In 1999, I entered the Bung (remember them?) Game Boy homebrew coding competition with a version of Advanced Lawnmower Simulator. It was the first, and only, Game Boy game I’d ever written, and required me to pretty much learn C just to be able to code it.
The other day, I found a Java based Game Boy emulator (JavaBoy), and so, combined with my GB version of ALS, I present to you an online playable version! Woo!
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, no – I didn’t win the competition. My entry wasn’t even counted, as it wasn’t enough of a game Read the rest of this entry »
Today, the Digital Economy Bill was passed in parliament. I’d not read into it much, but lots of people seemed to be getting very angry about it. As far as I was aware this morning, it was a new law made to kick people off the internet if they use it to illegally download stuff.
Am I missing something regarding the #debill, or are people complaining that they might get punished for breaking the law?
I then had a few replies pointing out how there was more to it than that, and part of the problem was how it was rushed through and not carefully considered and so on. Then, I was told my tweet had appeared on the BBC News Channel at lunchtime! I couldn’t find a clip, but I’m quoted by the reporter on his BBC Blog (third paragraph from the bottom).
Apparently, he thinks I’m a supporter of the bill. Perhaps the only supporter, when actually, I just didn’t know all the facts.
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.
In what is perhaps the least impressive claim to fame ever (and it’s not even the first time it’s happened to me), my text message was read out on Radio 1 this morning. I had to put “Comedy” Dave right about his suggestion that the new millennium started in 2000, when it actually started in 2001. Oh, the hilarity.
That’s the text message I sent, and this is a clip from the Chris Moyles show. I’m about 2:05 in.
It’s been quite a while since I posted one of these up. Issue 06 was out “violence special”, with Vice City, Bloodrayne (they made a film out of that, dontchaknow), light guns and the massacre of the Vic 20. Good times.
There’s even a bit about how to get yourself a picture of Jim Taylor naked. God only knows why we stopped making this magazine with promises like that.
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.
Remember that magazine I used to edit? Years and years ago? Of course you don’t. You probably weren’t born then. Well, using the great online service Issuu, I’ve brought them back from the dead!
There aren’t any new issues, but you can “enjoy” reading all the old ones again, and shed a little tear for the time when we were at the forefront of online gaming magazine technology. Or something.
