oatis    Over a decade ago, I kicked in 15 to fund a documentary film about early the phone hacker known as Joybubbles. After making goal, the project updated a few times, and then when quiet& for a good three years. I didn’t mind the loss of 15; all I’d bought was an acknowledgement in the credits, [&] The...

oatis    Looks like Atari has been busy this year. About a year ago, Atari announced that they had acquired the IP rights to Intellivision, as a result of the collapse of the Amico project. Last week, Atari announced the Intellivision Sprint, a mini console similar in concept to the 2600 and 7800 mini...

oatis    Today marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America. I don’t remember the day particularly. It was not a big occasion at all. The NES only saw limited test market release at first. The video game crash of ’83 had retailers wary of the risk of...

oatis    David Crane and Audacity Games have announced their next Atari 2600 release, Rescue From Poseidon’s Gate. Ordering goes live October 22, 2025. A standard and collector’s edition will be available. The demo video shows a game where you control a deep sea diver in a old fashioned diving suit,...

oatis    In 2023, Atari Age pulled products from their store in a clean-up of IP-risk, removing homage games from talented homebrew developers who technically did not own the trademarks for the original works their games were based on. Improved versions of Pac Man, and other classic games, were removed from...

Chris Sanyk    The Mega Man 2 Quilt Project. In 201X, a Mega Man fan on reddit posted photos of an amazing hand-made quilt, using the Stage Select screen from Mega Man 2. For years I wished that I could make such a quilt. In 2023, I asked my friend Melissa if she could help me with the [&] The post Mega Man 2...

Chris Sanyk    Atari dropped a trailer for a new game in the Yars’ Revenge series, Yars Rising. The game seems to be primarily in the Metroidvania genre, with a heavy Metroid: Dread influence. It looks competent, yet uninspired. Had Atari been ready to launch the VCS with this in 2017, the year Metroid: Dread...

Chris Sanyk    The website Romhacking.net announced that after 20 years they are shutting down operations. This is, without exaggeration, probably the worst video gaming news that I’ve read in the last 20 years. The good news is that they have turned over the content of the website to the Internet Archive, where...

Chris Sanyk    I’ve spent about 30-45 minutes in Leap Year so far, and it’s one of the stranger platformer games I’ve played. The game’s tagline, A clumsy platformer, clues you into what to expect. The jump mechanic is unique among platformers, in that your default jump is generally fatal to yourself. Fall height...

Chris Sanyk    I first encountered Daniel Linssen through Ludum Dare more than 10 years ago. He was using GameMaker and created a wonderful platformer called Javel-ein. Linssen has gone on to make many other games, all of which are amazing. He has quite a knack for design and for coming up with interesting and...