BlazeQ Member Posts: 260 From: USA Registered: 05-11-2002 |
I was curious as to what gaming/game dev magazines you guys read or recommend. Game Developer Magazine (gdmag.com) is real good, and guess what, it's free to developers! Pretty cool huh? I was also curious as to what kind of coverage Christian games have been getting. None is what I would assume, it was pretty hard finding all the sites I have found. BlazeQ ------------------ [This message has been edited by BlazeQ (edited May 19, 2002).] |
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graceworks Member Posts: 455 From: Corvallis, Oregon, USA Registered: 03-03-2001 |
Hey BlazeQ, I get Game Developer too, actually helpful once in a while. Of the mainstream gaming magazines, not a lot of coverage for Christian stuff. Although the May '02 issue of Computer Games (cgonline.com) had an article entitled "Game with God". Mentioned N'Lightning but also "god" games (Black and White) and others. For Christian Games, let's start our own magazine! Tim ------------------ |
Ty Member Posts: 45 From: England Registered: 05-15-2002 |
A Christian games mag would be interesting. Unfortunately though, I think it would get very little readership from the secular market. It seems to me that (for some ridiculous reason) the word "Christian" seems to put a lot of people off. Which is odd, as it seems most of them put Christianity as their religion =/ ------------------ |
Krylar Administrator Posts: 502 From: MD, USA Registered: 03-05-2001 |
Hiya, I would agree with Ty. While it would be cool, it would be very niche and difficult to keep up financially. May an alternative would be to have an EZine. Could all be done online in order to say on the actual printing cost. -Krylar ------------------ |
c h i e f y Member Posts: 415 From: Surrey, United Kingdom Registered: 03-07-2002 |
hi Krylar! What's it like at "E3" ? I saw that you're over there all this week, any IMGs for us?  BlazeQ otherwise known as CVG? real crackin' mag that, really ! they did an amazing TOP 100 of ALL computer games last year, top banana... see it? ------------------ access chiefy's worklogs |
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BlazeQ Member Posts: 260 From: USA Registered: 05-11-2002 |
I also was thinking an Ezine would be best. But it would have the same problem as gaming sites, it would have a limited audience. Maybe partnering with the Christian mega-sites would work towoards getting a subcriber base. Thanks for sharing the link chiefy, is it a magazine too? I only saw the first page on the website and then they started asking me to become a member. ------------------ [This message has been edited by BlazeQ (edited May 21, 2002).] |
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Ty Member Posts: 45 From: England Registered: 05-15-2002 |
I'm not really a fan of CVG. They transferred my subscription from the Official Dreamcast Magazine to CVG when the DC went under, and I can't say I'm impressed by the standard of journalism. Still, not like I'm any better =P ------------------ |
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c h i e f y Member Posts: 415 From: Surrey, United Kingdom Registered: 03-07-2002 |
Ty The standard of their journalism? Yeah, true! a bit crude sometimes too,  no need for thatbut what about the standard of their models' columns : "Li'l Bruvva" an ace strip telling the story of such characters as Lara replaced by the "almost as good" dumped (now also finished) then there are the huge pages of game reviews covering across all consoles and PCs I enjoyed seeing the Commodore 64 and the Spectrum 48 featured in their legendary "Action Replay" column and the mag price? £2.80, crikey, try beating that!! anyone else got a fave computer mag?? ------------------ access chiefy's worklogs |
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Ty Member Posts: 45 From: England Registered: 05-15-2002 |
My favourite was ST Format, though was stopped a long time ago Edge is ok, though a little bit too pretentious for my liking. To be honest, I buy very few magazines as most of the stuff in them can be found in the 'net for free. ------------------ |
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c h i e f y Member Posts: 415 From: Surrey, United Kingdom Registered: 03-07-2002 |
Ty! ST format? meaning you had an ATARI STFM ? that computer was priceless for basic languages 1) it came with it's own basic language for starters "Atari basic" 2) STOS basic came out for it and this was a TREASURE language because of the LIBRARY of tools that came with it! I had the 520 STFM and ended up with a soldering iron and extra chips to upgrade to a 1mB RAM .... interesting story about that Ty ------------------ access chiefy's worklogs |
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Ty Member Posts: 45 From: England Registered: 05-15-2002 |
You bet!  Had to upgrade to 1 meg too, but the chip was too loose so we had to glue some cardboard cereal box to it Was worth it to play Elite 2 though! I must have spent a whole summer playing that game.I also have a 4 meg STe, with a hi res monitor, a Jag, Lynx and a 2600 in my somewhat small collection af Ataris. STOS did rock, too. My current project, "Shining Online", started life as a STOS game! I've put the original demos up on my website too ------------------ [This message has been edited by Ty (edited May 22, 2002).] |
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c h i e f y Member Posts: 415 From: Surrey, United Kingdom Registered: 03-07-2002 |
Hey TY there were TWO Sprite editors remember? 1) The Sprite Definer (massive full version) 2) Sprite2.ACB (junior sprite editor, my favourite!) the full sprite definer used to scare me witless, I always used the smaller one brilliant letter in this month's PC Format, read it and smile Ty !! "I've just discovered that windows XP won't format 720k floppy disks. absolutely classic! the kit came with a floppy disc which contained a program to "test" the RAM capability of your ST each time I welded up the connections it reported "Congratulations, your computer now has half a meg of RAM!!" HALF?? well, I didn't manage it, took it to a Kingston Industrial Estate where ATARI has a depot for £50 they soldered up the 23rd connection that I'd missed and bingo "congratulations, your ST now has 1 MEG of RAM" all of a sudden, 3D STOS was ready to go AND the DROID LIBRARY in paradroid! ------------------ access chiefy's worklogs |
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Ty Member Posts: 45 From: England Registered: 05-15-2002 |
I only used the little sprite editing thing too I remember my upgrade going badly too - we left it testing memory all night, and it wouldnt stop - the test was only supposed to take about 10 minutes! As for disks, I've got a cupboard full of ST stuff. I intend to copy some of it onto my laptop, so I can play all those classics again Ah, those were the days ------------------ |
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c h i e f y Member Posts: 415 From: Surrey, United Kingdom Registered: 03-07-2002 |
they certainly were I was telling you about Dave Parrot writing into PC Format about his 720k floppies! PCFormat replied, rather sarcastically I thought : "That's right and it won't write to ferrite drums, wax cylinders, marble slabs or polished mammoth bones either "I don't think I ever said that XP is completely backwards compatible but even if I id, I didn't mean backwards to the dawn of time "The 720k floppy disk format hasn't been used by anyone with an ounce of sense for 10 years....." and that's just HALF the response poor old Dave Parrot, one reason never to write in to PC Format mag eh? how will your laptop understand the ST games? they won't be compatible will they? I had an STE to begin with though got it home and found that it would NOT run "Thundercats", "Bomb Jack", "007" or any other ST games out! Yeah no kidding, the STE wouldn't run them! So I took it back to find that the STFM had gone out of production luckily the shop conducted a swap between customers, some customer wh'd WANTED an STE 3 weeks back but couldn't "wait" had taken the less "spectacular" STFM we swapped and were happily ever after!! ------------------ access chiefy's worklogs |
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Ty Member Posts: 45 From: England Registered: 05-15-2002 |
Hmm, mammoth bones... I'll be using an emulator to play them. I can fit plenty of them on this machine. Ah, the days when a game didn't eat 600 meg of room I never had any compatibility problems with my STe (yet), and it runs a few really nice games the FM couldn't. Obsession pinball was excellent, and SubStation was interesting. I never got chance to play StarDust, though I'm always looking out for new games to add to my collection ------------------ |
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c h i e f y Member Posts: 415 From: Surrey, United Kingdom Registered: 03-07-2002 |
hey Ty  I should have guessed "emulator" - what was the name of that infamous PSX emulator that SONY started court action up on? it worked on a great deal of PSX games but not all (when's the PS2 emulator coming out? hey I hope you enjoy your old Atari ST stuff on there ty, IS there actually enough hours in the day to do it though ? (jk) has anybody been to this E3 meet up? ------------------ access chiefy's worklogs |
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Astaldaran Member Posts: 23 From: Registered: 06-12-2003 |
Actualy I have been quite interested in a christian gaming magazine, while it could not be anything fancy at first (maybe not even printed out) it could work. My theory on how it works is by the fact that there are already so many sites with info people are willing to give info to for free so adding a little incentive would get you a lot of content and by having services besides the actual articles and such people would not mind paying 12 or so dollars a year. There is some disccusion at http://www.christiangaming.com/CGForum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=242 about starting a magazine. As of yet I really don't have enough feedback to start, but I really am looking around. I really want to make an actual magazine but I don't think that will be possible without at least 200 subscirbers. (unless I printed most of it in black and whtie via a laser printer. I guess I could see how much a color one costs) Anyway any ideas comments? ------------------ |
D-SIPL Moderator Posts: 1345 From: Maesteg, Wales Registered: 07-21-2001 |
quote: Wasn't Tim Emerich (graceworks), thinking about this. --D-SIPL ------------------ |
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Astaldaran Member Posts: 23 From: Registered: 06-12-2003 |
Not that I know of. ------------------ |
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D-SIPL Moderator Posts: 1345 From: Maesteg, Wales Registered: 07-21-2001 |
quote: I'll try and dig out an email from i while back. I'm sure there were some christian guys who were doing this. Tim any ideas? << he maybe busy with CGDC stuff. --D-SIPL ------------------ |
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Astaldaran Member Posts: 23 From: Registered: 06-12-2003 |
thanks I would appreciate it. ------------------ |
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nfektious Member Posts: 408 From: Registered: 10-25-2002 |
Actually...yes. There are a couple of guys involved in researching the idea of a Christian gaming magazine - or at least a gaming magazine that included Christian games. Not much has happened - that I know of - for a while, but the topic is slated for discussion at CGDC 2004. |
AmazingJas Member Posts: 437 From: Sydney, NSW, AUSTRALIA Registered: 04-03-2003 |
I read a few, but I also write for the Australian "PC Powerplay" print magazine, which has a readership of around 100,000. Small number from a US or UK perspective, but it's the biggest here in Aus. Reading wise, I love Retro Gamer, I probably should have pointed this one out to you guys months ago, apologies. I also read the US version of PC Gamer. I would have thought that maybe a Christian culture magazine with a portion of games content would be pretty successful. I'm pretty ignorant but I'd imagine there is one already out that's aimed at older teens? One of my aspirations is to start my own magazine, tentatively titled "Garage Gamer". Basically a magazine revolving around amateur game development, both from a making and playing perspective. A dream, but we'll see. |
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graceworks Member Posts: 455 From: Corvallis, Oregon, USA Registered: 03-03-2001 |
Sorry for missing this - trying to finish up the details for CGDC. Update on Christian Gaming magazine (yes it would cover both secular and Christian Games): We finally did get a new contact at Focus on the Family - one of the editors. They are recognizing how they have greatly short-changed gaming and are trying to correct it. However, that will all take place through Plugged In magazine and web site - he doubts a dedicated magazine to games would be accepted any time soon. We will be having a workshop on it at CGDC as well as extra discussion on Sunday afterwards. There are more and more interested. We should put together a proposal and mock-up to be ready if we ever find some company really interested. If we had those, I would pursue some other leads. Hope that helps. In the meantime, I know of two individuals that do their own "magazines". The one I've seen is more like a newsletter and I won't see a sample of the other one until the end of the month. God bless, ------------------ |
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Astaldaran Member Posts: 23 From: Registered: 06-12-2003 |
Well thanks for the info ------------------ |
mjohnson Member Posts: 48 From: Registered: 08-03-2006 |
I read Family Friendly Gaming's web site and am going to get a subscription soon. I like how they cover all Christian video games instead of a few. Great information. Did anyone here that was talking about doing a magazine back in the early 2000s ever do it? ~Michelle |
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D-SIPL Moderator Posts: 1345 From: Maesteg, Wales Registered: 07-21-2001 |
I mocked up a christian game magazine for my Game Development degree. We had to do an assignment where we had to create a magazine. It was fun, i learnt to really despise In-Design, i learnt to despise that G5 thing  and just about everything Mac. I'm not a designer, artist or any kind of user that would remotely want to even touch a mac so i'm not putting it down as a whole. I just dislike it personally. ------------------ |
