Inspired by the FANTASTIC piggy I drew earlier, I decided to have a look for the previous “pixel art” I’d done about 12 years ago on the Amiga. I shouldn’t have bothered – they were far worse to look at than I remembered.
There was a system on the Amiga for higher quality (than standard) icons for programs, games, files and folders called NewIcons. I’d installed it on my Amiga, but couldn’t find icons for a few things. So I created my own.
NewIcons had two states too – clicked and not-clicked, so each icon needed two images.
It’s been a while since I “reprinted” any of ugvm. In Issue 07, the last under my editorship, we looked at multiplayer game etiquette, the CD32, the NeoGeo Pocket Colour, and about ten million game reviews. Including Knights of the Old Republic, a pre-cursor to Mass Effect – a game I’m currently enjoying very much.
(Two Wii posts in one day! It’s like Wii Friday or something!)
Remember this?
8th December 2006
It was the day I bought my Wii.¬¨‚Ć I’d lined up outside Game at half 6 in the morning, and finally – at just after 8am, I had my launch day Wii and was running home as fast as my little legs could carry me.
But there was something that happened that day. When I bought my Wii, I paid for it with my credit card. A few weeks later, I realised my card hadn’t been charged. A few months later, and still no charge. In fact, there was never a charge.
In fact, this week marks the 3rd anniversary of The Day I Bought My Wii. As a result, it also marks the endpoint at which Game could have legally still requested payment. Under UK law, 3 years is the limit on backdated payment requests.
Which means, my Wii is Free, and Game can’t charge me for it. Hurrah! Of course, I’m kicking myself now for not buying everything the shop had to offer on the day.
Time for another one of these, I think. There was a bit of fallout from the text adventures feature in issue 03, and the cover art was stepped up a notch. Reading it now, I’m reminded of a couple of great (but probably forgotten) gems – Doshin the Giant and Pac-Man Collection. Ah, fun times.
I think with Issue 03, our retro issue, we really hit the big time. The ugvm site got slashdotted, the bandwidth costs spiralled to £244 for just one weekend, and we were swamped with emails.
Mostly complaints about Tim saying interaction fiction was dead, which he didn’t quite say, but still – the publicity took us to over 10,000 subscribers. 10,000! Thats more than many print-based magazines!
EDIT: Oh, and look at my anti-prediction there on Page 2. “You wouldn’t see any high street magazines devoting a whole issue to old games, would you?”. Soon after, there was a Retro Edge, Retro GamesTM, and then Retro Gamer! We started it all, folks.
In 2001, the Game Boy Advance was released. I was pretty keen on getting one (and I did, as soon as physically possible), but before it came out I chased up a few places to find out how much it was going to cost.
I sent this to “Madeira Games” on the 17th March, 2001:
How much will the GBA cost? Is it a Japanese import, or is the preorder for
a UK machine?
How much are the games? When is it likely I will get a GBA if I were to
preorder it now?
Thanks,
Imagine my surprise and horror when I got the following reply:
HI
GBA are due all next week , we have shipments on a few days next week
Price £270 inc Mario and Fzero X
Cheers
¬¨¬£270?! I’m pretty sure I only paid ¬¨¬£150 (from Lik Sang, IIRC) for mine in the end.
As an addition to my other “dawn of time” occasionals, I thought I’d bring you this – a contribution to the BBC’s “h2g2″. As you may know, h2g2 was set up to be an actual real version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (hence the name). In fact, it pretty much became a forerunner to Wikipedia, and in the last few years it seems to have been mostly abandoned in favour of it.
Anyway, In 1996 I came up with a “hilarious” new product – the Lard Bar. Initially, its tagline was “It costs a pound to make you round”, but this price was revised to 30p when I realised that other similar confections (Mars, Twix, etc.) were nearer that figure and the chocolate snack marketplace was too crowded to support a premium price point for a new product.
Yes, this was far too much detail for something that didn’t exist.
So I posted my product on h2g2. For some reason, the date is listed as 1999, but I think that might be because of some technical changed made to h2g2 around then.
I have come up with this great new snack – ready to take the world by storm. All I need is a bit of cash from some gullib- er, willing ‘business partners’ (silent, of course). I propose the following: The Lard Bar(tm) —————- Des: A small oblong length of Top Quality Lard, coated in smooth milk chocolate. Cost: About 30p Variations on this are the Caramel Lard Bar(tm), Biscuit Lard Bar(tm) and Dark Chocolate Lard Bar(tm). Currently under plan are the equally delicious-sounding White Chocolate Lard Bar(tm) and the ‘yummy’ Pork Scratching Lard Bar(tm). Any takers? You’ve got to be able to stump up a couple of grand by christmas, waver all rights to a fair deal, and be completely hatstand. (c) + ™ AK Enterprises Ltd.
Hello andy i think that your site is amazing, i love you pro wife simulator, however it is only amzing for animals such as slugs (it could be amazing for a snail but it is not likly due to there higher standards).
You SUCK
Wow! I bet I was well upset when that appeared in my inbox.
Today, I decided that having a 1GB Outlook .pst file with all my emails in was a bit of overkill, and decided to archive some. I’ve kept virtually all of my emails ever since I left Uni in 1999, and even forwarded on some from there, so I’ve got a few from 1997.
Anyway. In the process of doing the backing up, archiving, and then checking the archive, I had a read through some old messages, and here, for your reading pleasure, is one of them. This is from 2004, and was sent to a group of people who subscribe to one of the newsgroups I frequent:
Wierd question, I know, but is anyone here called Fergus? I just got a random call from a loony called “Fergus” mumbling something about ICQ and the internet:
My mobile just rang:
Gruff voice: Hello? Me: Hi. Gruff voice: Is that Toby? Me: Yes, who’s this? Gruff voice: This is Fergus. Me: Ok, hi, Why are you calling me? Fergus : I have your number Me: Do I know you? I don’t think I know you. Fergus : Have you ever worked in a bar? Me: No. Never. Where did you get my number, did you find it on a piece of paper or something? Fergus : No. Me: Where did you get my number from? Fergus : I have your number from the internet. Me: Right. Fergus : I have your number from the internet. Me: I don’t think I know you, and I don’t think you know me. Fergus : Have you ever worked in a bar? Me: No. I think I’m going to hang up now, okay? Fergus : Ok. Me: I think that’s best. Fergus : Ok. Me: Bye then. Fergus : Ok. Bye.
I guess he lifted my number from here! :-/ Toby
Quite horrific, yes?
deKay’s Blog
Sometimes there are things that just need to escape my head.
