Game fans all over the internet are celebrating the #Happy30thNES event (thanks to PlatinumFungi) on their websites and on Twitter. Made to honor the 30th Anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System, the event is a chance for us to show and tell why we love that gray box of 8-bit magic. I’ve done my part by making 30 new NES-like sprites based on a few of my favorite NES games while using colors from the original sprites:

You can find the separate sprites (and an extra sprite that didn’t make the cut) in the new NES-like 32 gallery.

No offense to my Atari 2600 and ColecoVision, but the NES was the first system I owned that could play the kinds of games that inspired me to make this site. Platformers, beat ’em ups, run ‘n guns and similar genres really started to come into their own at that time and the Nintendo Entertainment System was one of the best ways to play those games at home. It’s the beginning of what I consider to be the sweet spot of action games becoming adventures while still being unashamed of being games. That’s probably why we still see new games using the look and feel of those NES classics and it’s definitely a big part of why many of us are celebrating its 30th anniversary today.

Help spread the word about the event if you can and feel free to talk about your own Nintendo favorites in the comments section!

Articles: I’ve had this page about Rob Strangman’s Memoirs of a Virtual Caveman book for a long time, but didn’t finish it until now. It’s made in the old, abandoned game review format because of a few jokes in the info section that I thought were funny at the time (sigh). As it says on the page, I’m probably a bit biased because I drew the cover, but I really dug that book and the voice it gives to various parts of the video game community. The article is here and I hope you give Rob’s book a chance!


Arcade Quartermaster’s latest batch of game shrines is monster-themed and features Night Slashers (one of my favorites), Kiki KaiKai (Taito’s original Pocky and Rocky game), Laser Ghost and Nightmare in the Dark.


You know, we’ve had a lot of fun here today, but it’s time to get serious. Dead serious.

Horror returns to ScrollBoss next week. Be there* and be scared.

(by “there” I mean “here.” Just making that clear.)

The moving is done, I’m hooked up to the internet again and I finally have a chance to rest this weekend. This is partially an “I’m back and I’m still alive” post, but there are a few small fixes and clean-up work. Besides, with this being the 8th month and the 9th day of a year in which I’m pushing 1989 awareness, I had to put up some sort of update, right?

GFX Generator – The Doppelganger boss’ final form from the Revenge of Shinobi was added to the “Zeed/Neo Zeed” character slot. Ryu’s SFA-style palettes were increased (with fixes to a few older ones) while Rolento got two new poses and many more new palettes (redone with separate pants colors for USF4 palettes). The “Mego WGSH 176×192” style in the GroupShot generator has two new groups of bubbles, and I’ll let you discover who’s in them.

Nico-waz-here was kind enough to send some Tiny Toons portrait rips from a GBA game I hadn’t even heard about, so check out that beautiful art here.

There is now a ScrollBoss YouTube channel, though it only has a re-post the short Revenge of 1989 video for now.


Check out this interview with Rob “Dire” Strangman about the Memoirs of a Virtual Caveman book! It’s great to see that book get more attention. My name pops up for an unexpected reason. Be sure to check out that book, too!


Well, it’s time for me to collapse and attempt to get some rest. I’m all moved in now, so expect a real site update soon with more 1989-related goodness. Until then, here’s a preview of some shaky sprite line work.


edit (2014 August 10th)

GFX Generator addition: Kirby has 3 new palettes and that Mego WGSH has a new custom face circle set with Nintendo characters.

Just posting a quick update before I’m off the internet and back to moving into the new place:

They’re only the GFX Generators right now, but they’ll be in the galleries once I’m back on the internet. The reason for the update are in this Tumblr post (along with a .GIF). We’ll return to the Revenge of 1989 when I get back!