The Atomic Knight Beta 3.0 Release!!!

Yes, a brand-new release of The Atomic Knight, the new trendy underground ASCII arcade adventure game I created!

New features include:

-Badass color options to suit any and all tastes!
-New intuitive interface
-Options Menu (also at death screen!)
-Color Menu (also at death screen!)
-Quit option
-Fixed a bug which caused the Game Over screen to get skipped
-Powerups (4,8,X) now give 500k points
-Trolls now give 1000+(0-99999) points

FREE ASCII GAME DOWNLOAD!

Download The Atomic Knight Beta 3.0

With the release of Beta 3.0, I can look back on the last two weeks of development. What began as a simple project in QBASIC a month ago (with the A walking around) I shifted the focus to C++ about 10 days ago. Sitting alone in an abandoned classroom, I programmed the concept that would become the Atomic Knight in 2 hours on my laptop.

Over the last week my free time has been divided between reading Emerson, Thoreau, and The Atomic Knight. Enjoy the game! Use your imagination!

Sonic 4 Annouced

In the midst of new ASCII game releases, another small software company is returning to its roots. Sega just announced Sonic 4, and it looks similar to the Genesis games with a bit of Sonic Rush polish. Personally I would have preferred 16-bit graphics, but hopefully Sega will do good with this game.

I'd also like to humbly point out that the "retro revival" trend was predicted by myself in 2008 with the release of Mega Man 9. Since then, Nintendo, Konami, Capcom, Sega, and others have released new additions to classic franchises in the classic style.

But if these games are still too advanced, I know a nice ASCII game you could play.

The Atomic Knight

The Atomic Knight is an ASCII adventure/arcade game. The world is randomly generated. Trolls are attacking the city, you must escape! Kill Trolls with your Atomic Energy Missiles (IJKL) and move with WASD.

This is a beta release, but it's the first game I've finished, so enjoy!

[2.4.2010 Download Link Removed, please download the current version!]

This includes the readme. The .exe is a 32-bit windows console application, and is best experienced in full screen. The game runs at 80 characters wide, 24 tall. Theoretically it could be ported to Telnet.

NOTE: This is a BETA release. New versions should be uploaded regularly for a few weeks. I am currently almost finished with Beta 2.0 which will change up the gameplay a little, so check back soon!



Screenshot are from the Beta 1.0 version, and, yes, the game looks different.

Bit Watch: Mega Man 10 English Trailer

Just found the XBOX Live English Trailer for Mega Man 10. Looks awesome. The graphics remind me of MM3, which makes sense considering MM9 was inspired, primarily, by MM2.

This also confirms an XBOX release, so congratulations 360 people.

EDIT: Official Mega Man 10 English Website

2nd EDIT: Also confirmed for PSN.

Your World of Text: The Building Art Project

Yourworldoftext.com proves to be an interesting experiment in human nature. The infinite possibilities of the space provided in ywot waste away to deleters, spambots, idiots. This, of course, is to be expected. Before I grew bored with the site, however, I launched a brief experiment of my own within Your World of Text. I call this experiment, "The Building Art Project."

The goal was simple: to create a fast, easy-to-build building that could be replicated by other users to create lots of buildings throughout the main page. To an extent, I was successful. I created several cities on the main page, hundreds of "clicks" away from 0,0. Some of the cities might remain, others have been destroyed. You can view the /worldmap I created to keep track of these both my cities and cities built by other users.

The problem, however, is that building ascii towns and buildings is boring as fuck. There just isn't anything to do with all of the infinite grid space in ywot. The Art Project, however, consists of a series of screenshots of buildings in yourworldoftext. All of these structures have long since been destroyed, and I leave you with these unusual pictures. I only built the buildings.

The attempt at creating order in a sea of chaos failed. Human nature proved to entropic for the powers of art.

MEGA MAN 10

Yes, you heard right. Mega. Man. 10. Fuck yes! Capcom is set to release 10 in March of next year, so 8bitcity will continue coverage of any news on the game.

There isn't too much info right now, but here is a scan of the Nintendo Power article:



Two robot masters have been announced: Sheep Man and Commando Man. The article shows an ice level. In addition, the article mentions that Proto Man and Mega Man will be playable characters along with a yet unnamed hero (probably Bass).

Judging from the official artwork, I think it's safe to say that Proto Man will play a bigger role in this game, possibly possessing a regular quest and achievements like Mega Man. A little more support for Proto Man would be nice-- it's frustrating to have the character in 9, yet the game doesn't let you play as Proto on the higher difficulties or Endless level.

If I weren't too exhausted I'd write more, but there isn't too much news on Mega Man 10 now. Capcom should be releasing a trailer in the next few months, so these are truly exciting times. Good job, Capcom, for releasing Mega Man 10 before the fangame was completed!

Here is an in-depth article on Commando Man but it's not the best.

In other, more depressing news, it appears that Cave Story for the Wii may be dangerously close to becoming vaporware. The word on the internet is that Nicalis submitted the game to Nintendo twice, only to have it rejected both times. If you remember correctly, Cave Story was supposed to be released about a year ago... hopefully Cave Story gets released early next year as well, and 2010 will be remembered as another great year for 8-bit gaming!

Finally:



There are way too many similarities for that to be a coincidence. Capcom does a great job of changing the original Star War poster to fit the crazy early Mega Man box art style. But compare the pictures: Death Star changed to Dragon. Tie Fighters changed to planes, Darth Vader changed to both Mega Man and Proto Man. The Composition of Mega Man and Proto Man are similar to Darth and the Death Star. Proto Man's scarf cape is flowing cloth like Leia's dress. Mega Man's beam matches Luke's beam. Leia has a gun, and Mega Man is also holding a similar gun. Mega Man is standing on a platform in the foreground similar to the rocks that Luke and Leia are on. Both drawings have a similar city in the background. Both have two robots in the "middle ground." Obvious Star Wars pastiche is obvious.