Tempest 2000



I've developed kind of a hobby of trying out independent games, I have a lot of respect for anyone that (in his/her free time) has the drive to make a something of quality, and am particularly fascinated with those who do this outside the bounds of industry, knowing that although they pour their heart and soul into a project, they aren't get paid. They're doing it for fun, to be challenged, and the coolest thing is, because there's an open realm of freedom for the imagination (which isn't always a good thing either! (lots of messed up games out there)). Anyways, that being said, I was searching around and saw a "tempest" clone (heh clones...), I was curious to see what it was like. I never played the original, however... I did play "Tempest 2000" on the Atari Jaguar. The Jag was a game system that was a complete failure, only putting out a handful of games worth playing. Anyways.... So I tried out this free game. Looked cool, but the gameplay sucked and didn't feed my need for nostalgic retro gaming. So... I found Tempest 2000 and had as much fun with it as I did back in 1994 (I was 14). I originally bought the Jaguar after believing the lies Atari gave out claiming the system to be a truly 64-bit gaming experience (flippin ridiculous). Pretty much almost all the games sucked, but Tempest 2000... Baby... The game itself was (almost) worth buying the jag for. I still haven't played a game in it's class that could compare. And the music (especially back then) was unbelievable. anyways, all that being said (and what a nice train of thought and action leading up to the topic at hand) I feel sad for all those that didn't get to play this game, and if you're crazy like me, you'll head over to ebay and bid on the jag and the game.

¶ 3:44 PM 0 comments

Open Source

Was talking to a fellow server of mine at the ol Lobster shop about open source apps and what not. I'm actually getting to the point where I'd rather not buy anything and support open source projects I utilize. Here are a few open source programs I am currently using, and have used (quite a bit).

Gimp: This is probably the open source program I've used the most. It's pretty much the open source contender against graphic manipulation programs like photoshop. It also has cmky support through plugins. I used this program to design this site and numerous websites.

Psycle: I've spent a good amount of time with music apps, creating all kinds of music, from orchestral to rock, to electronic. This is a cool app I use for my electronic music. It's a tracker program (old school), similar to midi. It's a vst host, and it has support for midi controllers. Very similar to buzz tracker, you can make your own "machines" (virtual synth, instruments and effect plugins). So along with buzz machines there are tons of options out there. I enjoy creating music in a tracker environment. May be a little different for other folks though. But it is capable of creating some quality tracks. A bit buggy at times, but it's a pretty good set up for.... FREE!
continuing...

Audacity: This is a tight wave editing program that I use quite a bit, to lay down quick tracks. Also capable of hosting vst's, has lots of option. One thing that erks me though, is there is no vst gui support, has something to do with the GNU/GNL license. So thats a bummer, but other than that, it's pretty solid. I use waveosour also (cause it's not under the GNU/GNL, so it's got vst gui support yay!!)

7-Zip: This is file archiver app with an awesome compression ratio. Works with tons of file archiver formats (zip, rar, ace, etc...), all the norms. Very useful, and becoming more popular.

anyways, theres a few. More to be found out there, sourceforge.net is the best place to start looking for open source stuff. It's nice, and free (but support does help) ¶ 9:37 PM 1 comments