Terry Cavanagh's hit, and Jeff Minter makes a comeback

Some may be familiar with Terry Cavanagh's work. He's an independent game developer who has made a habit of knocking out addictive, retro-themed games for Flash, Android, and iOS in recent years. I immediately became a fan after coming across one of his early games, Don't Look Back, which is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Euradyce.
We here at MACE HQ are pleased to report that Terry has a mobile hit on his hands currently, in the form of Super Hexagon, and that he is finally starting to be paid back for his many years of creative, interesting retro games!
Super Hexagon is an "avoid 'em up" game, which genre includes previous hits online such as Canabalt and Flappy Bird. In Superhexagon though, instead of the obstacles being strewn across a scrolling 2-d landscape, they confront the player in an ever-expanding , "zooming" play-scape that resembles the game Tempest, if anything. See the video below. We note with some amusement that comments on this video and various other discussions online make requests for the games music as downloadable MP3. It doesn't sound like anything our good old ST's couldn't belt out!

Speaking of Tempest and retro-style gaming successes, Jeff Minter, another faithful proponent of gameplay over modern graphics, and of keeping the retro roots of computer gameplay, graphics, and sound relevant today is also having some success with his Tempest 2000 remake, TxK.
Sony is publishing the game for it's handheld PS Vita console this month. Source.
Gameplay of Txk is shown below!

January Meeting

BBQ was had, the birds got stoned, the cars rolled by, we all went home

December Meeting

And so it came to pass that the December meeting was indeed held at Moorabbin...Anyone for a game of Video Pong?

November Meeting

Another good time was had by all those who attended. It will be back to the Moorabbin location for next Month...

October MACE Meeting

Just a reminder that, as with the 3rd Sunday of September 2013, we will be meeting be in October this coming Sunday at 479 Warrigal Rd, Moorabbin 

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On the menu, amongst the usual eclectic variety of discussion, will be a look at a classic remake of Jetpac for the Atari Jaguar, in the form of Rocketeer by the group Reboot

And for those blessed with the bandwidth and the processing power, here's a video preview

Rocketeer Trailer from rgcd.co.uk on Vimeo.

And an even better time was had by all...

As we Enduro'd yet another meeting.

And a good time was had...

Watched a video featuring David Crane.

Great Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

Those of us with memories not too faded by the purgatory that has enveloped us all since the halcyon days of the 80's and 90's may recall a game vaguely reminiscent of Mario Brothers that appeared on the ST in 1988, called Great Giana Sisters. Despite slanderous and untrue allegations by Nintendo, the franchise has continued healthily to today.

Great Giana Sisters: Any resemblance to Mario Brother is purely coincidental

  
Introducing the latest 2.5D iteration in the franchise, Great Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
 

Tetris Printer Algorithm

It is a well known fact that Tetris has never been much of a challenge really. It is also a sad-but-universally acknowledged truth that paint programs have generally made it far too easy to produce passable pixel art. Well, fear no more. Both problems have been solved in one fell swoop with the concept of Tetris being used as a pixel-art tool. The standard of performance is currently set by the Tetris Printer algorithm... but I'm sure you can all beat that. We'll be trying at the monthly MACE meeting on the 21st of July, same bat time, same bat channel.

March 2013 meeting report

I think this is going to be a short one. Next meeting is on Sunday the 21st April 2013 at 10:00 AM Melbourne, Australia time. But we'll try and start the Google+ hangout earlier for those of you in the Northern hemisphere. By the way we've skipped out of Day Light Saving time and should now be one hour less in front of most of the World, excludes New Zealand of course.