Happy Friday the 13th!

A little retro throwback to celebrate Friday the 13th. My fused bead creation, Jason from the Nintendo NES game, Friday the 13th. I made him with colours from the movies rather than the game though.


And speaking of Friday the 13th games, yesterday the kickstarter project, Friday the 13th game hit its target goal of $700,000. This multiple player game which is being created by Gun Media will allow you to play as Jason Voorhees for the first time ever and have you stalking the camp counselors of Camp Crystal Lake. Or you can play as one of camp counselors as they attempt to survive the night.

This project sees the return of Tom Savini, the makeup mastermind behind the look of the original Jason in Friday the 13th series and Kane Hodder, probably the best actor behind the mask in the series.

There is still 14 hours to go on this kickstarter project if you want to grab a perk while they are still available. Head over to their kickstarter page to check out all the perks which range from $5 to $10,000.

 

Psychonaut's Raz is a Plushie!

Iam8bit.com is selling an officially licensed Raz from Psychonaut's plushie and it is freaking pretty damn sweet looking. It stand 15 inchs tall and looks soft as a kitty. A warm kitty that will sit on your face and try to kill you in the night. Cats are jerks.

It is going for $35 (I assume US dollars which means a billion dollars in Canadian dollars right now..) on the site and will start shipping in December just in time for the holidays.

If someone wants to send me one of these, I will love you.

Buy it here. 

[Source: Iam8bit.com]

Help me fund my Etsy store, Pixelized Creations again

I have been trying to restart my Etsy store, once Pixelated Creations, but now called Pixelized Creations but due to a lack of funds, I have not been able to get the supplies needed to stock my store with all the best items.

I have a few items up in the store but only old items I have on hand but nothing is selling and so I can't put any money towards buying any new supplies for new items which I know will sell like they used to.

So I have decided to turn to Kickstarter to bank roll my store reopening. There are various pledge levels from $5 to $50 with lots of great reward items like Chocobo & Moogle magnets, Super Mario Bros. Mushroom keychains, Final Fantasy Character 4 magnet sets, Secret of Mana magnets set, and more.

Please check my Kickstarter page out and consider pledging. Once I have reached my goal of $300 (beads are not cheap even though they are a kid's craft), I will get everyone's rewards out as soon as possible.

Check it out here.

Day of the Tentacle Bead Art for Sale

Took me a long time to finish this but I complete the cast of Day of the Tentacle out of Perler Beads. I am selling the set which features Bernard, Hoagie, Laverne and Purple Tentacle.

Bernard is 14 inches tall and 5 inches at his widest point.
Purple Tentacle is 8.5 inches tall and 7 inches at his widest point
Laverne is 14 inches tall and 6 inches at her widest point
Hoagie is 12.5 inches tall and 8 inches at his widest point.

The set is going for $100 plus shipping on my Etsy store. Right now I only have US and Canadian shipping cost but I can ship Internationally if you contact me.

8-Bit Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog

Tis finally complete! My dear friend, Doctor Octoroc aka Levi Buffum has finally complete the full Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog soundtrack in chiptune quality and even included a NES version of what the movie would look like as a game.
You can download the entire soundtrack for Dr. Horrible here and check out the NES version of the game in video form above. If you love the soundtrack, please donate to Doctor Octoroc to show him you appreciate his work.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-ALong Video Game?

My favorite Doctor in the whole world is at it again with a whole new project, though he really needs to finish his last one. Doc Octoroc has begun work on a 8-bit NES video game of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

So far he's posted a few screenshots he's created plus three NES style arrangements of 3 songs from the movie: So They Say, My Eyes and Everything You Ever Finale.

Doc plans to make the entire score into NES style arrangements and make the movie into a NES style game which you can play. It's unclear yet the genre of game he plans to make it into yet but it should be cool to see the final product.

Till then, here's the link to the three songs he has up so far.

After These Messages - Chiptunes Preview

I have the utter joy of being friends with a genius when it comes to chiptune music and pixel art, Doctor Octoroc, just one of the masterminds behind 8-bit Keyboard Cat. Doc produced a wonderful chiptunes Christmas album called 8-Bit Jesus a while back and now he's back with a new album called After These Messages.

The new album will feature 30 TV show themes from the 70s, 80s and 90s that have been redone in retro game style music. Doc has decided to post a few tunes from the album as well as the artwork for the album online flash player. You check out the preview tunes here.

The artwork for the flash player are all the TV Shows game title screens if they were really videogames back in the day.

Epic 8-Bit Art: Half Life 2 - NES Style

Half-Life 2 - 8-bit Retroactive - NES style Magnets, originally uploaded by Arcade Art.

What if Half-Life 2 was created for the NES?

Arcade Artist has gone and answered that question with her NES style bead sprite magnets. The set includes four large magnets: Alyx Vance, Gordon Freeman with his faithful Gravity Gun (with glow in the dark action), the Black Mesa administrator turned Combine collaborator Doctor Breen, and everyone's favorite de-beaked headcrab: Lamarr.

You can currently buy these magnets on Arcade Artist's Etsy store.

Epic 8-Bit Art: For the Love of Games

Love for Games - Poster, originally uploaded by Axel Pfaender.

Designed by Axel Pfaender for GEE magazine, this poster features all the various handheld devices, controllers and game catridges from throughout the decades.

If you interested in buying this poster, it is available in Axel's store for only € 7,00. Check here for more details.

You can see more of Axel's work on his flickr page.

Epic 8-Bit Art: The Lost Racers

The Lost Racers - Collectable Card, originally uploaded by Arcade Art.

Though I was never a huge fan of Mario Kart growing up, my 4-year-old nephew has been getting me into the game with his gamecube version. He always begs me to play with him when I come over and I'm not sure if I'm good or not, but I know at least I can beat a toddler.

These neat art piece is from Arcade Artist to go with her Lost Racer Custom Bead Sprites. I love the addition of Robbie the Robot and I love her description of the piece.

"In 1992, a crack racing unit was snubbed by Super Mario Kart for a bunch of crimes they definitely did commit. Undetered, these bad boys of racing promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Mushroom Kingdom underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as lost racers of fortune. If you have a 16-bit problem, if no one else can help, and if you can control them, maybe you can buy... The B-Team."

Check out her Etsy Store to see all her amazing work.

Girls of the Arcade from 70s & 80s

Of course, not much is sexier than a hot chick next to a bunch of videogame stuff but if you think our generation created nerdcore hotties than I have a website that about to blow your mind.

Sure, you can't exactly drape a girl with an arcade machine unless you want a really strange picture and a big mess to clean up after wards, but the advertising gurus back in the 70s & 80s still understood that men liked to see sexy ladies next to their gaming machines, so they learned to do the next best thing with their models ... pose them next to the machine - Vanna White style.

Art of the Arcade has a wicked section featuring pictures of models posing beside different arcade machines. Now some are just regular model shots but some are a little more focused on skin than machine, like our lovely Tank Battalion model above. Nice undies, are those regulation gear, soldier?

You can see all the arcade model pictures at Girl of the Arcade.

Resident Evil Retrospective - Part One

Resident Evil Retrospective - Part One

Mega Man on the Atari 2600

Ever wonder what Mega Man would look like if he was created for the Atari 2600 instead of the Nintendo system? Well the guys from the I Am 8 Bit 2007 Art Show did, and so they has a custom Atari 2600 game made to showcase the idea.

This is a pretty cool concept but I still like Mega Man on the original NES. He look empty on the Atari 2600 system.

Retro Final Fantasy VI Commercial

This is a retro commercial for Final Fantasy VI (FFIII in the commercial cause it was the first release in North America) where you see a Moogle taking auditions for monsters for the new Final Fantasy game.

Pretty cute for an old commercial.

The Warcraft Retrospective: Part III

Part III of Gametrailer's history on the Warcraft franchise has finally surfaced and if you've been watching along with me on my blog, you've already checked out the first and second part of the retrospective.

Though I never really got into the World of Warcraft aspect of the franchise, I loved the RTS games in the series and even got my groove on to the disco remix on the expansion disc for Warcraft 2. Who here remembers that?

Jaw-Dropping Gaming Collection

Spotted over in the community blogs at Destructoid is probably one of the coolest gaming collections I've seen in a while. Sure there are people with probably bigger collections, but what gamer can say they own every edition of the Xbox 360 that's come out on the market from the Arcade Edition to the useless Halo Edition (Yeah, I said it).

Ecresto's gaming room is packed from wall to wall with games, consoles, collectibles and even his gaming entertainment unit setup which includes a nice flat screen TV. Ecresto estimates his collection at about 1500 games and 47 unique systems and handhelds. He must be a great bargain hunter or just rich to own all those items.

You can check out the full collection at his blog on the Dtoid community site.

Epic 8-Bit Art: Sam from Sam & Max: Hit the Road

Meet the Sam from Sam & Max: Hit the Road. He is the first part of my soon to be gaming room decoration.

I plan to make Sam next, then frame the two pieces and hang them in my new gaming room.

Retro Treasure Hunting #1: Nintendo Entertainment System x2

While it was only a couple of years ago that I went a sold my collection of retro video game machines and games, my boyfriend and I have now decided to start collecting any of the old videogame systems and games and display them in our spare room upstairs.

Of course, this choice makes me really wish I hadn't sold my perfectly good Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Gameboy Colour (Clear Purple version) with all the games including Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World, Super Mario All Stars and Final Fantasy III. Yes, I am an idiot, but I actually believed Nintendo would release good games on the virtual console and that the Nintendo Wii would have ample storage space for those games. Silly me.

So far on our first couple weeks in searching for hidden treasures and sweet deals, we've managed to find tons of Dreamcasts, Xboxes, Playstations and Gamecubes, but older systems are really hard to find or hard to find cheap.

We found one place that had an old Sear Pong Game but the guy wanted $50 for it and couldn't even take the time to find the power adapter for it. We walked out on him.

Finally I managed to track down two Nintendo Entertainment Systems online for $40 that had all the cables for one unit, two controllers and a zapper. We snapped them and figured we'd keep the extra system in case the other one ever breaks.


This week I also purchase Little Nemo: Dream Master for NES for $2.99 and Secret of Mana for SNES for $25 on eBay. I've been trying to find SoM for less but $25 is the cheapest I've found online or offline so far, so I gave up and bought it. No system yet, but I'll get one soon enough.


Our main plan is to focus on the hard to find systems first and then games as we find them cheap. The spare room will be made into a game room, complete with some cool retro decorations I am currently working on.

I'll try to post as we pick up more cool retro items to add to our small little collection.

Super Mario Bros. 3 Map Cross Stitch

Cross Stitch Ninja created this really cool replica Super Mario Bros. 3 World 1 map in cross stitch form.

The finished piece took 4 months in between other projects and is 28 x 34 cm with about roughly 50 000 stitches in it.

This would look pretty cool in bead sprite form.

[Via Craftster.org]

The Gamer Sickness: I've Got It and You Don't Want It

I have been a gamer for a long time and back in the days of the Nintendo NES system, Sega Master System, etc; I could spend hours on end playing video games and I would too. I would have marathon days of gaming that started Friday after school when I hopped my backyard fence to go to the local video store to pick up a new game for rent and would end on Sunday when I racked up two days worth of late fees and enough pop and chips to feed a small army.

Sadly my days of marathon gaming ended when gaming evolved beyond the 2D side scrollers and overhead worlds we had known for so long. See I like probably many other get a reverse motion sickness when I play any game that is set in a 3D world with a first person view or even sometimes a first person view with really fast game play.

Basically what scientists believe happens to me while I’m playing these games is that while my eyes are seeing rapid movements on the computer or TV screen, my body isn’t moving at all, so there’s an inner conflict within my brain as to what’s really going on. Since my the eyes and body disagree as to what is happen, my brain sides with my body and responds the way a brain should when a person is seeing things that aren’t suppose to be there - it throws up to remove any poisons that may be causing the hallucinations.

For anybody who’s never experienced this type of problem, believe me it sucks. I can’t play any first person shooter longer than a few of hours or less depending on the position of the planet Venus or how many games the Red Socks are winning. Honestly I don’t know why some days are better than other, but they just are. Other games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion or Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with their first person views will still get me after a while too because of all their rapid movements still confuse the f*ck out of my brain I guess.


My condition is worst because I get the fun addition of headaches on top of the nausea, so either I’m singing to the Porcelain Gods for 5 minutes or spending a few hours in bed doped up on pain meds all because I wanted to get in a couple of hours of Unreal Tournament III.

I remember the first time I got sick from playing videogames too. I had just rented a Nintendo 64 and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the weekend from Roger Video and after playing for an hour or two I got so sick. I couldn’t figure out why either but I did remember my eyes beginning to hurt, then my head and finally my stomach. It was the beginning of a new generation of gaming and the beginning of a new form of hell for a game addict like me.

I always wondered why I never felt the effects of the gaming sickness on PC FPSs like Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein before the Nintendo 64 came out, but then I remembered the fact my Dad never let me play for hours on end on his computer like my Mom let me play on my game systems. He, unlike my Mom, actually used the computer a lot and I didn’t have a lot of time to play on it when I went over to visit with him on the weekends. That’s when I usually went and played with his old Commodore 64 instead.

I know I’m not the only one to suffering with this horrible affliction and while there are some tricks for us to counteract the effects of videogame dizziness like sitting further away from the screen, changing the contract or resolution on your TV screen to sharpen the picture or trying to look away from the screen every few minutes to ground your eyes, this will always be a huge damper on us hardcore gamers.

It limits your game choices, your time spent playing games, and ultimately makes you a little bitter towards people who don’t get sick playing. I’ve always said I’m not a big first person shooter fan and now you know why … because they really do make me sick.