wee doors banging

After a period of navel gazing, I concluded that I am mostly a “river person” who is most likely to be found (and happiest) floating from interest to interest almost on a whim, and while this means I’m exposed to a wide variety of interesting subjects and experiences it can make it difficult to actually achieve anything significant in any one area.

In an effort to address this “problem”, I’ve taken some good advice to heart and tried “brainstorming a handful of goals … to give [myself] a bit more focus and direction”. The result is my list of Goals For 2010.

After many years of working and hanging around with with graphic designers, geeks and other assorted fans of the Apple, working extensively with Apple’s WebObjects software stack myself and envying the touch screen futureness of the iPhone, I’ve finally taken the plunge, drunk the Kool-Aid, swallowed the Aqua coloured pill and bought myself a MacBook and iPhone.

The latest issue of games™ magazine hits the shelves today. Up until now it’s not a magazine that I would normally have read, so normally the publication of another issue wouldn’t be much call for remark. But issue 89 contains an in depth feature looking back at one of the all time great – and personal favourite – Amiga games: Team17’s Alien Breed 3D.

Alien Breed 3D (AB3D), published in 1995, is the fourth game in Team17’s classic Alien Breed franchise. As the title suggests, AB3D breaks the 2D mould of the previous games; it’s a 3D first person shooter much like DOOM but with a more advanced graphics engine. It’s also one of my favourite Amiga games, if not my actual number-one-with-a-plasma-bolt favourite Amiga game, even though I was never much of a fan of the 2D games in the series.

Based on publically released source code and information, I started four AB3D modification and remake projects and I thought I’d list them here for posterity.

Elite, the groundbreaking space trading and combat game created by Ian Bell and David Braben, was released 25 years ago on September 20th 1984. In celebration of this milestone, Frontier Developments have launched a new website dedicated to Elite.

I’ve released an updated WHDLoad patch for an Amiga game that nearly wasn’t, Expose’s platformer No Buddies Land. This release updates the installer script and fixes a lurking access fault in one of the Synthdream module replay routines. Credit is again due to Don Adan of Wanted Team for helping identify and explain the problematic sections.

I’ve released an updated WHDLoad patch for Binary Asylum’s 3D helicopter’em’up, Zeewolf. This is a minor release to bring the installer script up to date.

I’ve released an updated WHDLoad patch for Kaiko’s insecty shooter Apidya.

This release removes self modifying code in the TFMX 7 voice music replay module used in the introductory menu and end credits.

For some inexplicable reason I’ve always had a soft spot for U.S. Gold’s 8-bit, action packed game Psycho Pigs UXB. A spot so soft, in fact, that I even produced my own reimagined and much extended version for the Amiga, Turbo Tomato! I was therefore happy (as a pig in …) to learn that a new remake of Psycho Pigs UXB is under way over at Tardis Remakes.

A new version of MiguelSky’s CPCGamesCD has just been released. CPCGamesCD is a freely downloadable CD containing Amstrad CPC emulators and games, operated from an easy to use user interface.