Sep 18, 2013

The Indie RPG Bundle by your dear BIAB


Ah, yes, it's that time again, isn't it? Well...

The richest Bundle In A Box bundle to date, The Indie RPG Bundle, has finally gone live and is featuring 13 roleplaying games (complete with tons of lovely unlockable extras) to last you a lifetime. Or, well, for dozens of hours. At least. Dozens of glorious hours of indie RPG gaming from the trenches of World War I and those dark fantasy forests to contemporary cities and dreaded dungeons. 

Those who pay at least $1.99 will receive modern day RPG Unemployment Quest, choose-your-own-adventure gamebook The Siege of the Necromancer, indie classic Hack Slash Loot, strategic RPG Styrateg, Ultima-esque Inaria, the lovely Dungeon Fray, dungeon crawling tactical RPG Empires & Dungeons 2, and humorous 3D CRPG Frayed Knights

Gamers who beat the average price will also receive the brilliant and just greenlit Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land, the foreboding Wizard from Tarnath Tor, card-based Northmark, excellent rogue-like The Wizard’s Lair, and the utterly unique and philosophical Telepath RPG

As always gamers will also be supporting an important charity and indie developers via the Indie Dev Grant. Oh, and there's the exclusive Droidscape: Basilica content too. And the fact that putting this bundle together was beyond exhausting...

Sep 9, 2013

It's Behind You: The Making of ZX Spectrum R-Type

Coding on the ZX Spectrum was tough. As was creating decent art and making sure everything moved along at a respectable pace, and that's why a mere glimpse of R-Type running on Sinclair's humble 8-bit was more than enough to drop jaws all around Europe. The thing felt arcade perfect and quite frankly unbelievable, and that's why said conversion is considered one of the machine's finest, while casually finding itself in all sorts of best-of-all-time Speccy lists. 

Finally, you are about to find out how (then) bedroom coder Bob Pape managed to pull it off by reading his just released ebook It's Behind You: The Making of a Computer Game. The 138 pages long book is surprisingly well written, filled with all sorts of information, artwork, ads, bits of code, designs and, well, the complete lowdown on R-Type. Interestingly, you'll also find quite a few words on the Rampage conversion and the whole Spectrum era in there too.

A brilliant and most enlightening read indeed and a freeware PDF you simply have to download! Oh, and do not forget to check out those lovely book extras too.