Tales from the Old School

Two very cool peeks into the fascinating days of the 80s and 90s games industry.

First, a half hour documentary about Ocean and Imagine games circa the early 80s. The boom and bust stuff is so over the top that it couldn't even be scripted. An absolutely amazing look into the world of the early UK development scene and gaming culture.

Secondly, listen to episode 91 of the 1up podcast Retronauts. It's a round table interview of developers from Tengen. It's a great conversation about NES development that goes into everything from unreleased games to Sega Technical Institute to how these guys are starting to find a place again in the age of Flash and iPhone development. Pretty awesome stuff.

Shnabubula - Playing Super Mario World While Taking Mushrooms

Holy cow, what a tour de force. This is an incredible Super Mario World Medley/Jam Session injected with healthy dose of soul and humor by Shnabubula using the original Super Nintendo soundfonts. The final few minutes are pretty mind blowing. Take ten minutes out of your time and listen to this insane thing.

This Cat Is Horseshit

A videogame I'm developing for Something Awful's Development Challenge IV. The theme is Deals with the Devil. The game is called This Cat Is Horseshit. It's the Garbage Pail to the Cabbage Patch of Petz games. You have to pet sit for Satan's unruly nightmare cat. Working now on AI for the cat and balancing the resource management. This engine test is being manually controlled to show off the early level design. Here is a demo of the theme song.

The Unbridled Enthusiasm of 1980's era Caucasian Youth

They're fruit snacks...to go

Some of Link and Mario

Boogie Boogie to the sound

C'mon, baby, let's get down

Face

Jammin all over the place

Keep it movin'

Don't be late

Yeah, baby, work it out

C'mon, ya'll, twist and shout

Talkin' about those fruit snacks

They come in bright packs

So we like 'em like that

And I'll bring some back

Chorus:

Super Mario (Real Fruit Snacks)

Nintendo (Fruit Snacks to go go)

Super Mario (Real Fruit Snacks)

Nintendo (With characters of Nintendo)

Super Mario (Real Fruit Snacks)

Nintendo (Let your fingers snap)

Super Mario (Real Fruit Snacks)

Nintendo (While you do the Mario rap)

Princess Toadstool is my friend

So sing along to the end

Dance Dance Dance to the beat

Move my body in my seat

Party all day and night

Make it loose

Keep it tight

Like 1 2 3

Or Mario, Toad, and Luigi

Do your dance

Dancing machine

Don't be dirty

Keep it clean

Move to the east...and west

Shake your body and nothing less

Chorus

Move quick around the land

Everybody just clap your hands

Party with me...and Shyguy

C'mon try try try

Princess Zelda, sing your song

Cause Link won't be long

Listen to the words...I say

There's gonna be a brighter day

Yeah Yeah Yeah

Keep it movin'

Now you're jammin'

And I'm groovin'

If I try really hard

Maybe I might be a star

Chorus x 2