Brooklyn CodeBits

Hey all, sorry for the lack of update this Friday. I was sick with Gastroenteritis (stomach flu) and was feeling pretty awful. I'm better now, and I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.

Anyway, I'm waiting until this weekend to get back to work on Hexadecimal Web, as my computer had to be returned. I've gone back to my old pal Mr. MacBook, and he will be arriving in a few days. I miss seamless integration and software choices missing in Linux, and smooth JS timing missing from Windows. The Mac really does a good job at some of these technical things, considering how user friendly the machine is.

If you know me, then you know Gyruss is my all time favorite video game. It has inspired several of the games I have designed (Webs of Destruction and H.G.R. High Gravity Room during the Gamma Prime/Marcade Systems years, plus Halftube and the upcoming Hexadecimal Web during the Brooklyn CodeBits period), and I could only hope to create a video game that I really love and admire as much as the Konami classic. It was a 1983 arcade game, ported to numerous home machines and collections (my favorites being the ColecoVision, Game Boy Advance ports and NES/Famicom Disk Remake) - it's always been a blast to play no matter what you play it on.

The game has a classic shoot 'em up concept. Blast all the bad guys with your space fighter. The twist is that you do it in a move in a circle around the screen while always flying towards the center. The objective is to reach Earth and get the highest score (or if you play the NES/Famicom Disk version, to reach the sun and destroy the final boss). You can also grab points in bonus stages. The enemy formations are very slick, the game challenging and fun as hell.

If you can find the game on your favorite platform, get it. Classic Game Room agrees!

A tribute to the Fender Precision Bass, the only bass guitar I play anymore. I own two 5-string Ps, and two 4-string Ps. They have the sound that we've been listening to since the dawn of the electric bass - and it still sounds great today. Used by so many of the greatest bassists from Jazz, Rock, Funk, Country, it's still relevant today as Leo Fender's extraordinary creation of awesome. So let's celebrate all the different Fender Ps through time!

Hey, now that I have finished WebcadeJS, I feel confident in the development of the new shooting game I am writing. So much so, that I'm gonna redesign some graphics I originally had in mind for it.

In a previous article, I reminisced about my Gamma Prime days. I was creating a shooter called Webs of Destruction, which I wanted to model after some of my favorite shoot 'em ups from the 80's and 90's, including my all time favorite Gyruss. I always liked the Spider theme (and I enjoy Spider-Man). Recently, I thought I could maybe revisit the webs theme with a more retro twist. With that said, the game will be entitled Hexadecimal Web.

With even more tools at my disposal now, the arcade game will be my little pet project for Sunday afternoon development. With WebcadeJS in full swing, a new OS on my machine (I've moved to Lubuntu - trying to avoid Microsoft products these days), and a powerful new vision, I feel like this will be a step towards awesome arcade games on the web, with fast software engineering!