Ryan Burger, Author at Old School Gamer Magazine

Glen’s Retro Show – by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:21:21 +0000

Let’s start this out by telling you that Glen Planamento is one of the nicest people I have ever met in the ten years that I’ve been actively involved in the retro gaming community. I have had the pleasure of being his friend for a couple of years now and have been doing business with him for the last two years, as he has worked on various innovative products for us Old School Gamers. What started out as a single video on a YouTube channel called Glen’s Retro Show with 340 views about cool stuff on the Amiga computer has grown tremendously, into a live weekly show with thousands of viewers and intermittent videos every week. Glen then made the…

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Time Crisis – by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:09:53 +0000

It was all about Time Crisis and The House of the Dead. Time Crisis hit me harder overall. This rail shooter takes you through different missions across the series. Each mission typically has three stages, and each stage has four areas you fight through. I have never finished any of the games, but I still love playing them anytime I visit a retro arcade.

In each game, you play a secret agent reminiscent of 007, basically taking on an entire army of bad guys. The game guides you through each mission on rails, moving you from encounter to encounter until you reach the boss fights, which are usually….

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Pitfall – by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:38:19 +0000

This masterpiece was one of the largest games ever made back in 1982. Think about this: 255 screens of gaming, all packed in 4 KB. The file size of Activision’s breakout title, Pitfall! (1982), was 4 KB. Every copy sold of this game would total 15.25 GB (4 million copies × 4 KB), compared to modern games that often have updates that large after you bought them!

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Adventure Land – by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:26:07 +0000

Before home computers ever had an “adventure game,” there was Colossal Cave Adventure (1976- 1977) by Will Crowther and Don Woods. Often referred to simply as Adventure or ADVENT, it ran on a PDP-10 mainframe, a machine that cost about $150,000 in the 1970s, roughly $1,000,000 in today’s dollars.

That kind of setup made sense in universities and large organizations, where a single mainframe could be shared, with dozens of users on one system at the same time. Around 1,500 PDP-10s were sold, and each could support roughly 64 to 127 simultaneous users. Even with that limited footprint, Colossal Cave Adventure inspired a long line of games, as people encountered it on campus or at work, then went..

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MODERN LIGHT GUN DEVELOPMENT and REVIEW – by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 14:56:14 +0000

Kickstarter is an amazing website. It helps bring to light new ideas from people and companies that want to release something but funding and research support through its unique system. In this case, Tassei Denki/Dashine Electronics, which is a company behind many products gamers use all the time, marketed under other brands, has created G’AIM’E. Pronounced “game” the clever wordplay here is the “AIM,” a nod to what this brand is all about: light guns!

Currently nearing the one million dollars funding mark, this Kickstarter had a goal of around $50,000 and exceeded it very quickly. Old School Gamer found it while it was making a splash on social media. We approached them a…

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Boulder Dash – by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 09:23:55 +0000

Boulder Dash is one of the games I distinctly remember playing on my Apple II computer in the mid-80s. Over a span of six years, it was released on nineteen different platforms after originating on the Atari 8-bit series of computers. Developed originally by Peter Liepa and Chris Gray, it is a maze game where you search for diamonds underground, among screen after screen of dirt. In later versions, it came with a construction set where you could build your own levels. At the time, I loved to build my own Lode Runner and Boulder Dash game levels and spent a lot of time on it.

Let’s go back to the early 1980s and find out more about where the game came from. BBG Entertainment is the developer and rights holder of Boulder Dash…

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MODRETRO’S GAMEBOY REINVENTED – by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 16:05:48 +0000

The ModRetro Chromatic, a new handheld device that plays all of the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges, will be hiding underneath many a Christmas tree this December, just like the original did back in 1989 with the OG version from Nintendo. While this version is closer to an update of the 1998 Game Boy Color, this iconic handheld is on our minds. The Chromatic is a reinvention that stays as close to the original as possible.

When the original Game Boy came out in 1989, it was priced at $89 with Tetris included, while the Chromatic is priced at $199 with a ModRetro-developed version of Tetris included. But with inflation, it’s actually cheaper than the original!

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Atari VCS – A Third Year update – By Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 13:35:08 +0000

The Atari VCS came out in early 2021 for most of its crowd-sourced backers; no… I’m not talking about the OG, The Darth Vader, The Heavy 6’er, the 2600, or whatever you call it. I’m talking about the Atari VCS 800 that was originally called AtariBoX. It was first announced in 2017. Initially, with a goal of $30,000, excitement kicked up at Atari after it pulled in 3.2 million dollars. This box hit the streets in early 2021 and definitely had its fans and its detractors. A Linux box at its core, it has the style of an Atari product; it comes with a modern interpretation of the CX-style joystick and a universal controller that matches XBox controllers. The VCS has an ecosystem of games that started with emulators running classic titles from Atari’s early days, continued in running the Recharged Series and other higher-end games, and is currently attracting indy developers that want to make a strong impact with its smaller-than-par audience (when compared with the big boys in consoles, Steam, and other dedicated platforms).

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Babbage’s, Software Etc, and More! by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 13:05:25 +0000

Back in the 1970s, you bought your video games at Sears, which, according to Nolan Bushnell, “The first three years it as exclusive to them. After that, e opened it up to several other retailers.” You would buy your computer software at an Apple dealer, Radio Shack, or the few other stores that primarily sold computers. Starting in the 1980s, games and computer software companies invaded the malls with specialty stores. For me in Iowa, I remember B. Dalton Books starting with a computer and video games section in the back of the bookstore at Merle Hay Mall. It then expanded into a “Software Etc.” store in another part of the mall when the traffic to the back of the store was matching up with the book sales in the front two thirds of the store.

Around 1987, I saw a sign up at my favorite mall, Valley West in West Des Moines. It was a “Now Hiring” sign for a new store, “Babbage’s that was due to open later that year. Brad Feingold and I applied
and went to work for a manage named Mark and an assistant…

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RETRO AIRBNB, AND ARCADE ANIMALS – by Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 14:43:48 +0000

For Scott Leftwich, the ’80s were the peak of existence! He has taken this hobby to a different level than anyone I have met in my ten years of networking with video game hobbyists, and Old School Gamer is going to tell you the story. For him, it starts out with Weiners and Losers, his private arcade, continues to an ’80s/Video Game Airbnb, and his current enterprise, Arcade Animals, a YouTube show in the vein of Starcade!
For him, it all began with growing up in the ’80s and buying his first arcade game in 1996, but let’s let him tell the story.

Scott Leftwich: “So I’m an ‘80s kid, and I was seduced by the arcades. It never left me. As soon as I got my license to drive, I went to flea markets and bought these obsolete consoles that I never got to play as a kid and that I wanted to experiment with. Then, in 1996, I bought Frogger, which was my first arcade game.”

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