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[retrorevisited]

The games of Alice in Wonderland

Nearly two years ago I made a video looking at Alice in Wonderland and the games based around it - specifically the ones for the Game Boy Color and the DS. You can watch this above.

But I also interviewed two of the developers behind these games. Below you can find the full questions and answers from them...enjoy!

Mike Mika was the Lead Designer and Engineer for Digital Eclipse when they worked on Alice in Wonderland for the Game Boy Color. He is now the Creative Director at Making Fun. You can find him on Twitter here.

What was the reasoning behind making the game - considering the Disney film it was based on was released nearly 50 years before it launched?

Disney and Nintendo had worked out a deal to produce a series of titles based on Disney Princesses. If I recall correctly, it was one of the final deals that Howard Lincoln inked before retiring from Nintendo. In the end, only a couple of those titles were finished and published by Nintendo, ours and a Little Mermaid pinball game. We were approached by Disney after we finished developing our take on Disney's Tarzan for them. 

Another developer had already made some progress on an Alice game, but it was really simple. I think Disney was hoping we could build a game similar to the Tarzan game, with a lot of animation and classic platforming. We said we could and they killed the game in progress and signed us up. It happened really fast. We met in a room on the show floor of the E3 expo, and they showed us the current game and basically wanted us to pitch them on the spot without any preparation. We just brought in our Tarzan game which was showing literally within twenty feet of the meeting room, and we had a verbal agreement by the time we walked out.

Did you read the Lewis Carroll books as well as watch the films when preparing to develop the game - and if so did both inspire you at all during development?

I was a big fan of the books as well as Disney's take on the movie. I had the laserdisc of the feature which had a ton of extras on it (This was nearly pre-dvd era), and I also was a huge fan of the Disney Animation Studio, a great animation package for PC and Amiga which came with some pencil test animation from Alice in Wonderland. I managed to convert that animation to Game Boy Color to provide a sample of what the visuals would look like only days after our meeting. 

I had also seen the live play several times at a theater in Michigan, where I grew up. All of these things inspired me during the production. I was fascinated with the idea of taking all of the madness and making a cohesive game out of it. I was a little naive, too, because what we wanted to do didn't match up with the time and resources we had available. It would be a challenge for us to deliver the high concept in the end.

How did you and your team look to best capture the surreal nature of the film (and the books it was based on)?

MM:We had some really talented artists on staff who would work within the most outrageous limitations. They were really good at re-creating Disney animation in a way that was reduced to 3 colours and compressed well. It was a constant battle between visual fidelity and space. To fit the game on the cart, we needed to constantly cut corners, which started with colour and detail but would eventually cut into animation. 

We prioritised animation above all because it was Disney! We were sent a treasure trove of images and animation from Disney, too. These were photographs of background plates, notes, storyboards. These were all incredible to have. I was most impressed with the Mary Blair artwork and colour palettes. We based the entire game's colour scheme on her work.

Looking back, what are you the most proud of when it comes to the game - and is there anything you would have done differently?

I really hate looking at games I work on, I still always see things I wish I could have changed. It's especially hard when I use an emulator to look at some of our GBC work. It's so blocky and rough, but you have to understand, we were developing it to look good on a really small screen with low light. It looks much better on the GBC's native screen. 

We anticipated the delay for pixels to "dissolve" and how colours looked in contrast on that particular screen. So I'm proud of how it looks on the real hardware. We crammed a lot of animation and a lot of gameplay, some of which we might have done differently in hind sight - like the ladder level. That is painful. Also, I wish we would have pushed the menu screens a bit more. They were tackled last and we were just out of room to do anything fancy with them. I wish we could have captured the insane concept style of the movie.

Talking more generally, Alice's adventures in Wonderland have spawned several good video games - why do you think this is?

They're so visually striking and absurd. You can create a gameplay rule that has no relation to the books or films, and it fits because the world is built on the unexpected. We had so many liberties because the more absurd the idea, the more natural it felt. Like the idea that you need to paint trees or chase down a mouse - not normal game fair on the GBC at the time, those ideas just felt natural despite not being traditional mechanics. Likewise, creating levels that had no relation to the movie but were filled with moving platforms and falling lanterns. They just seemed to fit.

Have you played any other Alice in Wonderland games - and if so what did you make of them?

MM:I had played an older PC game. I forget who published it, but I do remember liking it a lot. I also really liked Alice by American McGee. The fact that it could stray so far and go so dark made it even more interesting to me.

The pace of the game is almost constantly changing, even from the very start where you're walking through a field of flowers and then seconds later are plummeting down the rabbit hole avoiding obstacles - was this sometimes erratic pacing intentional to capture the book's similarly unpredictable plot/structure?

Absolutely. We really strived to deliver the same kind of pace as the movie. If the movie was overly kinetic in motion, it was absolutely alive in imagery. So we created a series of game breaks to try to capture that. Usually before or after a transition to gameplay. So hopping on rocks over a brook served as a way to slow the pace yet look beautiful, then transition to the descent into the rabbit hole with surreal, yet kinetic, gameplay, only to calmly bookend it with an animation of Alice drifting softly to the bottom of the hole. 

The ROM itself was really tight, and we worked hard to keep those transitions. We even broke some rules and compressed and decompressed data by using the save RAM as code space. That was not allowed, but we were out of options. In the end, it worked, but it was scary.

Any other interesting stories regarding the game’s development?

At one point in development, Nintendo wanted to cancel the Princess line. We were on the chopping block. It had nothing to do with game play, I was told. It culminated in us flying up to Nintendo with people from Disney, then describing what we needed to do to finish the game. At one point, we were excused from the room so the grown-ups could talk. We could hear a lot of loud voices while we were hanging out at the Nintendo Employee Store. The Nintendo producer ushered us away from the action, I think, to spare us from hearing the details. They were also discussing a lot of other Disney/Nintendo things. When the door opened, the folks from Disney basically just said "Let's finish the game!"

Benjamin Bertrand was the Producer and Team Manager for Alice in Wonderland on the DS as part of the Etranges Libellules team - he is now the owner of MUTSU IG.

Did you read the Lewis Carroll books as well as seeing parts of the film when preparing to develop the game? We were mainly inspired by the book. As the movie was still in production at this time, we only had a summary of the movie script and some concept art. As well as the Disney cartoon movie. Tim Burton’s universe was also a good piece of inspiration. Some game critics said that we made a more Burton-esque Alice than the Tim Burton’s movie itself!

How did you and your team look to best capture the surreal nature of the film - and what challenges did you face in doing this? The design team was really inspired by this universe, it was like someone gave us new cool toys for Christmas. We were more used to common style games like Motoracer DS, My Horse and Me - so for us it was a really fresh new thing. And as I told you the movie was not released, so it was more about the book’s atmosphere and the Disney cartoon movie. The hardest thing was to make the physical rules vanish. It was important for us that our Wonderland has it’s own laws. So you have the different game mechanics where you can inverse gravity and time - and also travel without travelling (changing the puzzle map lets you cross the map easily). That was the main point in our research. The “Full Stylus” control was kind of challenge too. Making Alice follow and being dependent of the player was kind of baffling problem.

Looking back, what are you the most proud of when it comes to the game - and is there anything you would have done differently? I think the Puzzle Map, and the character designs are the things I’m the most proud of. And the time and physic mechanics are really great. But Alice’s behaviour and the game lay around the Wonderland characters was one of the best ideas. I think we can be proud of what we did. I don’t think we would have anything differently. We just needed more time to polish it a bit more - to make the gravity tricks more complex for instance, and add more puzzle pieces for extended gameplay. What do you think it is about Alice in Wonderland that makes it work so well when adapted into video games? I think the universe is really the strongest point. When you are in there you can’t really tell if you are crazy or not. Lewis Carroll plays with every law that make us rational and comfortable, so it’s pleasant for us, we can be surprised anytime, because nothing works as expected. Have you played any other Alice in Wonderland games - and if so what did you make of them? I’ve played American McGee's Alice in Wonderland. For me it was really a shock. So inventive, it just took a different approach. Alice is a Psycho? For real?!! That was great. But we didn’t take anything from other Alice games for our title, we just tried to stick with our vision of the universe.

Anything else you’d like to add?

As I told you, it was for us an opportunity to make something new, really different. The design team did really great job with the material we had. It was our personal vision of the Alice universe, and I think that it helps to make this game “original.” We were really free to make whatever we wanted. Disney was really interested into our ideas, our graphic style, and always responded positively to our creativity.

A huge thank you to both Mike and Benjamin for taking the time to answer my questions! 

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The best Scooby-Doo game ever made?

Scooby-Doo games are usually not very good. But what if there was actually a good one? I find out if there really is in the video below....

I also interviewed the game’s programmer Jeremy Mika, and you can find the full Q&A below...

What was the aim when it came to developing the GBC version of Classic Creep Capers - were you given any set targets, or did you have a lot of independence when it came to development?   It's pretty apparent where the influence for the style of game came from. I have long been obsessed with Lucasfilm Games adventures, and how that kind of game was created on such limited hardware. I put a lot of time into developing ways to create a LucasArts-ish system for different computer and game platforms as I encountered them. Our company was really involved in creating games on the behalf of intellectual property holders, and Scooby happened to be the first property that seemed to match the style of game I wanted to work on. It was a pretty big risk as it wasn't common to assume that Game Boy players were even at the age that could read, but, well, Zelda... Were you a fan of the TV series - and if so, how did you look to make the game as accurate a representation of it as possible? I had watched it over the years, and when we first started, I watched episode after episode to put together character profiles and speaking patterns for the story. We had some fantastic artists that had been working within the odd technical restrictions of Game Boy Color games already, and the Scooby-Doo restrictions were even more strange, due to the desire to continuously animate parts of the backgrounds and also display an inventory system that persists throughout every background in the game.

Your version of CCC is far better than the N64 iteration in my opinion - were you consciously competing with this version of the game at all?

Thank you very much for the compliment. Actually, we had no idea what the N64 version was going to be, and little contact. But Digital Eclipse had created a few other titles that punched above the Game Boy's weight, and were very ambitious for both the size of the team and the capabilities of the Game Boy. Though, while recalling that time, I have to point out that the Game Boy Color had network play, a printer, and a camera attachment! The N64 version does have multiple 'episodes' however, whereas your version has only one - was this purely due to the size of your team/time restrictions, or was there another reason? Size and time. With more time, we could have created a slightly different world with rooms that could be reused for different stories. With more cartridge size, we could have simply told more stories without reusing anything. In the credits you are credited with creating the GUE Story System - can you explain what that is and what you think it brought to the game? This is analogous to the LucasArt's SCUMM system, but far more restrictive, I'm sure! Well, who knows... It was comprised of an animation asset pipeline for data conversion, a corresponding animation runtime system to display all of the animation on the Game Boy, a scripting language for developing the story without having to think of technical requirements, and a cartridge ROM layout manager to arrange data in a way so that it could be efficiently accessed throughout the different phases of the game.

If you could make the game again would you do anything differently?

I would like to have spent more time on puzzle design. More time was spent on the tech than on the puzzles, and often the puzzles were being developed before knowing the capability of the technology. Multiple endings would have also been great, but those are often set up over the entire story, which would have been difficult (but not impossible) with the password system. If money weren't a concern, it would have been great to have the cart with battery-backed save RAM, so we could be more nonlinear with the story and not rely on password "gates".

It would have been neat to allow simultaneous play with a network option!

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The Gaming Book Club - The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L Kent

I also interviewed the author behind The Ultimate History of Video Games (TUHOVG) - Steven L Kent - and how he went about the Herculean undertaking of writing the book.

Do you look back on the book with particular fondness, considering how much effort/research was done in putting it together?

Sure. I loved the book, and I loved writing the book and I especially loved doing the research--which involved playing my favourite games and finding the people who created those titles. I was a full-time journalist at the time, so I did most of the writing very late into the night.

What were the biggest challenges you faced when putting the book together?

I am mildly dyslexic, so editing was incredibly problematic - especially because the first version of the book was self-published. If you look at the reviews, you will see that everybody, no matter how nice they wanted to be, mentioned the typos and errors. They were right. It was embarrassing.

Is there anything you would do differently if you had the chance of writing the book again?

Boy, that is a great question. There are a lot of things I would have done differently. I had two opportunities to interview Ken Kutarragi--once at a meeting at Sony and once at E3. He didn't expect to see me at the meeting at Sony, so he said, "If you will wait until after this meeting, I will give you a personal interview." As soon as the meeting was done, he vanished and never gave me the interview. Another opportunity slipped through my fingers at E3. A Sony PR person wanted me to break an appointment I had with LucasArts and tried to entice me by offering me an interview with Kutaragi. The PR man at Lucas was Tom Sarris, who had always been nicer to me than I deserved. I couldn't break the promise to him in good conscience. So, as a result, there are few quotes from Kutaragi in the book. I think a more important change would have been to get additional help with my fact-checking. I did pretty well, but not "great." I relied a lot on the people I interviewed. Some of them really threw themselves into helping me catch errors--Ed Logg stands out on that one. All of them were very busy people. Errors slipped through, especially in my self-published version.  To this day it still pains me. 

As I said, the book was written nearly 15 years ago now, so do you have any plans to create a renewed edition and bring it up to date? Again, a great question. At the time I wrote that book I was a freelance journalist writing for USA Today, MSNBC, Japan Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Post and many other publications.  You get a lot of access in the world when your middle initials are USA Today.  I could arrange interviews pretty easily because the companies and executives hoped I would write about them. Now I am a novelist and I don't have the same kind of access.  Also, I was pretty full of myself back when I wrote that book.  I burned some important bridges.

In truth, the quality of video game journalism has really improved over the last fifteen years.  I think there are many younger and more-connected journalist who could do a sensational job.

You’ve written a fair few books on video games, but obviously the Clone series has taken up most of your writing time in recent years. Do you have any plans or interest in returning to write another book focused on video games in the future - and if so which video game topics might you be interested in writing about?

There was a time when I thought about writing a book about the history of Electronic Arts or possibly Valve.  The Valve book is especially intriguing as I think Gabe Newell is the industry's greatest visionary at this time.  I've called Doug Lombardi at Valve, but he's never called back.  I suppose I should take that as a "NO."

Have there been any other books on video games since TUHOVG was published that you’ve read and would recommend?

I've read a lot of them and often been deeply impressed. Masters of Doom has a limited scope--id--and is sensational. Console Wars, by Blake Harris, is more along the line of creative nonfiction. It really takes you into the heart of SEGA. I knew a lot of the people Blake mentioned and felt he portrayed them well. Atari Inc.: Business is Fun is the ultimate book on Atari. It's so well researched.

Also, I am a huge fan of Lenny Herman's Phoenix books  They are the encyclopedia of gaming. Okay, I am going to be shameless here and mention All Your Bases Are Belong to Us too, which was written by Harold Goldberg--whom I consider a personal friend. Anyone interested in the Japanese side of the business would do well to read Power-Up, by Chris Kohler--a book that never got a fair shake.  It should have received a lot more attention than it did. 

Also, I want to mention Ready Player One, a book that doesn't any publicity from me.  It's not only the best novel ever based on video game culture, it's a great novel! I want to thank Steven for taking time out for answering my questions, and you can find his blog - where he discusses films, games, and books - here.

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Handheld History - Turok on Game Boy

The Turok series is probably best known for the groundbreaking games on N64- but I’m not going to talk about those in this video. Instead I look at the Game Boy entries in the series, and whether they were worthy supporting acts for their home console big brothers.

As stated in the video I even interviewed Isidro Gilabert who was behind most of the games included in the video above - and you can read the full interview below. Aren’t you lucky.

Hello. Who are you?

My name is Isidro Gilabert. I was head of studio and lead programmer of Bit Managers when we developed the Turok games for Game Boy. My company had around 15 employees back in 1996, when we started to work on the Turok series.

Were you approached specifically to bring the Turok series onto the Game Boy, and if so – why?

I was in the office when the phone rang. I was the head of studio, the lead programmer, and the guy who answers the telephone! It was someone calling from Sculptured Software, and he told me that he was calling a list of Game Boy developers that Nintendo provided him. 

He was looking for a developer interested to develop a Game Boy version of a game already in development for N64. He told me that he could not disclose the name of the game or the company. It was a very big game for N64, very ambitious, and we had to do the Game Boy version based on the N64 game and have it ready shortly after the N64 release. I thought "OK, the game is Turok. I am going to do it!"

I spent 45 minutes on the telephone explaining him that we had already developed a technology to display big enemies on screen (thinking of the dinosaurs), we had a very powerful hero control system that permits the player to walk, run, point, shoot, swim (thinking on all the actions and weapons in Turok), and I explained him that, in the case that the N64 game was on a big 3D landscape, I would like to do a 2D version plenty of levels and exploration to fit the requirements of the Game Boy (of course, thinking in terms of the Turok N64 levels). 

He told me that he was very satisfied with the call, and he had to keep calling other developers (he has a list of more than 20). A few weeks later, the phone rang again. We were chosen to develop Turok for Game Boy!

What made you want to work on the Turok games for the Game Boy?

We were working for Infogrames, and we had developed 10 games already for the Game Boy. We had the potential to do more games and find new clients, and this was a unique opportunity to work for an American company.

Turok: Battle of the Bionosaurs asks you to really explore the levels, and isn’t as linear as you’d expect from a Game Boy title – was this because the N64 game was set up in a similar way?

Absolutely. This is one of the things I explained them in my first call. I wanted to keep the N64 spirit, but adapt it to the Game Boy technology. I wanted to make a title based around the game’s concept, and not just create a simple port.

I’ll be honest and say that I found the first game quite frustrating to play - there were quite a few leaps of faith and check points were sparse – but if you thrown back in time, and asked to make the game again would you personally change anything about it?

I do not totally agree with the leaps of faith, because if you crouch and hold the down arrow you could scroll the screen left and right and look further the level before jumping.

Check points were not abundant looking at the game today, but I think that the difficulty level was okay with today's eyes, but I think that the difficulty level was OK - not easy and not too hard for when the game was made. I think if I was given the chance to make the game again, I would create the same title.

I found the second game to be a lot more fun, and there was a lot more variety in terms of the challenges – but the opening part was a bit bizarre, asking you to kill certain people and not others to get to the end. Ever since I was a kid I always wondered how you were expecting people to work that part out?

You had to use the select button to see who was a dinosaur and who was not. It should be written in the manual...

Ah, I didn’t have a manual - that would explain it. Anyway, is the more focused approach of Turok 2 because of any feedback you received about the first game?

No, it was our choice. We had total freedom to do the sequel. We learned a lot of things from the first game, and we wanted to design a more varied game.

Replicating the memorable weapons from the N64 version must have been difficult, so how did you approach bringing this part of the game to the Game Boy Color?

Having a lot of different weapons was one of the most important priorities when we developed the games. It was not possible to reproduce the visuals of the N64, but we tried to respect the variety and the ammo managements aspects for the Game Boy versions.

Moving onto Turok Rage Wars, it’s the first game that really takes the Game Boy series away from a 2D plane – what were your reasons behind this?

We wanted to innovate again. With the first Turok we did this with the controls and the weapons, Turok 2 with the varied gameplay, but Rage Wars gave us the opportunity to really innovate. 

As it was a Game Boy Color exclusive and we did not need any black and white backwards compatibility, we tried to make a big visual change in terms of the perspective, colours, and the gameplay. The new perspective permitted us to move Turok in four directions and jump - as well as add more gameplay variations, enemy behaviours, different heights, and so on.

Rage Wars is probably the strangest of the four games when it comes to the level design and the colours used (and I like it!) - but was this purely as there wasn’t really a proper single player mode from the N64 game to go from, so you had a bit more freedom in what you could do?

Yes had full freedom in all the Turok games. When Turok was finished and not released yet, we already signed the contract for Turok 2 - and it was the same story for Rage Wars and Turok 3. We signed one project after the other, and we had full freedom to make our game. 

We took this opportunity to be a bit more ambitious with each game, and we took brave decisions to create different and original things. Usually when you try to innovate, the publisher will stop you from creating original features in your game. But with Acclaim we found we could innovate and try new things.

Did you find it a bit strange how you had to make a Game Boy Color version of Rage Wars without including a multiplayer/co-op mode – considering that was the main focus of the N64 game?

A multiplayer mode was totally out of budget and timeline.

I feel like Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is the most complete of the Game Boy Colour Turok games – it has the most variety and best mission structure in my opinion – but do you feel the same way?

Absolutely. We tried to take Shadow of Oblivion a big step further than the previous games, including vehicles, third person view levels, and new gameplay variations. We thought it might be the last Turok game we made, so we wanted to make it the best Turok farewell.

Generally speaking, did you play the N64 games and try to make the Game Boy titles similar in tone – or did you just pretty much do your own thing?

The N64 games were not on sale when we started the development, so we had to make our own game based on the documentation, press releases, and screenshots we had to hand. I think they liked what I proposed in my first call mentioned earlier, were I stated we would develop Turok games for the Game Boy - but we would not just port Turok games to the Game Boy.

Which of the four games is your favourite, and why?

Personally, the first one. Turok 3 would not exist if Turok was not a very good game. I developed the full game and really enjoyed playing it - yes, I also was one of the testers! 

I did not write a single line of code of Turok 2, Rage Wars or 3, but I guided the team and proposed the technical innovations that were made. The games were becoming bigger and one programmer could not handle all the development. The first Turok still has the old-school style, while the sequels were more new-generation Game Boy Color titles.

Looking back, what problems would you say there were with the games (if any)?

The main problem was not to be able to save the game progress in the cartridge. Just a matter of budget sadly...

Did you ever get the chance to play Turok Evolution on the Game Boy Advance, and if so what did you think of it?

No, I did not...  

My sincere thanks to Isidro Gilabert for taking the time to answer my many questions, and you can find his personal website - which lists the many games he has helped develop - here.

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Handheld History - A great game for the Tiger Game.com?

The Tiger Game.com is much derided, but it does have a killer app - a title that no-one (and I mean no-one) ever talks about. This video looks to rectify that...

This video is part of Review A Great Game Day 2015, and you can see all the other entries here: http://reviewagreatgameday.com/

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Retro News Round Up - April 2015

This month's episode includes a gaming celebration in Manchester, dinosaurs getting ushered away from the Game Boy Color, and Pac-Man chomping his way onto Google Maps.

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Weird or Wonderful - Zipang [PC Engine]

Welcome to the first of a new series looking at strange titles - and if they're actually as odd as they might seem at first glance.

Let me know what you think of this show, as well as what game you want to see covered in the next episode of Weird or Wonderful!

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Retro News Round Up - March 2015

This month's episode includes overpriced cartridges, the lesser spotted Commodore 65, and Doom selfie sticks.

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Retro Revivals - The Excitebike series

So what exactly has happened to the Excitebike series then? This video investigates...

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Retro News Round-Up - February 2015

This month's episode includes the return of Grim Fandango, a Commodore Amiga built into a suitcase, and the joys of teletext.

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Handheld History - Duke Nukem [Game Boy Color]

Duke Nuke: Megaton Edition was just released on PS Vita and the PS3 - so I thought it might be an opportune time to look at one of the least discussed game's in Duke's oeuvre.

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Retro News Round-Up - January 2015

This month's retro gaming round-up includes Chip's Challenge on the NES, online multiplayer for the Mega Drive, and Pong installed on a traffic light. Yes, really.

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Handheld History - The Grinch [Game Boy Color]

Just in time for Christmas, here's a review of The Grinch on the Game Boy Color. No-one really talks about this game - but why? 

By the way: I was going to have this video rhyme, but sadly I just didn't have the time.

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The Gaming Book Club - The Encyclopedia of Game Machines by Winnie Forster

Here's another episode of The Gaming Book Club - this time looking at The Encyclopedia of Game Machines by Winnie Forster.

Vote for the next episode by posting a comment or visiting the survey set up here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HCHX9YF

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Retro News Round-Up for December 2014

This month's episode includes Smash Bros on a calculator, the return of Majora's Mask, and a way to get your NES games in HD.

This episode's links:

Atari: Game Over documentary on Xbox Video: http://video.xbox.com/movie/atari-game-over/4b8575c6-bd05-48e8-92c9-c61ba57e8025

Buried Atari cartridges on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/p3rkrt3

Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works book: http://readonlymemory.vg/sega-mega-drive-genesis-collected-works

Kickstarter for a CD of Commodore 64 music remade with modern audio technology: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1289191009/reformation-c64-track-remakes-by-matt-gray-last-ni

Final Fantasy seven has now been made in Little Big Planet: https://lbp.me/t/11eq?p=1&l=12

A component cable for the SNES and Mega Drive: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hdretrovision/sega-genesis-and-super-nintendo-component-cables

Kickstarter for the hdmyboy: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/507669971/hdmyboy-a-full-hd-power-up-for-your-game-boy-class

Pre-order the Retron 5 in the UK: http://www.funstock.co.uk/retron-5?tracking=522b4f1f9a4bb

Kit to output your NES in HD: http://www.game-tech.us/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

Custom wood based Neo Geo MVS: http://analogueinteractive.tumblr.com/post/102877937352/analogue-neo-the-analogue-neo-is-an-all-in-one

Donkey Kong Junior for the Commodore 64: http://csdb.dk/forums/?roomid=7&topicid=106627

A version of F-Zero for the PC Engine, called HuZero: http://www.chrismcovell.com/creations.html

Buy a physical copy of the unreleased SNES spiritual successor to Turrican, Targa: http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=6&threadid=138673

A demake of Super Smash Bros on TI-83/84 calculators: http://www.omnimaga.org/super-smash-bros-open/(axe)-super-smash-bros-open/

Pre-order Slave on the Dreamcast: http://www.goatstore.com/Products/Sega/Dreamcast/372087/SLaVE_Limited_Edition_Preorder/

Kickstarter for an NES platformer called Lizard: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1101008925/lizard

Fan translation for Picross 2 on the Game Boy, http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2303/

Fan translation for Psy-O-Blade on the Mega Drive: http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,18846.0.html

Fan translation for Mezase! Top Pro: Green ni Kakeru Yume on the NES: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2306/

Fan translation for Langrange Point on the NES: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2294/

[retrorevisited]

The Gaming Book Club - Masters of Doom by David Kushner

Books on gaming are discussed enough - especially as there are some pretty good ones out there. The Gaming Book Club is looking to change that, with this episode looking at the Masters of Doom by David Kushner.

Will it be as satisfying as wiping out a room of Imps with the super shotgun, or as annoying as when you fall off the descending platforms right at the end of Tricks and Traps?

[retrorevisited]

Retro News Round-Up for November 2014

This month's episode includes a new gaming museum coming to England, several Donkey Kong titles, and a very retro way to send your post (if you live in Ireland anyway).

This episode's links:

More details on The National Videogame Arcade to be opened in Nottingham:

http://gamecity.org/national-videogame-arcade/

Pre-order a copy of Commodore Amiga: A Visual Commpendium:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2146199819/commodore-amiga-a-visual-commpendium

Where you can order those gaming stamps:

http://www.irishstamps.ie/shop/p-1485-game-icons-68c-block-of-4.aspx

Pre-order a range of official Mega Man plushies:

http://www.play-asia.com/paOScore/19-71-183-15-rockman+plush.html

Order the Atari Lynx TV-Out:

http://www.yaronet.com/posts.php?sl=172&s=167987&p=1

Download the ROM for the Master System's Graphic Board here:

http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=82024#82024

Order the HIVE flash cartridge for the Intellivision:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/214212-hive-multi-cart-its-alive/page-11#entry3089313

More information on the SD card ISO loading device for the Playstation:

http://ps-io.com/

More details on the RGB expansion board for the TurboGrafx-16 and PC Engine:

http://www.db-elec.com/home/News/dbgrafxboosterttptestedandfullyoperational

Help fund the portable N64 DIY Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1992016895/n64-portable-console-build-your-own-kit

Order the physical cartridge release of Larry and the Long Look for a Lucious Lover for the NES:

http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=133

Download NES title Electronic Sweet N Fun Fortune Teller:

http://partytimehexcellent.itch.io/electronic-sweet-n-fun-fortune-teller

Download the ROM of the unreleased Mega Drive version of the Commodore Amiga title Bill’s Tomato Game:

http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=136433

More details on the upcoming HD remake of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis:

http://remakeofatlantis.blogspot.com.au/

More details on the upcoming HD remake Day of the Tentacle:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=51117.0

Pre-order The Ghost Blade for the Dreamcast:

http://hucast.com/

Fan translation for Digital Devil Monogatari: Megami Tensei:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2287/

Fan translation for Labors of the Divine Hero: The Glory of Heracles on NES:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1681/

Fan translation for Langrage Point on NES:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2294/

Fan translation for MSX2 title Xak: The Tower of Gazzel:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2282/

Fan translation for Alcahest on the SNES:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2286/

Fan translation for Kininkou Marouku Oni on the Game Boy:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2295/