Bruce Tomlin Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 Fry's in Austin had a few copies of issue 10. I know this is an import, but a 2-3 issue lag seems a bit much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haydn Jones Posted February 6, 2005 Share Posted February 6, 2005 just thought i would add to this price discussion. i get a usa mag called New Type USA(a translated jap anime mag) i was shocked when i found out it would cost me $147 (with a discount for filling their survey) and this isnt down to poor exchange rate, they realy do try to rip off the international subscribers, and its jam packed with adverts. but from my local comic shop, there is a week delay from us to uk and its cheaper. Retro gamer dose cover a wide variety of systems, includeing non uk stuff. There was a critisme left about spectrum coverage, but realy it was the birth of mainstream hombrew which is whats keeping a lot of the retro systems alive. when i get my gf's scanner set up i'll see about posting the article if no one else has. incedently uk mimimum wage if $9.09 acording to xe.com but we pay more tax. (to give an example of the difference in economy) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 I've bought copies of Newtype's Japanese edition at a Japanese grocery store in Houston (in saran wrap to keep the goodies together) for less than the cover price of the US edition! And that's at their not-so-great $1.65/100en exchange rate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 So... zero people with the magazine have scanners eh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolenta Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 Fry's in Austin had a few copies of issue 10. I know this is an import, but a 2-3 issue lag seems a bit much. Barnes & Noble still has #10 on the shelves too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 So... zero people with the magazine have scanners eh Seconded...I can't find this issue anywhere...and I'm in the dang thing. Anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 So... zero people with the magazine have scanners eh I do, but I don't think they'd be too appreciative if I scanned three pages from the magazine and posted it here (and I know they read the site). If they grant me permission, I'd do it in a heartbeat. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 While I wait for the appropriate issue to take the slow boat here, I should mention about their "Retro Gamer Anthology" which showed up in Fry's this past week. Yeah, it's 16 bucks (apparently this was a US/Canada specific printing because there's no price in pounds), but there's no ads in it either. It's about the price and size of your average game hint book. I think it was worth it. It's got 16 articles from their first year of issues, all about retro gaming from the UK viewpoint. This is a world where the Intellivision and TRS-80 esentially didn't exist, and Commodore and Sinclair were king. I found out about a few things I hadn't heard about before (Telecomsoft and their two-pounds-fifty software line), and more about things I had only heard a bit about (I went straight from TRS-80 to Macintosh, so I missed out on Elite). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 Wow, that anthology sounds pretty cool...though I don't think we have Frye's around New England... Anyway, Al was kind enough to scan my interview for me -- but as Peter (the interviewer) promised it was brutally edited, so I thought I'd post the initial Q+A exchange we had via email...much longer as you can see. Heh, I just noticed the article calls the new version of my game "FlipPing" not "FlapPing"...d'ohh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 Anyway, Al was kind enough to scan my interview for me... Thank for mentioning Thrust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osmeroid Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 BTW Has anyone played any of the 2600 re-makes supplied with RG? Some lovely PC versions of Combat, Haunted House, Adventure, Pele's occer and my personal fave, River Raid! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 Anyway, Al was kind enough to scan my interview for me... Thank for mentioning Thrust. Well congrats for making it past the editor's brutal chopping knife or whatever metaphor they use... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
128bytes Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 Congratulations, Kirk and Albert. Thanks for the q&a posting, Kirk - super technical reading. I'm curious to hear more, including stuff about how you came up with the AI for the opponent and about your work with Paul Slocum to integrate the music theme into the opening and closing segments. I'm glad I'm one of the "Lucky 70" JP cart owners, and good luck with FlapPing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 Thanks for the q&a posting, Kirk - super technical reading. Thanks, I tried to give quality answers--looking back I was almost surprised at how thoughtful I was. I'm curious to hear more, including stuff about how you came up with the AI for the opponent and about your work with Paul Slocum to integrate the music theme into the opening and closing segments. AI: that's been a hallmark of JoustPong since it's earliest versions in Visual Basic. I found out that if you have the computer say "flap if your top is below the ball" tends to make a decent but not perfect opponent...sometimes it overshoots or rebounds off the ceiling and can't recover. (Having Pterry in the mix helps as well) For 2600 JoustPong, I added a "flap limiter" that previous versions didn't have...it ends up making a more realistic graphic, for every flap up it has to rest a certain number of ticks. The "easy" opponent is just the same algorithm with its limiter set to a higher setting so it can't flap as much. Music was sort of easy, and didn't directly involve Paul Slocum. Atari Programs have 2 main parts, what happens during the "blank" period (once per TV frame, relatively a lot of time to do calculations) and what happens while the screen is being drawn ("the kernal", barely enough time to draw a few players and backgrounds, never mind do much game logic). Music can easily take place just during the blank, only changing notes at most once per frame, so once I looked up the musical note values from some online source (might've been Paul's come to think of it) all I had to do was put together my own little music engine, two counters, one for the rhythm (repeats every 4 beats) and one for the tone (repeats every 4 measures) I didn't have to fiddle with Paul Slocum's brilliant and generous kernel to get the music for either the title screen or after a match. I'm glad I'm one of the "Lucky 70" JP cart owners, and good luck with FlapPing. Heheh. Although i wouldn't purposefully make a "limited edition" cart, it's kind of interesting that I have one in the form of JoustPong anyway... maybe someday it will be a legend of sorts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 One last little bit of trivia about the music: (heh, too bad I don't think homebrews are elgible for the frontpage "Did you know?" section) -- the 4 note riff is very simple, if it started at C (not sure what note it's really tuned to) it goes "C Eb D Db" -- and I got it from the notes a cheap toy coconut ukulele (that my (now-ex) wife bought me from a party supply store) was tuned to. At first I thought the music was a bit inspired by Mega Man, but then I realized no-- I was thinking of this music that plays when you hit "pause" in one of the levels of Super Mario Brothers 2--they take out everything but the bass line, and it sounds like of like the music I came up with. I like the little bassline, I think it has a nice sense of menace or anticipation. And the rhythm was a simple vaguely-"funk" beat I've known for a long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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