from it, but it looks super fun.

Well, except for the fact that apparently you had to hold the system sideways to play it.



Holy crap that looks frustrating.

An Assload Of Arcade Game Kill Screens, Narrated.

8-Bit. Twilight. Interactive. RPG. Um, Awesome?

Directed by The Fine Bros. Animation and music by Dr. Octoroc.

Admin Edit: Looks like it got taken down. You can still see parts of it on The Station's Youtube channel, tho.

Old Thing/Favorite Thing: Let's Play Crystalis

Okay, it's not the funniest Let's Play (which would either be the legendary Oregon Trail, or personal favorite Princess Tomato In The Salad Kingdom). Maybe it's just because I love the game itself so much. Maybe it's because it has 23 chapters. Maybe I'm just thinking too hard about why Let's Play: Crystalis is my new favorite thing ever right at this moment.

Me And My Brother Discuss The Music Of Mega Man 2

Yesterday, the following conversation transpired between my brother and I regarding the music of Mega Man 2, a childhood favorite. There may have been some drinking involved.

My Brother: Crank up Bubble Man's music first.

Me: Aw come on, everybody says they love Bubble Man's music. It's overrated.

My Brother: What, has it gone too mainstream for you or something? Did you like it better back when it had indie appeal? Fine; I remember Flash Man's music being cool, crank that up.



Me: Um, no.

My Brother: Yeah. Um, no. Wait, let's let it play until the breakdown... Um, no. Wait, I was probably thinking that I liked Flash Man's weapon the best, not the music. Try Quick Man.



My Brother: THIS is what I was thinking of when I was trying to remember Flash Man's music. This is more like it.

Me: This IS better... it almost has some sort of Latin groove to it. Like a bossanova or something.

My Brother: Yeah, something like that.

Me: I have no idea what a bossanova sounds like.

My Brother: Me neither. Try Heat Man.



My Brother: This is cool. Remember how we used to make cassettes of video game music to play in our walkmans on the bus?

Me: Yeah.

My Brother: Man, we were dorks.

Me: Yeah.

Me: Hey, there's the Wood Man theme.



Me: This is pretty cool (imitates hi-hat rhythm with his mouth). I just know this wound up on one of my video game mixtapes.

My Brother: What about Air Man?



Me: Ouch. That sounds awful. Not even nostalgia makes me like this.

(similar thoughts are expressed regarding Crash Man and Metal Man's theme.)

Me: Fine. Let's check out the Bubble Man theme.



Me: Fine, you win. This is really cool, and likely the best music in the game.

My Brother: Told you.

11 Old School Nintendo Tricks Permanently Burned Into Our Brains.

This is a most excellent post from 11 Points that includes the classic NES tricks we will never be able to forget.

Say after me... Up, Up, Down, Down, Left...

Street Fighter 2010 No Death Run.

The same guy that conquered Dragon Spirit in my last article took to task Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight, a game I'm still convinced was a cruel prank on the part of Capcom. This game was was that smelly mix of brutally hard and brutally stupid and crap that it never bothered me not getting past the first stage. I only provide the above run to sustain those of you that have not played it and may have been curious, before you wasted better-spent eBay money.

Inside Edition Covering The Mario Brothers.

F*ck it, we're doing it live. There is nothing about this video that is not awesome. I WISH I would have scored a game counselor job at Nintendo back in the day. Oh, and witness the most glorious mullet you've ever seen in your life @ 3:15.

I love that the dude playing the game totally dies after killing the Hammer Bros just seconds before.

All Three Endings To Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest

2 Classic NES Games You'd Never Guess Were Sequels.

This is FAXANADU-



If you've never played it before, here's what it's like-



And this is LEGACY OF THE WIZARD-



And this is what this game is like-

Not a whole lot alike between these two games, huh? Well, somehow they are both part of the same series, one that also contains games even less similar, like Legend of Heroes on the Turbografx CD and Sorcerian (one of my personal favorite Adventure/RPG games). I can find almost nothing similar between any of these games; no recurring characters, locations, or even basic mechanics of gameplay.

Anyway, I can't explain it either.

Excellent TI-99 Cartridge Rarity Guide

Here is an excellent rarity guide resource for cartridges for the Texas Instruments TI-99 system. Includes details on peripherals used, whether or not it included speech synthesis, and screenshots as well!

It's really graphics heavy. If you're more into text, and want a different opinion, this seems to be a popular and heavily mirrored resource as well.

Funny 23-Minute Long Play Of Custom Super Mario Bros Level

"Super Mario: Frustration" is right! Apparently this was a video found on tuduo.com, and the commentary was added after the fact. But the truth is, it's pretty damn funny.