Comments for pixelatron

Comment on Skool Daze feature (Retrogamer) by darran.jones

darran.jones — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:54:09 +0000

Hi there :)
I’m trying to track down Dave Reidy and Keith Warrington and I was wondering if you still had contact details for either of them. I’d be very interested in putting Back To Skool on the front cover of our magazine.

Kindest regards,
Darran

Comment on Skool Daze feature (Retrogamer) by sigman

sigman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:23:32 +0000

Great read. I spent so much time playing School Daze on Spectrum and then with friends on Commodore. I was curious what happened to Microsphere and I’m really glad to find this article and story about authors of these great games. Hard to believe that Dave completely changed his interests from games.

Comment on Granny’s Garden creator interview by Christopher Price

Christopher Price — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:22:26 +0000

Oh dear! How the years have rolled away! I remember buying Granny’s garden back in 1984, after several “drill and (s)kill” programs had flopped badly with the children. Played Granny’s Garden and we were all instantly hooked, in spite of having to wait an age for the tape to load and graphics that we would now regard as ultra-primitive.

I sent him a fan letter and met him every year at the BETT show. And I hope we became good friends. A few years ago he wrote our school website which we are still maintaining.

Comment on The Making Of Super Mario 64 – full Giles Goddard interview (NGC) by hermitC

hermitC — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:20:10 +0000

Good stuff. This interview makes it clear that an excellent game heavily depends on many trials & errors as well as on polish. “Retro” interviews are cool, especially for indie game developers like me.

Thanks for this one!

Comment on Granny’s Garden creator interview by John Thomas

John Thomas — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 11:08:34 +0000

Mike is one of the great pioneers of educational computing and it’s great to learn how ‘Granny’s Garden’ came into being.

I was fortunate enough to meet Mike on a number of occasions both in the UK and Australia, where I lead the development of the first Apple II and Macintosh versions of the program.

As a young teacher in the 1980s I remember how popular 4mation adventure games like Granny’s Garden, Flowers of Crystal and Dragon World were. Teachers used them as thematic centrepieces for cross-curricular activity that turned whole classrooms into exciting places where witches, dragons and other fantastic creatures seemed to come to life. Children became enthusiastically engaged in reading, writing, numeracy, art and drama – all related to the world of the game. The same thematic approach is still being used for the more sophisticated computer games of today, though probably not as much as it should be. Today the reach of the technology is broader so that what were once cross-curricular off-computer pen and paper based activities are now mostly on-computer activities.

Thanks for a wonderful trip down memory lane!

Comment on Skool Daze feature (Retrogamer) by paul

paul — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:57:12 +0000

Fantastic :D

I spent hours playung this as a young lad

Comment on 3 games from Andrew Brophy by Daniela

Daniela — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:27:16 +0000

Nice games, i will download some of them for the kids. Thx:)

Comment on The Making Of Super Mario 64 – full Giles Goddard interview (NGC) by David

David — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:48:16 +0000

Excellent read. It’s always interesting getting to know the behind the scenes stuff on the classics.

Comment on The Making Of Super Mario 64 – full Giles Goddard interview (NGC) by Dean Mayers

Dean Mayers — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 20:05:26 +0000

Thank god for Instapaper or I wouldn’t actually be able to read this! This site is designed to make it difficult to read the actual article. Poor font choice coupled with italics *Picard facepalm*.

As far as the article goes though, really interesting stuff.

Comment on Cassette 50: the interview by Steve

Steve — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:11:07 +0000

Only just come across this article, a great read, well done Matt & Ernest and thanks for taking the time to do it :)