Our 2D-only sister-site 8 Bit Horse has officially and successfully been around for over a year! 8 Bit Horse is the premiere place for learning about 2D games both from the past, present, and FUTURE. We're very proud that it's gained a loyal audience and with AJ's continued dedication and determination, 8 Bit Horse will continue strong through its second year!
The following is a reprint of AJ's 1-Year Anniversary post on 8 Bit Horse itself.
(Background: AJ Johnson is the writer for dialog and story in Mommy's Best Games, and writes most of the articles on 8 Bit Horse.)
OK, WE’RE GOING TO GUSH A LITTLE
It is with great pleasure that we announce the 1-year anniversary of 8 Bit Horse. 1 year ago today (10/17), we published our very first article, featuring Jackal on the NES. Looking back on it now, it’s actually the shortest and least screenshot-packed of any of our full-length articles.
Jackal was a test run of sorts. We knew that we wanted to discuss the gameplay and mechanics of well-designed 2D games, but we needed to gauge just how much work we were getting ourselves into. Jackal is a relatively simple game. It has some interesting mechanics, but it’s not terribly long or complicated.
After a successful test run, we deliberately chose a vastly more complicated game – Cybernator on the SNES – and we haven’t looked back since. It has been an amazing first year, and rest assured that we have a whole lot of great content to share with you as we start in on Year 2. But first, we have some people to thank.
Our success thus far comes not only from those of you who have found our site and started reading, but also to those who have wholeheartedly recommended it to others. We love 2D games. We have a passion for heritage 2D games from all of the old systems, current 2D games that are being released on modern consoles, and the glimmering hope of new 2D games on the horizon. We love indie 2D games, and 2D games from major developers with multi-million dollar budgets (the few that there are). We’re excited about what we’re doing, and it’s great to see that others are excited about it as well.
We’d also like to offer thanks to a few specific folks who helped us get where we are today. First off, thank you to Kurt Kulata of Hardcore Gaming 101. And let us say this… we were huge fans of HG101 well before the idea of 8 Bit Horse came about. Hands down, there is no better resource for classic games than HG101. We have gotten a great response from folks who follow the HG101 Blog, and who found us from their link to 8 Bit Horse.
Thank you to EpicBattleAxe. Early on, they invited us to do a regular 2D gaming feature on their site, which allowed us to toss in a bit of extra snark and commentary, and to solicit feedback from the EBA readers. They also gave us a mention in one of their EpicBattleCry shows, at which point, we were discovered by thousands of new readers. EBA is different from the majority of game-related sites out there that tend to be fairly impersonal… instead, they show a lot of excitement, and they love to hear from their readers.
Thanks to Geoff Schultz and Brooks Bishop, at Two Fedoras. These dapper fellows discovered us early on, which led us to discover them. 2F is a quirky site that has coverage on lots of indie games, and even the occasional action figure.
Thanks to 2D-X, the very first site we affiliated with, and which also celebrated its first anniversary a few months back. They’ve been growing as well and have developed a very professional presentation.
Thank you to Brad Gallaway, Senior Editor at GameCritics.com and operator of the Drinking CoffeeCola blog, for his resounding recommendation. It’s always nice to get positive recommendations from folks who not only appreciate good games, but good writing as well.
The biggest thanks, of course, goes to all of our regular readers, without whom… well, frankly we’d have given up by now if not for you. So thank you for coming, thank you for staying, and please drop by any time. We have a ton of great stuff lined up for you.
We aren’t joking even a little when we tell you that we have (obsessively) compiled a list of over 200 notable heritage 2D games that deserve some attention. We’re also constantly looking for the next great 2D games, scouring the interwebs, playing demos, and reading developer blogs so that we can share all this shiny new 2D goodness with you. It is very gratifying when we hear that that someone found out about a great 2D game from our site, whether it be a 20-year old classic, or something brand new.
We’re also going to continue our developer interview series, and we have several interesting interviews lined up. For this, we owe thanks to Maurice of Fanboy Confidential, who joined the 8bh team earlier this year and who hosts, records, and cuts these video interviews. And of course, we owe a big thanks to the developers themselves, for not only providing us with great 2D games, but also for sharing some of their development insights and inspirations. We are aware that a number of our readers aren’t just gamers, but developers as well, and we’re happy to have the opportunity to provide a window into the lives and minds of the developers behind some of these new games, while we continue to dissect the mechanics of the classics.
In fact, just today Maurice wrapped up our latest 2D developer interview, featuring Henry Liu of Intrinsic Games, the developers behind Divergent Shift (previously known as Reflection) on DSiWare. Henry offers some insight into working as a team of student developers, while still attending classes:
You can catch all of the previous entries in our 10 Questions interview series on our YouTube Channel, featuring discussions with the developers behind some excellent 2D games: Shank, Tobe's Vertical Adventure, Super Meat Boy, and Nasty.
8 Bit Horse continues to be the place where 2D lives, and the second year of that life begins now.
