Just a quick update, mostly to put to rest concerns that I've given up. First off, I have to thank TripHamer for pointing me to a series of videos on Unity called 3D Buzz. My initial impression of the site wasn't good; there are a LOT of videos there; so much, in fact, that it's easy simply to get overwhelmed and leave immediately. Eventually, though, I took the time to explore the site a bit, and found a series there called creating a simple 2D shooter in Unity with C#. I figured that project didn't sound too bad, and if I couldn't even figure out how to create a 2D shooter in Unity (something I can do in my sleep with Gamemaker), I was out of my league.

Woot! recently had a deal on an 8GB Eye-Fi memory card that I took advantage of for the express purpose of no-brainer automatic photo uploads from my digital camera directly to my Flickr account, which I thought would provide a smoother and higher quality workflow than using my iPhone 4. As such, I set the Eye-Fi up last night and took some very casual photos. While the transfer process really didn't go well (I'll need to experiment a bit more), transferring only two photos correctly and requiring me to manually transfer the rest, the end result was still some photos of recent items in my collection that also happened to be in my staging area, which I decided to share below with some minor commentary so the initial work wouldn't be totally wasted. Enjoy:

Hi, folks! Probably not the best time given the recent public flogging I've been getting over my Gothic retrospective, but what the heck. Here's my seventh podcast. This one is admittedly a ramble, but generally focused on making games with Gamemaker and the trials and tribulations of becoming an indie game developer. Is making a "serious" indie game worth the effort if you know your work will make little to no money--and, worse--may only be seen by a dozen or so people, tops? Is the love of making games enough in and of itself to keep you motivated all the way through a year or more of development? In my case, the answer is no.

Download the podcast here.

It's Gothic time! Yes, finally, after countless requests, Matt Chat covers the 2001 German CRPG Gothic. Of course, this game launched a trilogy, and apparently Risen is keeping the lineage alive. Lots of fun stuff in this game, and some pioneering stuff like the ability to skin animals (you can even get their teeth and claws!), cook food (grilled chicken!), and much more. Plagued by one of the slowest starts in any CRPG, though, it hasn't attracted the attention that it really deserves. If you can get through the first 3-4 hours of it, you'll be hooked. Just don't blow all your ore at the swamp weed stand!

Download the mp4 here.

In the final segment of my interview with Mark Soderwall, we chat about his work on Fracture, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Clone Wars, and much more. We also talk about the importance of game history, what it takes to be a professional game developer, and Mark's choice of reading material.

Download the mp4 here.

Be sure to watch around the 20 minute mark for a special Vintage Games surprise!

Two great xbox 360 pickups with first impressions of one of those games which is a Cave Shmup.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ElectricAdventures
http://www.youtube.com/user/SteveBenway

Sountrack:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ZombieAndy1979

Dr Retro/Sjoerd organized a retro-fair/convention in the South of the Netherlands. It was the first time he did this and for a lot of folks it proved to be a great success.

I went there together with the Wife, Halfblindgamer and MrCustard.

I myself was hoping to find a TurboDuo to replace my fried unit but to no avail. Mr Custard got away with almost all the shmups for the TG16/PCEngine in one go, for about 10 Euros each. HalfBlindGamer got a bunch of 3DO games for 20 Euros and I got a cool deal as well. Go check out the video.

The Soundtrack was created by SynthMonkey / ZombieAndy1979

In this video I am trying to play Thunderfox on the Atari 8-bit home computer range (800XL/130XE) and I talk a bit about the game, life, the universe and everything on the side.

Thunderfox appears to be a Uridium clone - or as close to Uridium as you are going to get on the Atari I reckon. It plays a tad different though - so different in fact that I have no idea how to play this.

I didn't get much of an opportunity like I hoped for after my first entry to continue working with my Mattel Aquarius collection through this past weekend, but I did get the stuff cleaned up, a bit better organized, and also cataloged, which I'll share in this post. I'm now at least at a good point where I can dive right in, and thanks to suggestions from some of our members, like Rowdy Rob, I also have something of a plan of how I want to share videos and other content that give a sense of working with the computer before I move on to other stuff.

The software...

Here's the full list of the items presently in my collection (as always, I'm interested in selling or trading any duplicates):