Quote: "Oh, I KNOW WHAT A REMAKE IS!!! Sorry for the shouting, would "Snake", a cellphone game be considered retro. Because it would be fun to remake that"
Well sort of...
The earliest incarnation of Snake is actually from Microsoft, with thier 1982 game called; Nibblers.
This was for the 8086/88 PC which was an 8/16bit Machine (and I actually played it to death on an 8088 XT), finally got ahold of the source recently too which was kinda sweetness.
The rules for a Retro game state clearly it must be a 8/16bit game.
This mean the Gameboy Advance, GameCube, N64, Playstation, Dreamcast, Saturn, X-Box and Playstation2 games are not Retro.
We'll break this down further though just for clarification:
1976-1981 : This is the Dawn of Gameing, no seriously the first game ever made was in 1976 in a California University by 2 Computer students. It was called Space Wars, the game was very very cool indeed; You had 2 Ships, one for each player and you could move it forward or rotate from side to side. If you flew off the screen you'd appear on the other side. The idea was to shoot your opponent without getting hit. Often mistaken for the first game is Asteriods by the guy who founded Atari (the first ever games company). Astroids differed from Space Wars in the fact it was Single Player and you had to blast asteroids.
The orignial game was actually a project from the students to show simulated physics on a computer, it's amazing the whole gameing industry came out of a class project from 2 physists, eh!
1981-1985 : This is the 8bit Era 'Tape' Period. During this time people at home finally got the chance to use computers in thier home, althought most quickly became pure games machines.. before this you could only really buy computer games like Pong and Space Invaders. This was also the Birth of the 'Bedroom Programmer', a period which basically kicked off the games industry from purely those who have years of experience to be able to produce titles to kids and adults who could sell thier creations. ALOT of games companies still going today started during this period by getting small teams together and creating games.
1986-1991 : The Console Age. Still part of the 8bit era, this is when the very first consoles hit the public eye. I say public eye, because SEGA were the very first ppl to release a console in 1984 called the Master System. It was the *only* ever tape based console, and really wasn't any different to the Master System 2 released in 1986, apart from the fact the MS2 took cartridges.
But this is also when Nintendo finally hit the home market with the synominous NES/FAMICOM. 1986 saw the start of a rivalry that lasted over a decade!
1987 saw the release of something else which also didn't change in a decade, the Gameboy.
Although during this period the Amiga was a full blown 16bit machine and PC had the 16bit 386 processor and 32bit 486 processor; the games produced during this period were still being produced for to simply be slightly better looking varations on thier 8bit editions. (no one really took advantage of the power of the 16bit machine until late 1991 when David Brahbam released the phenominal EliteII which was Amiga's best selling title of all time!)
1992-1995 : This really is the Golden Age, and when 16bit Consoles took over almost everyones living room. It wasn't hard to choose really// SNES/SUPER FAMICOM, Mega Drive/Gensis, Jaguar and CD32.
These consoles were revolutionary for thier time.
The Jaguar was actually the first 64bit Machine ever, they beat Intel/IBM/Nintendo to this goal but 3years. Which was some feat, pitty the console sucked harder than an etheopian leech.
Only good thing to come from it was Aliens vs Predator.
This my friends is your cut off point. Every game made after '95 (and some of '94 in Japan when the Playstation was first released) equal the 3rd Console wars... and no longer considered part of the 8bit/16bit Age range.
Really if your worried about something being old enough do the colour test. If it used more than 256colours onscreen at once then it's not old enough
//..
Recently started my entry for the competition. It's based on Pirates! that loveable 1990 Sid Meier Game about jackin' people at sea hehee
Should be alot of fun doing the artwork and the engine.
Only unlike most here or even at Retro Remakes i'm using C++ w/DirectX 9.0c
was thinking of using PureBASIC, but considering it was a bitch to convert the Dx9 libraries and i'm still not finished I can't be arsed as it's just adding too much time to be worth it.
