The Kickstarter for the 99th issue of Crash magazine has gone live. Roger Kean is back on editing duties, and Oli Frey will be creating the cover and art - we'll even see the return of the Jetman comic strip. The line up of other contributors is also looking rather impressive.
Crash holds a special place in my heart - it was my main go to mag back in the day (before, I admit, I jumped ship to the C64...), and I still have all the well worn issues I used to pore over each month. So this was an instant back for me.
The timing is perfect too, with the Spectrum Next arriving in the new year. What a great time to be a Speccy fan!
It's been a good time to be a retro gaming fan recently with several promising Kickstarters. Of course I dawdled too long on writing about them, so some have already finished, but they're still worth keeping an eye on.
The first Reformation took a little longer to ship than originally expected, but it was well worth the wait. 5 CDs of excellent remakes of some of the best tunes to grace the C64 (and therefore, games in general). I'm a huge fan of those old SID tunes, and Matt did a brilliant job of updating them while keeping that distinct sound that made them so special... so I have high hopes for volume 2!
I've backed all of Sam's books so far and they've yet to disappoint. Beautifully presented, with a good helping of interesting stories and tidbits. They've certainly prodded me to go check out some of the classic games which passed me by at the time, as well as those that I'd long forgotten about.
Closed, but worth following:
If you listen to retro gaming podcasts, I'm sure you would've heard David Pleasance pop up in an interview. He promises a bit of a no holds barred tell all about the rise and fall of Commodore. I doubt there is anyone who would've had a better insight into just what the hell was going on, so this book should be very interesting.
This looks like it should have potential. I was a little disappointed with the recent "Viva Amiga" doco (it was fine, but it was too light for my liking), so I'm hoping for something more from this one.
A new text adventure from Bob Bates - what more do you need to know?
After months of anticipation, the ZX Spectrum Next Kickstarter campaign has been launched. I was fortunate to see a prototype in action at the Revival Solstice event last July when Henrique gave a talk on the project and was very impressed. After some high profile crowdfunded retro gaming failures over the last couple of years it's easy to be sceptical, but these guys are not only doing everything right, but all indications are that their hearts are in the right place too.
I managed to snag an early bird standard edition pledge before all the spots were gone within a mere few hours. They're looking to raise $250,000, which is certainly a hefty amount, but as of writing they're almost a quarter of the way there and the positive buzz in the retro community in the lead up to this suggests they won't have too much trouble crossing the line (fingers crossed!).
The good folk behind the absolutely brilliant "From Bedrooms to Billions" documentary have announced their new project: a 90 minute film on the Amiga. This time rather than focussing on the British contribution to the industry, they're going to be talking to prominent Amiga developers, musicians, demo sceners and so on from around the world.
Given my love for the Amiga - a machine that was so beautifully and elegantly architected and years ahead of its time - I'm absolutely delighted they've chosen it as the subject.
A Kickstarter campaign will start in early March, with the release date intended to be early 2016.
