No, it doesn’t seem likely that this will be the enclosure for the new Amiga, since the new motherboard was designed in that gigantic/cumbersome/bloated/(insert_favourite_pejorative_here) form factor otherwise known as ATX...

“Wait a minute! A new Amiga?? Joking or what?” – you say. Well, apparently not, it seems something is being worked on. If you don’t like teaser sites, just add a /6.html to that url.

Anyway, back to the case: I’m sure a lot of folks hate it, but I just think “total retro coolness” by looking at it! Here’s what I’d change though:

• Lose the floppy disk drive? It is useless nowadays, although actually it  does add to the retro style of it.
• Have all needed USB, headphone and whatnot ports on the sides.
• Make thiner keys, no need for those huge blocks.
• White keys? hmm…no thanks, I remember my A1200 keyboard getting a somewhat disgusting look as soon as they started to turn gray with dirt

Anyway, I’m looking forward to see what they’ll come up with.

So, do you see yourself buying a new Amiga anytime soon?

“What!? How dare you compare your petty little game to the great Turrican! Heresy! Burn!!!“.

If that’s what you thought when you read this post’s title, you’re probably an Amiga nostalgy freak like me. If on the other hand you have no idea what Turrican is and all this sounds greek to you, expand your wisdom here.

Anyway, just wanted to share were I got the idea for the Light of Chaos weapon. It works more or less like Turrican’s beam, except:

1. It biforks to the front and back of the player.
2. You continue to control your character’s direction, whereas in Turrican you’re blocked while you control only the beam.

It’s probably the most powerful weapon, you can pretty much wipeout everything around your area. It’s easier to see it on video, I must start posting some.

After long and intense discussions between my Development and Business departments (they’re both me), I decided to go ahead with a freemium model for the commercialization of my retro shooter game. I thought about simply donations, but I don’t believe in that model much as it doesn’t give enough value to the donor.

Basically that means that the game will be free, and, if you’d like to “enhance your gameplay experience”, there will be some shiny addons you can buy seperately. For now I’m thinking of these:

• Weapons pack. A set of 4 special weapons (The Vortex, Repelling Shield, Light of Chaos and Bullet Time)
• Level pack. Extra set of levels (of course).
• Advanced enemies. I’m still working on this one. This could some Boss type enemies with which you can play in a sort of duel mode.

To make up for the fact that the special weapons are now optional, a new weapon will be included in the base game: a mega-bomb type that blasts all enemies in sight. If you can come up with a good name for it, let me know…

Also, stay tunned as soon I’m going to start releasing early versions of the game so the playtesting may begin!

Been getting some very positive and encouraging feedback for Chaotic, both from Amiga and Pandora folks. There’s a nice list of cool homebrew that’s coming out for the Pandora already. It’s really reminiscent of the good old Amiga days, you know, all that hacking around in Amos, trying to do the next big game hit.

Anyway, it has really inspired me to not only keep going but bring Chaotic one step up. I’ve got some cool ideas to bring more depth and longevity to the game that I think you’ll enjoy. This is probably one of the areas that’s usually weaker in this type of game, so I really want to get it right.

So this means it may take a bit longer to release that initially hoped for, but I think it will be really worth it!

Thanks for the positive feedback so far, keep it coming!

And here we go. Chaotic Vortex, retro gaming goodness. Check out it’s page in the header link for the full info. To make it short: it’s a top down dual-stick arena shooter, which is a shooot-em’up were you control movement with one of the analog joysticks in your gamepad and use the other to control the fire direction (this is totally configurable in Chaotic Vortex, and you can use the keys and mouse for the whole thing). I won’t hide there’s some inspiration in Geometry Wars, but hey….every idea is based on some other, even if it’s not so obvious.

Other than that…well there’s a ton of enemies coming at you, some cool megabomb-type weapons to use, 4 player simultaneous mode, different scenarios and soundtracks and online leaderboards for competition.

And, if you’re an AROS fan: this will come for your beloved OS