Saturday, May 10, 2014

Dead in the water

Looks like this idea is dead in the water, as I failed to get more than 3 or 4 people interested. If you are still interested please respond to this post, otherwise I will probably just take the blog down in a week or so and scrap it as a failed experiment. Thanks

Friday, April 18, 2014

Introducing: Retro Game of the Club (RGClub)

Hello! Welcome to the official site of the "Retro Game of the Club"!


The idea started when I challenged a friend of mine to Battle Garegga to see who could get the furthest using only 3 credits. We gave ourselves a week to try to outdo each other. It was really challenging and fun. Having someone to compare notes with pushed me to try to do better in the game, dig deeper into gameplay strategies than I normally would have. It was a really enjoyable experience.

This friend and I have similar interests in shmups and classic arcade/console games. So I thought it would be fun if we could find a group of other people who would be interested in competing, comparing notes, just chatting about the games in general.

The types of games we will be playing:

*Arcade Shmups (via MAME)
Examples include: Dodonpachi, Battle Garegga, R-Type Leo

*Arcade Platformers (via MAME)
Exaples: Wardner, Chelnov, Contra

*Console games 
(Anything that can be emulated fullspeed is fair game, from Atari 2600 thru Playstation 1)

*PC Games
(Preferably multiplatform, or at least ones that function in Wine)

If console/PC games are played, preferably they will have "arcade sensibilities"... i.e. Challenging, action based... No RPGs or anything that takes too long to play. Something you can sit down and enjoy in 1 sitting. And then play again to see if you can get further than the last time :)

Why will we do it?

For fun! For a more in depth history, check out this article about "arcade culture"... While I don't agree with everything he says (especially dislike his condescending tone), it is still a great read and kind of "gets you in the spirit" of arcade games.

Also of note: Players in this club will most likely be "average human beings", and not "Japanese Robots". (Japanese Robots is my endearing term for players who can beat really difficult shmups with 1 credit blindfolded with their arms tied behind their back)... So typically instead of limiting our games to 1 credit, we would limit to 3 credits which is a much more attainable goal.
While Japanese Robots will certainly not be excluded from the club, if one does happen to join, it would be assumed that they would get 1st place on all the games, and the "real" first place would actually be 2nd place. See? :)

Prerequesites:

* Go play Dodonpachi if you have never played it before. No, really, go play it. You will like it. Trust me.
* MAME. Make sure your ROM versions match your MAME version, otherwise the games will probably give a "missing files" error.
* Console emulators


So how will this work? 

For about 1 week every month, we will play a game and compete against each other in a predetermined goal. Goals could be:

* Getting the furthest in the game
* High Score
* Fastest time
* Etc


How will games be selected?


Everybody can suggest 1 game that they would like to play for the upcoming round, and we will vote on the games. The game with the highest votes will be the next month's game.

After we get about 5 players,  we'll go ahead and start the first round. As of April 21, there are 3 players registered.

Game candidates for the first round are:

** C64 - Cybernoid 1
** DOS - Fury of the furries (looks faster/fluider than the Amiga version)
** Genesis - Kid Cameleon
** MAME - Air Gallet
** MSX - Thexder 1

If you're interested in joining, all you have to do is respond to this post and say you're in and which game you are voting for! Alternately, once we get going, just join in any round at any time.

Let's do it!

-organic io