[ FEB . 20 . 2011 ]
 
Greetings folks! Welcome to the February 20th, 2011 edition of Three for the Road. This week I take a look at a couple of new releases for the Commodore 64, with a remake of a fantastic Pac-Man clone.. as well as a brand new action / platformer, set aboard various star ships in the depths of space. Wooo! We also take a look at a unique arena / tube shooter which has been taken off active sale and is now being given away for free.

[ FEB . 13 . 2011 ]
 
Greetings folks! Welcome to the February 13th, 2011 edition of Three for the Road. This week I take a look at a brand new "One-Handed" arena shooter (It's not quite as deviant as it sounds), A Tetris style puzzler that comes complete with 38 variations, and finally a fantastic retro style platform game with a deep back-story.

Hi All,

Well, a few things have happened since my Flea86 project introduction from the previous month. This month's latest update will cover the following :

1) Completion of Flea86 case design transfer to CAD.

2) Inclusion of EGA (planar) video support for Flea86.

Saw this on today and had to post--enjoy!

[ JAN . 30 . 2011 ]
 
Greetings folks! Welcome to the January 30th, 2011 edition of Three for the Road. This week we take a look at a physics based Rock'em Sock'em Robots style game, a rogue-like game with Shoot'em Up elements, and a fun freeware Bat and Ball game with it's roots in a classic Amiga title.

[ JAN . 26 . 2011 ]
This week we take a look at a creative take on the "Match Three Blocks" theme. There's certainly a glut of these games out there, but this titles changes things up in one important respect- You're playing the game in real time on two playfields at once.

Colored blocks enter from the top and bottom of the screen and head towards the center. You must arrange them into groups of three or more of the same color in order to clear them. The active blocks on either side of the game grid may be swapped by pressing control or space.. but only if they haven't touched any other blocks. Certain blocks also contain power-up's that can be either good or bad. Experimentation is key. :)

Interesting game.. perhaps too busy for my own personal taste.. but worth a try. The official website for the game is here, although it appears the game file is completely offline.

Anyway, I've decided to host the game myself, so download it and give it a try.

-Chip

Here is a gameplay video, courtesy of Pixel Prospector:

[ JAN . 19 . 2011 ]
This week we take a look at a smashing PC remake of the classic computer game Oil's Well. This game was known for it's intense and somewhat frustrating game-play style. It had a very prominent risk/reward system that was almost unmatched, and led to quite a few controllers meeting an untimely demise.

For the purposes of my own sanity, I decided to do a software inventory of both of my active systems, one an HP TouchSmart PC that is my main computer at home, and the other a Sager laptop, that I use as my primary PC gaming system. I had previously only been keeping track of what I've been installing on the Sager laptop because I wanted to keep track of what games I had installed at any one time (since PC gaming likes to make itself difficult with putting this and that in various folders and being available via various services and what-not) so I had a fighting chance of actually remembering to play them. Anyway, I decided that that same concept should apply to my main computer, since I was burying myself under a sea of apps that I would surely forget I had over time and would therefore never get to use. The results of my inventory were rather sobering in that it's remarkable the amount of junk and redundancy that is accrued over time.

It is with the above in mind that I provide the inventory below not as something to boast about or specifically discuss, but as a sobering testament to how easy it is to overwhelm yourself with software, even on a computer that's not especially old (in fact, as of this writing, only about 14 months into my ownership). [By all means, though, use the comments to this blog post to relate your own stories, because I'd love to hear them.] The list below - along with the accompanying data - represents about 186GB of information on my hard drive:

[ JAN . 16 . 2011 ]
 
Greetings folks! Welcome to the January 16th, 2011 edition of Three for the Road. As always, we have a nice collection of indie developed titles for you to check out.

First up, is a multiplatform (Win, Mac and Linux) implementation of the Tron light cycle concept. Second, a modern day remake of SkyRoads that, if anything, is even harder than the original. This game is also multiplatform (Win, Mac and Linux). And third, an action adventure game about a man who is suffering amnesia and finds himself stranded in the tundra.. Now he must piece together what happened and who he is. This game is Windows only, but is available in it's native French language or English.

Enjoy.