I noticed the basic ZX Spectrum version of well-known Capcom beat ’em up “Final Fight” didn’t really have much of a soundtrack…so I decided to make one myself! This album features the original bleeps and blerps of the ZX Spectrum’s Ay-3-8912 sound chip playing 4 Read More …
All good things come to an end. In my case this turned out to be the relatively cushy storage solution i had for all of my old Spectrum gear. Still, silver linings and all that: One of the big advantages of having to get your Read More …
This article was originally posted over at https://www.gametripper.co.uk. Why not head over there and see what lovely articles they have ready for you to read right now? (well, after you’ve read this one obviously) When is a game not a game? The usual response to Read More …
When it isn’t doing is it’s upmost to sabotage Western democracy, one thing that can be said for Facebook is that it does have some of the friendliest retro communities on the internet. A few weeks ago one particular discussion caught my eye: how popular Read More …
Because FatNIck knows what makes commercial sense, here’s a piece of Sharp x68000 music covered using the sound hardware of the zx spectrum – both 48k and 128k. There isn’t really much to say about this one really. I was playing the ominously titles “Genocide Read More …
I’m pretty surprised that its taken me so long to get round to reading this book myself, to be honest, but here it is: A quick review at Kenneth McAlpine’s scholarly examination of the history of chiptunes. I suppose the first thing that needs to Read More …
The cold embrace of death, eh? It comes for us all eventually, but for some – in this case CD-based games consoles – it comes quicker than most. While older cartridge-based machines will keep going until either their capacitors go pop or the universe falls Read More …
As i write this on the 13th of March 2019, the United Kingdom is on the precipice of a peacetime crisis on a scale beyond the comprehension of anyone who’s younger than about ninety. The two main political parties are fiddling about, each looking to Read More …
Ok, I’ll have to admit it – as someone who fits in the relatively uncommon venn diagram between history and retrogaming, I probably let myself ponder the question of what exactly retrogaming IS a little too much. Why does it matter? after all, it’s just Read More …
It was the 90s! Spice Girls! Nude darts! Playstations! Obviously only the latter interested me, and amongst all the gaming triumphs on Sony’s behemoth the port of Mechwarrior 2 really caught my attention. One particular mission really stood out. Tasked with infiltrating an enemy base, I was disappointed when Read More …
Before I begin, I should point out I’m a fan of Choon, a music service that combines music and crypto currency in order to create audio-based fun times and frolics. Since discovering the platform and signing up for it earlier in the year, I haven’t Read More …
On reflection, it’s probably a minor miracle that the world ever persuaded us that £40 to £50 cartridge games were the way to go. Back in the early 90s, you could probably count yourself lucky if Father Christmas slyly dropped one or two video games in your stocking. For the Christmas of 1989, however, the FatNicK house ended up with a grand total of five new titles to play. Blimey. Read More …
Egad! I pop off on holiday for a couple of weeks and Sony go and release a full list of the titles they’re baking into the Playstation classic. Needless to say, the list has proved to be a little bit divisive. In fact, given that Read More …
What could be better than the best song ever written being performed on the best gaming hardware ever made? This is a version of the B.E.R. track ‘The Night Begins to Shine’ lovingly reproduced for the Sega Megadrive (with some guitar samples from the Nintendo Read More …
Does any game own its genre as effectively as Mario Kart? Sure, the more po-faced among the racing brigade might draw influence from other (more realistic) avenues, but if you’re looking towards making a light-hearted kart racer, it’s impossible to avoid the touch Read More …
Modern games consoles, eh? With their bundled hard drives and insatiable hunger for game patches, they’re effectively just user-friendly PCs aren’t they? Yes, even you over there in the corner, Mr Switch. Hang on though! When you think about it, the inverse is also true. Read More …
This is the theme from the online Vector graphics-based driving game Vector Highway (play it here now: ) , I composed this track to be evocative of the experience of tuning in and out of different radio stations on long inter-state car drives, and wrote Read More …
A good while ago now I started a series of blog posts about my adventures with Unity. I quietly retired that series when it became obvious that writing about game development with clarity and precision was probably as hard as the development itself, but Read More …
I’f you’re reading this, it means that my music is now available on the exciting Choon music service! Choon is quite an exciting idea. Built on the Ethereum platform and using its own Crypto currency called “NOTES”, Choon has been designed to solve Read More …
For those willing to dabble in the murky world of emulation sites, the internet offers the most bizarre game prototype as a trophy. Produced for Sega’s 32x Megadrive expansion and dubbed Virtua Hamster, the game puts the player in control of a loveable Read More …