Elf shot the potion, but he did not shoot the deputy

Thor the Warrior and Questor the Elf now join the other two O.G.’s (Original Gauntlet) in the site’s custom sprite gallery and GFX Generator. The Generators also have a rendered background based on Gauntlet II, Level 1, so you can add Gauntlet’s starting line-up and add a few more characters. The 16 x 16 in-game Gauntlet font, as seen in the preview screenshot, is in the Generator, too. I also improved Thyra’s palette while adding a brown outfit based on the Gauntlet II title screen.

The new Gauntlet revival game is now available through Steam. I don’t have it yet, but I’m using the game’s release as an excuse to finally make sprites from the game. Of course, the Commodore Amiga version of Gauntlet II was released in 1989, so I’m still covered.

The Beep: A Documentary History of Video Game Music & Sound has three days left to hit more stretch goals. They’ve announced that Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage series, Revenge of Shinobi, Actraiser and many more games), so I’m completely hyped for that. They’ve stacked up an all-star group of OST legends to interview and I’m looking forward to the finished product!

This site will be in a slightly low activity mode until the middle of October, when the monster and horror-related updates will start once again. I’ll be breaking those 1989-only rules for content, but remember that there are enough monster and horror-related games from that year to celebrate. Expect both the unexpected and the expected, though expecting the unexpected also makes it expected, BUT STILL.

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The Revenge of 1989 ultra-mega update

There’s no space for introductory yammering, only for the newness!

Custom Sprites –
– Atari: Thyra the Valkyrie, Merlin the Wizard (three versions of each) from Gauntlet
– Capcom: Amazons and Kuniang M.A. Team (Strider), Metal Man (Mega Man)
– Final Fight: brand new Two.P and J (fighting stances)
– Konami: Bayou Billy West
– Sega: Joe Musashi (new RoS fight stance), the evil amazons from Golden Axe (arcade and Genesis/Mega Drive versions)
– Taito: the Priest from Cadash
– Technos: Riki (Kunio-Kun series), Billy and Jimmy Lee (new scratch-made sprites)
– Games (other): Gogan from the Legendary Axe
– Toys & Cartoons: Captain N (!)
– TMNT: Bebop and Rocksteady

Mini-logos – Believe it or not, it’s another A-to-the-mothereffin’-Z mini-logo update with the entire alphabet representing!


– Atari: Thyra, Thor, Merlin and Questor
– Capcom: Hugo (USF4 style)
– Epyx: Epyx
– Kaneko: DJ Boy
– Konami: S.P.Y. Special Project Y, Ultra Games
– Marvel: X-Men, The Uncanny X-Men
– Movies: RoboCop
– Nintendo: Captain N
– Sega: Alex Kidd (High Tech World style), Yamato (Shinobi), Zeed
– SNK: Ikari III, the rescue, Guerrilla War
– Taito: Fighter (Cadash), Mage(Cadash), Ninja(Cadash), Priest (Cadash), Violence Fight
– Tecmo: Ninja Gaiden (NES box), Wild Fang
– Technos: Billy (Lee), Jimmy (Lee)
– Victor: Legendary Axe


GFX Generators – All those new sprites, characters and logos were added to the generators.
– Groupshot Generator: box 160×192 gets four new TurboGrafx-16 set-ups
– Backgrounds: Three Ultra Street Fighter IV backgrounds, one Double Dragon Neon background and a remake of Final Fight 1-1
– Updated characters: Poison (blue palette from Mighty Final Fight)

Minus World – the “Run, Woman, Run!” article was updated.

Game Index – added: the Adventures of Bayou Billy.

I hope that made up for the poot-butt, small updates from the past few months. There won’t be any updates this gigantic for a while, but this Revenge of 1989 theme still has some surprises in store. No promises, but there might be an additional update later this week, including tune-ups of earlier content and things I didn’t have time to work into this update.

“Hey, why are there Gauntlet characters in a 1989 update?” Besides the fact that there was a good port of Gauntlet 2 for the Commodore Amiga, there’s a new Gauntlet game coming out this month!

BTW: the Boy and his Pup Kickstarter is almost done, so help out if you can!

Edit (September 20, 2014) Besides making a few fixes here and there, the following things have been added:
– Mini-logos: Rolento (Ultra Street Fighter IV), Bebop and Rocksteady (TMNT Classics)
– Custom sprites: Kunio-kun (Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari cover pose)
– GFX Generators – All new content was added to their characters in the generators, fixes were made to a few characters (Andore/Hugo, Thyra the Valkyrie), the Lee Brothers new palettes were improved to include Double Dragon 1 sets (with the gray boots) and the “Mego: WGSH” has three new “head bubble” sets.

Okay, that’s enough for now.

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Battle for the Net



Are you in the United States and dissatisfied with your internet connection? Is it too slow or does it go out all the time? Then imagine that connection gets even crappier. You won’t have to imagine it if politicians, including those who received a lot of campaign dollars from those cable companies, vote to allow internet providers to slow down any website that doesn’t pay an internet toll for sites to move at the speed they’re supposed to in the first place. We need to raise a ruckus and tell politicians that we know what some of them are up to and won’t stand for it. Learn how you can do that at the Battle for the Net website.

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Crowdfund Round-up

There’s a lot of cool game-related crowdfunding campaigns going on right now, including some that are almost done:

Hive Jump by Graphite Lab
RD Ash hipped me on to this one, and it’s not hard to see why he was so hyped about it.

Hive Jump is one part Spelunky, one part XCOM, and all parts alien ass-kicking. You and your friends assume the role of JUMPERS, and blast your way through subterranean alien hives in run-and-gun 2D platforming action. Kill aliens, avoid traps, collect resources, and defeat the hive queen lurking at the bottom of the hive to complete the JUMP.

This game got its basic funding, but is trying to hit some stretch-goals before its deadline this Friday night. The game’s 2-D visuals use Sprite Lamp to dynamically light all of the game’s beautiful pixel art assets. It’s amazing to see this technique finally being put into action, especially with a game like this.

Boy and His Pup (by More Fire Games)

Boy and His Pup is an Action Tower defense game about the struggle to survive in a world that has been over-run by supernatural evil. Its a game that tells a compelling story challenges players to strategize and make decisions that ultimately lead them on a daring journey against supernatural creatures. You will play as “Boy”, in which he must defend himself and Pup, against the constant punishment of a supernatural horde. Boy’s companion “Pup” will execute commands and provide guidance where necessary. You must, Collect, Build, and Fight to stay alive!

Besides the intriguing play mechanics (no pun intended) and art style, the whole story concept has this classic ’80s-’90s feel that would also make a great all-ages comic book. No tower defense game has ever gained my interest as fast as this did and I hope this game can get made!

Beep: A Documentary History of Video Game Music & Sound by Ehtonal

Video games have come a long way from the days of the beep: full orchestras, surround sound, interactive music and large teams of people collaborating to bring you an amazing experience. Help us to document and share the historical changes in video game sound from the beep through to today.

Relive the moments of your childhood, and hear the stories behind the songs and sounds of your favourite games from the people who created them.

Help us to give the composers and sound designers throughout game history a chance to tell their own stories, to share the truly amazing things that they achieved.

One of the best reasons why this project needs to be funded comes straight from the gamesound.com website:

BEEP is also the first step in important archival work that will mean the stories behind the songs and sounds of games don’t get lost. We have a really unique opportunity in that nearly all of the people who worked on video games are still alive. We can’t go back and interview Beethoven or Max Steiner or Carl Stalling, but we can document game music and sound history right now, and then it’s there for all the people in the future who might have questions.

the Fine Young Capitalists game campaign:

I talked about it in the last update post, but all five of these games look and sound like great ideas and it’s even better that they want to raise money for charity. One of the games is a platformer with a very interesting premise, so anyone visiting this sort of site would be probably be interested in that.

As much as I joke about starting “the ScrollBoss Kickstarter to Raise Money to Give to Other Kickstarters Because I’m F@#$ing Broke Now, Help a Brotha Out” project, I’m serious about wanting to help these projects more than the few bucks I’m spreading out to each project. The best I can do is to help spread the word. Give if you can and remember that Hive Jump’s campaign ends tonight, September 5th!

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