With modern consoles offering gamers graphics so photorealistic that they blur the line between CGI and reality, it's easy forget just how cartoonishly blocky they were in the 8-bit era. In his new book, Creating Q*Bert and Other Classic Arcade Games, legendary game designer and programmer Warren Davis recalls his halcyon days imagining and designing some of the biggest hits to ever grace an arcade. In the excerpt below, Davis explains how the industry made its technological leap from 8- to 12-bit graphics. Santa Monica Press©2021 Santa Monica PressBack at my regular day job, I became particularly fascinated with a new product that came out for the Amiga computer: a video digitizer made by a company called A-Squared. Let’s unpack all that slowly.The Amiga was a recently released home computer capable of unprecedented graphics and sound: 4,096 colors! Eight-bit stereo sound! There were image manipulation programs for it that could do things no other computer, including the IBM PC, could do. We had one at Williams not only because of its capabilities, but also because our own Jack Haeger, an immensely talented artist who’d worked on Sinistar at Williams a few years earlier, was also the art director for the Amiga design team.Video digitization is the process of grabbing a video image from some video source, like a camera or a videotape, and converting it into pixel data that a computer system (or video game) could use. A full-color photograph might contain millions of... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2021-12-25 16:30:11 UTC ]
News tagged with:
#greatest thing
#holy grail
#libraries
When you look at your shelves, do you see a dominant color scheme? Dive into the world of book cover colors and what they may denote. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-02-09 11:33:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#book cover
The law firm that successfully sued Apple and five major publishers for colluding to fix e-book prices in 2011 has filed a class action against Amazon, accusing the company of colluding with the Big Five publishers to eliminate price competition from the e-book market. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-01-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#major publishers
#law firm
#class action
#e-book market
#e-book
#e-book price
Chronicle Books, which is distributed in the UK by Abrams & Chronicle Books, has acquired three "signature" Wild and Wolf game and toy brands. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-16 00:22:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#game brands
#chronicle books
In the modern digital media landscape, we are not the customers — or even the audience — we are the product. Every time we log on, our personal data including where we go, what we search for, who we interact with and what we buy is scraped, siphoned,... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2020-10-24 15:00:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#digital media
Back in 2008, New York Times best-selling author and Boing Boing alum, Cory Doctorow introduced Markus “w1n5t0n” Yallow to the world in the original Little Brother (which you can still read for free right here). The story follows the talented teenage... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2020-10-17 15:30:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#best-selling author
From contemporary and historical fiction to science fiction and fantasy, including Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao, these 21 books are must-reads for 12th graders. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-09-03 10:33:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#12th graders
#science fiction
#historical fiction
Figures for last year show sales of £6.3bn, up 20% on 2015, but the Publishers Association says sector needs government support to weather coronavirusBook sales in the UK hit record levels in 2019, driven by a surge in audiobook and nonfiction titles, according to new figures released as... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-07-21 23:01:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#audiobook downloads
#figures released
#latest figures
#government support
#nonfiction titles
#huge impact
#coronavirus pandemic
#sales fell
#digital sales
#harry potter
#print sales
#audiobook
#publishers association
Egmont has snapped up a picture book of "The Great Realisation", Tomos Roberts' poem in response to Covid-19 that has been viewed more than 60 million times since it was posted online in April. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-29 12:53:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#great realisation
#posted online
#egmont
#picture book
Stephen Rebello’s “Dolls! Dolls! Dolls!” is a more than just a gossipy look at the making of the film everyone loves to hate. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-06-12 12:12:21 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
The days in quarantine would all blend together if it weren’t for Tuesday, which is the day new books hit the (now metaphorical) shelves. Here are a few of the titles dropping today. You can get them from your local indie and/or Bookshop (which, by the way, has now raised over one million... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-28 13:57:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#local indie
#million dollars
#bookshop
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, adults have been on the hunt for activities both to while away the hours and to reduce anxiety and stress. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-04-28 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#reduce anxiety
Hodder & Stoughton has won a seven-way auction to acquire rights to Infinity in a Reed, an account of the invention of books in the ancient world by classicist Irene Vallejo. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-04-06 12:33:34 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#hodder stoughton
#ancient world
#hodder
The surge at Amazon for such items as household staples and health and medical goods has resulted in extended shipping times for other products, including books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-03-24 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#household staples
#including books
Scholastic UK has created a pre-order campaign for Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games prequel that it says could drive trade to indie bookshops during the coronavirus outbreak. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-19 08:56:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#scholastic uk
#pre-order campaign
#suzanne collins
#indie bookshops
#coronavirus outbreak
#scholastic
According to the Italian Publishers Association (AIE), Italy's book market fell 25% last week, with those areas worst-hit by the coronavirus—such as Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia—seeing drops of 50% and above. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-05 21:19:43 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#book sales
#book market
#publishers association
Crickhowell store Book-ish in south Wales was forced to close on Monday after flooding in the town from storm Dennis meant bookselling staff could not get to the shop. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-18 10:27:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
The unfinished illustrations in the book are themselves an act of optimism, encouraging children to imagine a world without lines others create for them. “Children teach us,” writes Ai-Jen Poo, cofounder of Families Belong Together, a coalition of close to 250 organizations working to end family... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2019-12-17 12:30:49 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#family separation
#power dynamics
#book published
#coloring book
These inclusive children's books by women of color highlight awesome yet underrepresented communities like Sikh, indigenous, and Dominican. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-11-21 11:35:59 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#inclusive children
#underrepresented communities
#books written
‘Gay adults grew up reading straight romances,’ says writer Daniel Haack after US library withdraws Prince & Knight from shelvesThe author of a rhyming picture book removed from the shelves of a West Virginia library has hit back at protesters, suggesting that anyone concerned the book could... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-11-20 12:31:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#library shelves
#adventure story
#hit back
#west virginia
#deliberate attempt
#wedding day
#picture book
You can make your reading experience *even better* with these great book reading accessories. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-11-15 11:38:51 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#great book
#book reading