Earlier this year, I had a realization. The SIU Student Center, like so many buildings that have been around a long time, has a bunch of old CRTs in storage. What if, instead of just letting them sit there collecting dust, they could be brought out to serve their original purpose? By which I mean, of course, letting people play Duck Hunt on the NES with nice, satisfying Zapper Gun clicks at Saluki Con this past weekend, from the 18th to the 19th.

When I first contacted Saluki Con about the possibility of setting up free-to-play retro games at Saluki Con, Nathan Bonner of Student Affairs was enthusiastic about the idea. So was Ryan Burger, the publisher of Old School Gamer Magazine. He offered four Ataris from his personal stash for the event. Unfortunately, there were only two gamepads in that stash, one of which can’t go down. Fortunately, Nathan Bonner had an old copy of E.T., so on that first day I just set E.T. up with a broken controller, figuring no one would understand the game well enough to realize that they’re supposed to be able to go down.

Unsurprisingly, even when I changed up the display on the second day, consolidating the Atari games to a single 2600, no one could figure out what they were supposed to do. One family did manage to figure out how to beat Adventure though (the little Stormtrooper was one of them), and a teenager who initially hated H.E.R.O. got to appreciate the obscure, late age Atari title. Pac-Man is, well, Pac-Man. I did get the idea to set up an old Pac-Man plug-and-play just to show off how crude the Atari 2600 port is compared to something that more clearly resembles the Pac-Man we all know and love. I also set up the Epilogue Playback with some Game Boy games, mostly because a lot of people asked for Tetris that first day.

Overall, the event was quite successful! I thought three TVs would be plenty, but demand was high enough that I requested a fourth one for the second day. Now that these CRTVs have been awakened to their true purpose, they can slumber for the next year awaiting the moment when they will be called into service again, dazzling children with their beautiful scanlines. Maybe next year we can have a second NES too, with Hogan’s Alley. Until then, a merry welcome to any new subscribers who scanned our QR code for that free digital subscription!

The post Old School Gamer Magazine at Saluki Con appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

To watch it, you have to have to search it out on YouTube or own a bootlegged copy. It never received an official release, but the dedicated Star Wars fan can track it down. It’s almost as rare as Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: Ewok Adventure (also known as Revenge of the Jedi), a game which was designed for the Atari 2600 and never released. As best as anyone can tell, there’s a single cartridge in existence, a prototype which was discovered in 1997. That’s not to say the game has completely vanished. A PAL version was discovered in 2001, and an NTSC version was discovered a few years later.

The game features you as an Ewok on a hang glider. Your mission is blow up the Imperial Base on Endor.  Along the way you defeat other enemies (like AT-STs and Stormtroopers) by dropping rocks on them. Depending on the difficulty setting, you destroy the Imperial base by flying to the center of it and planting explosives or by hijacking an AT-ST or Imperial Speeder and using it to enact the destruction.

Players had a limited number of rocks they could drop. Once you ran out, you had to fly low over a boulder, which would replenish their supply. In addition to enemies, you had to avoid natural obstacles like trees. You could get a boost in altitude by flying over little vortices on screen, which launched you upward.

Larry Gelberg programmed the game, and it was the supposed complexity of the controls that lead to the game never being released. According to Gelberg, “I had this artistic vision of the purity of the hang-glider controls – forward dives and speeds you up, back climbs and slows you down, and catching thermals every now and then maintained your altitude.  The marketing weasels either didn’t get it or just didn’t like it.  They tried time and time again to get me to put in a mode where you just go in the direction where you point the joystick.  But I was young and arrogant and refused, and they ultimately killed the game.”

It’s a pity the game was never released, and it would be fantastic to see it included in something like the Atari Classics collections. Perhaps an Atari Rarities collection is needed? In the meantime, here’s a brief clip of the gameplay:

The post Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: Ewok Adventure appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What was it like to develop Chantey? What did you learn?

K.C. Apostolakis: I began development on Chantey during the 2023 edition of the Game Boy Competition (GBCompo), a game development jam focused on creating original games and other content for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Back then, it was more about challenging myself to put a wacky concept I’ve had in my mind for years into practice, and I was itching for an opportunity to sink my teeth into a fully realized GBStudio project ever since discovering it in late 2022 (thanks to games like Deadeus and Dragonborne). I think close to the end of the competition, I realized the vertical slice I had might have potential as a full physical release at some point, so I decided to continue working on it after the end of the jam, and eventually this led to me deciding to start my own indie studio, with Chantey as its flagship title. Trying to balance game development with my day job, family life and release schedule was quite a challenge, to be honest, and not one I’d always feel comfortable I’d be able to pull off. There’s literal blood, sweat and tears that went into making that game. Eventually however, I managed to finish the game on time, something I’m extremely proud of. And the whole process – it made things that much more rewarding, when I actually held the final production cartridge in my hand, and played it on my original Game Boy Pocket that I still have from when I was a kid. 

Honestly, I (re-)learned that game development is HARD, no matter the platform you’re targeting. I came to respect that “retro” does not mean “quick and easy”, as I began planning a game I thought would take “several months” to finish, and eventually the whole development took almost 2,5 years. I’d instead argue working around the hardware’s limitations adds an extra layer of challenge, and forces developers to religiously practice scope realism, whilst thinking outside the box and finding creative solutions to see their vision through. I definitely gained a newfound respect for the original creators, who had to work through similar limitations, but without the comforts of modern PCs, fast Internet access, online resources and tutorials (I’m so thankful to the homebrew Game Boy community for those!) and user-friendly IDEs.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What has post release been like?

Apostolakis: Honestly, my first priority was to get some sleep, spend some time with my kids, simply relax and regain my footing from the final months of being in solo crunch mode. At the same time, I hate to admit to checking regularly for new articles, reviews and comments on the game, to see if the game is resonating with players, what works and what hasn’t translated from what I’ve had in mind whilst making it, keeping notes for future games. And generally, I just try to enjoy the game’s journey, trying to process how something I made originally as a hobby is now in players’ hands and shelves around the world – it’s still crazy to think about. 

I’ve tried to make myself available to help players who reach out for in-game advice, and I’ve also been listing and fixing occasional issues reported, as my priority has always been to deliver an experience that players deserve – make sure that Chantey is experienced the way it was always meant to. I completed work on a minor update/patch back in July (served via the Chromatic’s cart clinic), before gamescom, to try and uphold that standard, and will keep supporting the game and community in similar ways in the future.

Old School Gamer Magazine: How does it feel to be a part of the Mod Retro family?

Apostolakis: From the very beginning of ModRetro reaching out to me and inquiring about Chantey, I’ve felt a similar passion and love for retro games that I also share. The device itself pretty much solidifies this, as it delivered on every promise that was made and is quite simply an awesome piece of hardware, meticulously crafted for people who love the Game Boy. I love that there’s an ecosystem being built with extreme care and respect around the device. Little touches, like seeing indie homebrew titles next to such games like Tetris and Rayman, or the novelty of the cart clinic I mentioned – I feel grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it. What I’ve come to cherish the most though is the community of developers, with some of whom I’ve grown really close to since getting to know them through a shared Discord server set up for ModRetro developers.   

Old School Gamer Magazine: What updates have you done for the game via cart clinic? How does they make the game experience better?

Apostolakis: The game’s changelog has been published at the ModRetro website, for a full overview of what’s changed and fixed. Most updates are purely cosmetic (reflecting mostly my tendency to always tinker with things, even if they don’t need to be fixed), like moving an NPC to a different location during a cutscene, tweaking a sound effect, or other minor fixes, like graphical glitches at a tile level, or typos in the dialogue. More importantly, there are a few fixes for some scarcely reported bugs and “kernel panics” (crashes), at least the ones I’ve been able to reproduce on my end, which weren’t found during QA (a quite challenging task for an open-world game – another thing that I’ve learned). And there’s a slight improvement introduced to the rhythm synchronization gameplay, meant to make the rhythm battles feel a tad more satisfying (to me at least, and maybe to players as well). While the original game can be finished without any of these embellishments, I’d still recommend players upgrade to this latest version for a slightly better experience.  

Old School Gamer Magazine: What’s next? 

Apostolakis: There are several idea drafts and design documents I’ve worked on since, prior, or even during the development of Chantey. I’ve maintained I’d like to return to this world of Chantey at some point, as I’ve put a lot of effort into building a lore and narrative that I feel warrants more than one game. But for now, I’ve been working on some of these new ideas simultaneously in pre-production, trying to get a feel on which has the better chance of making it to production first. It’s still too early to tell, but it’s been really exciting – I feel all of these have great potential, and I’m hoping to share more information soon! 

Old School Gamer Magazine: Anything else you’d like to add?

Apostolakis: As my lengthy replies probably show, I’m passionate about developing games and games in general, even more so about retro games, the games I grew up with. I love that I’m able to talk about my passion from a creator’s standpoint, and I’m grateful to be given this chance to talk a bit about Chantey’s development! Thank you so much for hosting me!

Old School Gamer Magazine: Where can people find out more?

Apostolakis: I try to regularly post about new stuff on my social media, and people can find and reach out via X, BlueSky or Instagram. People can also check out gortyncode.gr for a quick overview of what Gortyn Code’s about. I’m also always lurking on Reddit, so if there’s anything you’d want to talk to me about Chantey, simply reach out!

The post Old School Gamer Magazine Exclusive: K.C. Apostolakis Talks Chantey appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

It’s not uncommon for Japanese games to include English voice acting, even for games that aren’t necessarily planned for release outside of Japan, just for the sake of maintaining an exotic vibe. PaRappa the Rapper for the Playstation and Sin and Punishment for the Nintendo 64 are fairly famous examples. Phase Paradox for the Playstation 2, however, is unusual even in this context due to the sheer quality of its voice cast. Names like Beau Billingslea and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, names that quite literally legitimized English dub work for anime. Yet the game is remarkably obscure. What in the world happened there?

Phase Paradox has its origins in, of all things, the shooter game Philosoma for the Playstation, which came out in 1995. As a scrolling shooter with only minimal emphasis on plot, Philosoma is an odd choice of prequel here. After all, Phase Paradox is an ambitious space opera depicting the perspectives of several workers on the giant spaceship that was in orbit in a support role around Planet 220. This was where the action of Philosoma takes place, dealing with the immediate aftermath of the apparent destruction of the alien threat in that game.

This continuity is mostly irrelevant in Phase Paradox itself, which doesn’t provide any more information than just that the spaceship is there, and decimated by some sort of energy wave that transforms most of the crew, some faster than others, into a malicious alien presence. If this sounds like a survival horror premise, and a decent one at that, it is! Which is why anyone who actually tries to play Phase Paradox will probably be a little surprised to learn that the game has no action elements whatsoever. Despite the fixed screens and tanky controls giving the impression that Phase Paradox will play something like Resident Evil, at no point do any of the perspective characters fight the aliens directly.

So, what exactly do you do in this game then? Well, the only real video-gamey element of note in Phase Paradox is the use of what we would today call Quick Time Events- little prompts where you get to choose what the character does. The right answer prompts survival, the wrong one a death scene. Ironically, by having no action-based gameplay whatsoever, Phase Protocol accidentally manages to be quite ahead of its time in the sense that it’s a walking simulator- the derisive name given to games with technically impressive environments and stories (or at least, pretensions at these things), with no attention paid to any interactive elements.

Of course, the development team of Phase Paradox didn’t set out to make a walking simulator. By all accounts the production cycle of this game was quite ambitious- hence the high-profile voice actors. The environment of the spaceship is just plain huge, even if most of the rooms don’t actually have anything in them. The graphics are also fairly impressive for a first generation Playstation 2 title. It’s clear the production team wasn’t just twiddling their thumbs for four years. Unfortunately, aside from the bare minimum elements necessary to call Phase Paradox a game, there literally just isn’t anything there.

Philosoma, for what it’s worth, also had a troubled production, and managed to be a decent success in spite of that because, well, because it was an early Playstation title when the library wasn’t that great. Phase Paradox wasn’t so lucky, launching alongside 2001 titles that are best remembered for being much faster and much more intense than anything anyone had seen before. It’s little surprise that, high quality English voice acting notwithstanding, Sony never bothered to export it. The game surely would have been savaged by the press at the time for its general lack of interactivity.

In the modern day, it’s easier to look at Phase Paradox with a bit more sympathy. As cheesy as the game’s story can get, it’s remarkably sincere without any sense of retro-tinged irony. There’s something oddly compelling about this obviously unfinished game if only because we can see what the priorities of the developers were at the time. Or at least, we could see the gameplay elements they were able to figure out how to do halfway competently in a time of rapidly improving technology.

If you have four hours to kill, this longplay of Phase Paradox is a pretty fascinating watch. I don’t think there’s any good reason for anyone to actually play Phase Paradox, mind you. The title is worthwhile mainly because of the glimpse it offers to bygone gaming history- an alternate evolutionary track that, for various reasons, the industry didn’t go down.

The post The Strange Story of Phase Paradox appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

About The Good Old Days:

The Good Old Days is a heartfelt tribute to the golden age of youth, blending the charm of 1980s juvenile films with the pixel-perfect style of retro platformers. Everywhere you turn in the world of Arostia, you’ll find clever homages and hidden gems that will spark memories of the good old days. From boss battles inspired by beloved childhood toys to locations that echo the look and feel of classic arcades and playgrounds, The Good Old Days is packed with moments designed to make you smile.

Old School Gamer Magazine: How was this game born?

Tazaki Ryoh: I always wanted to try making a Metroidvania at some point.
Instead of putting the main focus on battles, I thought it’d be interesting to highlight things like unique characters, exploration, and events. By doing that, I felt we could set it apart from other Metroidvanias and create something with its own identity.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What is your role in the game?

Ryoh: I worked on the game design, art, and story. I also gave direction to the programmers and was involved in selecting the background music and sound effects.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What has development been like?

Ryoh: It was mainly just me and one programmer working on the game. I’m based in Tokyo, while the programmer lives in Osaka, and since we both had day jobs, we could only work at night. So, every day from around 9 p.m. to midnight, we’d put in about three hours, communicating through Discord as we went.

After four years of working like that, we finally started to see the finish line.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What makes this game special?

Ryoh: First of all, you need to save up a certain amount of money to clear the game. How you earn that money is up to the player; It could be by defeating bosses, finding hidden treasures, completing events, or winning mini-games. There are plenty of different ways to approach it.

Another key feature is that it’s designed around multiple playthroughs. The first run is fairly straightforward and linear, but since items carry over into your next run, each subsequent playthrough opens up new areas right from the beginning. With every clear, the level of freedom increases, and by the end it almost feels like an open-world game where you can go virtually anywhere from the start.

On top of that, the story moves forward with each playthrough. For example, the ending of the first run directly connects to the second run’s ending, and so on. Each time you finish the game, the story progresses, which keeps players motivated to replay.

The characters are also a big highlight. Once you rescue them in the game, you can switch and play as them. Since each character has unique abilities, choosing who to play as depending on the situation becomes a key part of the strategy. Some events will even branch differently depending on which character you’re playing as, or who you’ve rescued, so their individuality really comes through in the story as well. The game also explores the friendships and struggles of youth, which adds another layer of charm.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What games influenced this one the most?

Ryoh: The story and setting were influenced by 1980s coming-of-age films, like The Goonies and Stand by Me.

As for the gameplay itself, I drew inspiration from classic Famicom (NES) titles such as The Goonies II and Mother.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Any fun stories or wild moments during development?

Ryoh: Originally, the title of the game was going to be “The Noogies,” but it felt way too close to The Goonies, and I realized that could be a problem. So, we held an internal contest to come up with new title ideas and that’s how we ended up with The Good Old Days.

But at that time, the game only had a single ending, not the evolving endings it does now. The problem was that the ending was pretty predictable… exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from a game with that title, so it just didn’t have much impact. We knew it needed something more surprising and powerful.

That’s when the idea came up. What if the story actually progressed with each playthrough, unlocking new developments and twists every time you complete the game? In a way, you could say the title itself inspired us to change the endings and push them in a more unexpected direction.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What were the major lessons learned?

Ryoh: Since I had never made a Metroidvania before, I learned a lot about the importance of level design and how crucial it is to make the action feel satisfying to play.
At the same time, because I was handling so many parts of the project myself, I had the freedom to create what I wanted, but I also came to realize my own limitations. I think those experiences will be really valuable moving forward.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Do you think preserving older gameplay mechanics in new games is important?

Ryoh: A lot of older games were made under strict limitations, so developers had to be creative about how to make them fun. Because of that, many of those games had a kind of fundamental “gameplay-first” appeal that didn’t rely on graphics, scale, or flashy presentation.

That core appeal really became the foundation for modern games, and most titles today are still built on top of that groundwork. It’s something that’s already deeply familiar to players, so it doesn’t require explanation. In fact, I think that familiarity is a huge advantage; players can dive right in and enjoy the game without having to learn new systems from scratch. That’s why I believe it’s so important.

Old School Gamer Magazine: The marketplace is crowded. How do you think you stand out?

Ryoh: Even though it’s a Metroidvania, it has several unique elements that set it apart:

• The clear condition of the game isn’t to defeat the final boss, but to save up a certain amount of money. And since there are many different ways to earn it, each player can have their own unique experience.
• The game is designed for multiple playthroughs. At first, it starts out as a straightforward, linear adventure, but with every clear, more freedom opens up. Eventually, it almost becomes like an open-world game. On top of that, the story progresses with each ending, so every run moves the story forward.
• The main characters are boys in their youth, going through that sensitive time of life where they deal with worries, encourage each other, argue, and grow together. They set out on a grand adventure, each using their own special abilities. It’s very much in the spirit of classic 1980s coming-of-age films, and I think it’s a story that resonates especially strongly with adult men who grew up in that era. 

  Old School Gamer Magazine: How have your previous experiences in industry helped this game?

Ryoh: I originally started as a pixel artist, but over my 25 years in the industry, I’ve worked on a variety of projects like modeling, animation, game design for mini-games, and data creation.

Thanks to that broad experience, I was able to take on many roles myself in this project, including game design, art, and story.

Old School Gamer Magazine: How do you want this game to ultimately be remembered?

Ryoh: I’d be really happy if playing the game made people remember their own childhood and feel inspired to reach out to their old friends from those days.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What’s next?  

Ryoh: We’re thinking of creating a spin-off using the characters from this game, but with a bit of a twist on the usual Metroidvania style.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Anything else you’d like to add?

Ryoh: This is a Metroidvania filled with exploration, unique characters and events, and lots of nostalgic elements. I hope everyone will give it a try and enjoy it!

The post Old School Gamer Magazine Exclusive: Tazaki Ryoh Talks ‘The Good Old Days’ appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Old School Gamer Magazine: How was this game born?

Paul Marrable: It actually started from messing around with creating level editors and tools for a pre-existing game. I was playing around with an open-source raycasting game called Anarch, which is a lovely game written in pure C. I wanted to see if I could make a level editor for it that was simple enough for my 8-year-old son to use—he’s really into game dev at the moment.

That actually worked really well. Then I started modifying a bunch of other stuff—swapping out enemies, adding new weapons, changing the game rules, etc.—and it eventually turned into its own thing, which was surprisingly fun to play. I released that version on itch.io under the name Ruyn.

A little later, I started getting back into Unreal and thought it’d be cool to see if I could use the same underlying level data to build levels in Unreal. And yeah, it worked nicely. From there, it was just a matter of building out the gameplay in Unreal and tweaking it until it felt good. That’s basically what Ruyn HD is today.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What is your role in the game?

Marrable: So yeah—pretty much all of it! Game designer and programmer. I can’t take credit for the art and music though—those were sourced from various asset packs and public domain resources, with some light Photoshopping here and there

Old School Gamer Magazine: What has development been like?

Marrable: This has probably been the most fun I’ve ever had working on a game. I always knew I was going to release it for free, so that took a lot of pressure off. It’s been a pure labor of love, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. It’s taken a bit longer than I would have liked since I have a family and a full-time job, but the only pressure really comes from me

Old School Gamer Magazine: What makes this game special?

Marrable: Ahh, that’s a tough one. I’m not sure if it’s special, but I really like how it feels to play—it’s fast and focused. I wanted the game to be all about the combat and the scoring, and I think that really comes through in the gameplay.

I’m especially happy with how the scoring turned out. It’s a mix of speed, multipliers, and creative kills. It feels pretty rich without being too complicated.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What games influenced this one the most?

Marrable: Ah, that’s an easy one—OG DOOM all the way. DOOM is, and always will be, my favorite game. The reason I started messing with level editors and raycasting engines in the first place was to understand my favorite game better. The gameplay idea was to distill my favorite parts from DOOM—the combat and the speed—and just focus on them. So, less secrets and getting lost, and more blowing the heads off demons.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Any fun stories or wild moments during development?

Marrable: Honestly, rather disappointingly—no. It’s been pretty uneventful, or maybe fortunately so, depending on how you look at it. Wanted to make a game, made a game, released the game

Old School Gamer Magazine: What were the major lessons learned?

Marrable: I think there were a few with this one. From a technical point of view, I wrote a lot of my own tools—like the level editors and online services. That had a higher upfront cost, but because I knew those tools inside and out, it let me work 4 or 5 times faster when actually putting the game together.

From a less technical perspective, it’s a lot easier to make games when there’s less pressure. I always knew this was going to be a free game, and I didn’t have any deadlines, so that really freed me up to make exactly what I wanted, when I wanted.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Do you think preserving older gameplay mechanics in new games is important?

Marrable: Absolutely! There’s a reason those mechanics existed in the first place. Some came from technical limitations—like Space Invaders’ single shot or Silent Hill’s fog—but most were created because they were fun and just felt right. That’s why I think OG DOOM and Quake still stand up today.

They’re simply just fun, and the mechanics are perfect for what those games needed to be.

Old School Gamer Magazine: The marketplace is crowded. How do you think you stand out?

Marrable: Being a free game definitely helps, but even then, it’s really hard to get anyone’s attention. This one’s been a bit easier because it fits into a very specific niche. So, I just shout at the boomer shooter community until they play it.

I also think having a super streamlined version of a boomer shooter helps—it’s really easy to jump in and out of, and it doesn’t take up more of the player’s time than necessary.

Old School Gamer Magazine: How have your previous experiences in industry helped this game?

Marrable: Yeah, experience always helps. It’s mostly with things outside of the game itself—like knowing how to set up a Steam page, where to post about the game, and how to act on player feedback.

Also, each game release just feels less daunting the more times you’ve been through it.

Old School Gamer Magazine: How do you want this game to ultimately be remembered?

Marrable: If it’s remembered at all—just as fun. Fast and fun, with exploding heads.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What’s next?

Marrable: I think the next thing I want to look at is a console release for Ruyn—maybe add some more levels, new enemies, etc.—and make it a bit more console-friendly.

I also want to jump back into some homebrew stuff. I’m currently about halfway through a Mega Drive (Genesis) game, and I really want to make something for the Game Boy.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Anything else you’d like to add?

Marrable: Nah, just thank you for having me 🙂

The post Old School Gamer Magazine Exclusive: Inside Ruyn With Paul Marrable appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

“So, we’ve had huge hits with Adventure and Space Invaders. Clearly people like battling aliens and searching mythic artifacts. What should we do as a follow up?”

“Well, sir, we’ve been thinking. You know how kids these days are fascinated by tax law and maximizing their earning potential?”

“Sure, sure.”

“Well, what if we created a game where players collect money, avoid bureaucratic red tape and learn how to successfully dodge the IRS?”

“I love it! After that we can create a game centered around the savings and loan crisis!”

No matter how many times I replay the conversation I can’t figure out how Tax Avoiders, released in 1982 for the Atari 2600, got the green light. In fact, the more I think about it, the more bizarre the concept becomes.

The game featured you as “John Q.” Your mission was to become a millionaire. You did this by running around the screen and collecting money while avoiding red tape. Get tangled up in red tape and you lose money. At the end of each quarter, you have to successfully avoid paying taxes by dodging a sprite representing an IRS Agent. If you fail to do that, the agency will audit you and claim 50% of your earnings. Now, if avoiding paying taxes isn’t quite exciting enough for you, don’t fret. There’s more. During the tax avoidance phase of the game, you can also encounter a sprite representing a CPA. This plucky fellow will charge you a nominal fee, but provides you with tax sheltered investment options. There’s also an investment advisor who will help you maximize your investments. In the midst of all this madcap fun, you are attempting to collect items that represent your investment portfolio. Play your cards right, and you might just succeed in becoming a millionaire by the end of one year!

The game was developed by Dunhill Electronics and designed by Darrell Wagner. According to the game’s packaging, Wagner was a “”Licensed Tax Consultant and former IRS Revenue Agent.”

While it might be hard to imagine a child who would be fascinated by this concept, it’s my understanding that Gordon Gekko loved it.

The post Greed Is Good: Tax Avoiders for the Atari 2600 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

We bring people together by providing a place to connect through a multigenerational video gaming experience.

I was fortunate enough to have met and interviewed the owner of “Arcade 92” in Flower Mound, TX. I will have his full interview published in the May issue of Old School Gamer Magazine. Here is a small sample of what Arcade 92 is and how unique it is to other arcades in the country. Not only can you play some cool retro and modern-day arcades and pinball, but you can play your favorites on the consoles of your choice.  From Atari 2600 – XBOX ONE, most every game you love will be available. Founder Michael Lepsch has been dreaming of this since the third grade.  In 2019 his wish came true in McKinney, TX and in 2023 his second location opened up in Flower Mound, TX.

Part of the Arcade 92 Story

 The fact that 1980’s and 1990’s kids grew up when an entire new subculture of the “Gamer” was born.  We were born in an analog era but raised in the fast evolving digital era.  We played video games at home after school on Nintendo or the Sega Genesis.  When we were not home, we had Gameboys and Game Gears ready to take on the road with us.  As great as those gaming systems were, I always missed the arcade machine that I played in that gas station.  With the home systems and portable systems so prominent, there were little to no arcades around to go to.  That all changed in 1992.

While the arcades struggled to compete with the home systems a Japanese company called Konami saw the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and wanted to give the arcades something that was not really a viable option for home gaming. What if they made a 4-player game where each person could play as one of those 4 famous turtles?  Seeing their success, Capcom wanted to get a piece of the action and released a game called Street Fighter 2.

https://www.arcade92.com/

With the arcades back in action, it forced the home console companies to really step up their game.  By 1992, the gamer culture was playing Super Mario World at home on their Super NES, Sonic the Hedgehog on their Sega Genesis, batteries always ready to take the Gameboy on the road.  When parents were not using the computer for work, we were playing Wolfenstein 3D on the dial up modem.  We were the first to use the internet after it was made publicly available in 1991 and few things were worse than playing Doom online and having your mom pick up the phone to make a phone call to Grandma.

We have come a long way since that first quarter was dropped into a Pong arcade machine in 1972.  After the video game crash on 1983, we nearly lost it all.  The video game industry was nearly a fad from the past.  If it was not for the events in 1992, the American gamer culture would have simply never happened.  Arcade 92 exists as a monument to this great culture that us 80’s and 90’s kids built.  You can find retro games at Arcade 92 from 40 years ago to modern games released 40 days ago.  

I do truly hope you enjoy your time here at Arcade 92 and my ever growing video game collection.  Soak in the retro game nostalgia, find wonder at the new modern games, and above all else, make some memories with your friends and family.  

Arcade 92 Flower Mound
801 International Parkway, Suite 580
Flower Mound, TX  75022

https://www.arcade92.com/

Arcade 92 McKinney
305 E. Virginia St., Suite 103
McKinney, TX. 75069

Admission is $12 per person for any length of time. The cool part is you can leave and come back as you please!  Rather than having to bring tons of quarters, all our video arcades are set to freeplay, and our modern gaming lounge is included in your admission.  We accept cash and major credit cards as a form of payment. We are fully ADA compliant and ready for those who have special needs to play again. There are a few things we want to give you as a heads up before you come to Arcade 92.

t’s time to play again!  That means it’s time to break free from the cubicle and whoop up on your co-workers!  If you need a reserved table, give us a heads up at least 48 hours in advance otherwise feel free to bring in the whole office anytime.  CLICK HERE TO BOOK A PARTY 

Examples of some of the food served

https://www.arcade92.com/

FULL INTERVIEW WITH OWNER MICHAEL LEPSCH IN MAY ISSUE OF OLD SCHOOL GAMER MAGAZINE

https://www.arcade92.com/flowermound/our-story-flower-mound

The post Arcade 92 – It’s Time to Play Again! appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Starting with his life before video games, he reminisces about his family and upbringing, as well as his hippie days and involvement in Transcendental Meditation. He discusses his ongoing musical work, along with many other aspects of his journey into a unique career in gaming.

CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER

The story levels up with the creation of Twin Galaxies (the arcade) in the early 1980s, moving through appearances in Life Magazine and on television’s That’s Incredible, and on to video game judging for the Guinness Book of World Records, authoring his own books, and much more. He includes his perspective on the King of Kong film, discusses the sale of Twin Galaxies (several times), and shares stories from his national tours to honor video game celebrities. The book wraps up with Walter’s retirement from everything to enjoy life.

Join one of the most interesting figures of gaming history in this entertaining chronicle of a life behind the joysticks.

CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER

The post The Ballad of Walter Day: Autobiography of an Arcade Legend appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

About RailGods of Hysterra:

RailGods of Hysterra, a cooperative base-building survival action game set in a twisted Lovecraftian dreamscape from developer Troglobytes Games and publisher Digital Vortex Entertainment. Showcasing its titular celestial locomotive, the new trailer delves into the challenges of surviving a post-apocalyptic Lovecraftian horror, where players must keep their RailGod fueled by hunting, trapping, and sacrificing monsters summoned by the Great Old Ones to power their journey through the treacherous Wastelands of Hysterra.

Old School Gamer Magazine: How was this game born?

Lucian Iurino: We were approaching the finishing phases of our previous project and some team members had a little bit more free time to spend on exploring new ideas, prototypes and games from other studios. We had been playing lots of action games and soul-likes because of our upcoming game, so to take a break from that we were trying some different genres, mostly survival games. 

At the time, games like Valheim and V Rising were all the rage. We also played lots of games with a more laid-back approach, like Graveyard Keeper. It was in that period that the idea for RailGods of Hysterra came into our minds.

We did some market research and convinced ourselves that there definitely was space enough for something like a survival game on Steam (people seemed to love them), but given the sheer amount of games released every year, we still needed to find that spark to differentiate ourselves from the competition.

It came from Saverio, our Lead Designer. He was binge-watching the Snowpiercer TV series, which he enjoyed a lot, so he proposed to make a survival / base-building game where your base is…well, a giant train.

The final touch was brought in by our obsession with cosmic horror and Lovecraft’s works. Everything started glueing together et voilà, RailGods of Hysterra was born.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What is your role in the game?

Iurino: I’m the Art Director for this game. I give the initial push to all the various artists working on the project, and then make sure all the things fit together with as few problems as possible.

Having taught myself some programming as well, I often act as a “bridge” between artists and programmers, to make sure they’re on the same page and everything goes as expected.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What has development been like?

Iurino: If the definition of  “emotional roller coaster” has a meaning, then it perfectly depicts the development of RailGods. The prototype and pre-production phases went really fine, we had tons of fun laying down the foundations for this project.

The struggles begun when we started looking around for a publisher. We talked to dozens of them and while almost all of them were interested, very few seemed to have the capacity to fully support such a project, mostly because of the current situation in the gaming industry: right after the Covid period, when people invested in games like crazy, things started to wear off, people were being laid off, projects were being closed and gaming outlets were literally disappearing from the scene from day to night.

Finding the right partner for RailGods in this scenario has proven to be one of the most difficult things we had to do in our career, but after many other highs and lows that I will just spare here, in the end we made it and found the right people, so we’re now fully back on track and working towards the game launch with a trustworthy partner that cares about the game and wants to see it succeed as much as we do.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What makes this game special?

Iurino: Besides a very special setting and some peculiar game mechanics you will not find anywhere else, I think players will perceive all the “indie” love that was poured into this game. We love our job, we love making games and we do it the old-fashioned way: no AI, no bought assets. We do every single bit ourselves and I really do hope players will notice and appreciate our efforts.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What games influenced this one the most?

Iurino: As stated earlier, the main influences have been V Rising, Valheim and Graveyard Keeper.

Old School Gamer Magazine: What were the major lessons learned?

Iurino: Making games is something you never really stop learning; there’s always something new around the corner, and you have to adapt quickly to new scenarios. Now more than ever the current situation of the gaming industry is undergoing deep transformations that will change it in ways we can only make assumptions about, so I’d say that the number one lesson learned is: adapt or die.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Would you like to add any final words to this thread before we wrap things up here?

Iurino: Yes! Support indie games, support original games made with heart and passion. That’s where the interesting things are happening now.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Do you think preserving older gameplay mechanics in new games is important?

Iurino: Absolutely. If you have a look at our track record, you’ll see that all of our games are literally modeled on gameplay mechanics from the past. Our debut game, HyperParasite, is a love letter to a long gone era of gaming, that of the 80s. We think that today we have kind of forgot the true essence of videogames and we need to re-learn it. This of course does not mean that today’s games are all bad, but we believe old games have still a lot to teach us, and combining this with modern technology, we can truly make wonders.

Old School Gamer Magazine: The marketplace is crowded. How do you think you stand out?

Iurino: RailGods of Hysterra offers a very particular gaming experience for survival games enthusiasts. There are hundreds of survival and base-building games out there, but how many give you the opportunity to build, nurture and make friend with an eldritch horror entangled with a steam train’s locomotive? I mean, that’s just plain crazy!

Old School Gamer Magazine: How have your previous experiences in industry helped this game?

Iurino: We learned a lot about making games with each project we made. Besides the technical skills required, there’s a whole world of knowledge to be acquired: marketing, PR, publishing, networking, etc. At some point, we decided to learn porting our own games ourselves on consoles, and that’s a whole new field entirely. We poured all the things we know so far into RailGods, but it’s just another step in our adventure.

Old School Gamer Magazine: How do you want this game to ultimately be remembered?

Iurino: We’d like it to be remembered as one of the few games that truly takes advantage of the amazing works of H. P. Lovecraft. You know, there’s lots of games out there that claim to be inspired by his works, but only a few stay true to the original material and even fewer managed to recreate the same chilling experience of reading one of his stories. Lovecraft is not just “Chtulhu”, and Chtulhu is not just “tentacles”; there’s so much more!

Old School Gamer Magazine: Are there plans for any titles following RailGods? 

Iurino: We hope to be able to keep working on RailGods for a long time. We have tons of crazy ideas that we’d really like to bring to players. We’re just scratching the surface here.

Old School Gamer Magazine: Anything else you’d like to add?

Iurino: Yes. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

The post Old School Gamer Magazine Exclusive: Inside RailGods of Hysterra  appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.