It’s the mid of the month again, time for a sum-up of the interesting things I found last month that somehow did not found its way into this blog yet.

1.

Matthew Smith and Chris Huelsbeck

First I want to show you two documentaries on two heroes 8-bit heroes. The first is about Matthew Smith, responsible for the games Jet Set Willy and Maniac Miner on the Spectrum ZX. After the big success of his games he disappeared and nobody knew where he was. Then again he came back. That documentary is about that.

The other is a documentary that is still in progress, but we can already see the the trailer. It’s about the “8-bit philosophy“. It’s mostly about music and on people all over the world that are somehow connected to C64 music, but the most important focus is of course on Chris Huelsbeck and his music on the Commodore 64. He got famous for his soundtracks for i.e. To be on Top, R-Type or most of all Turrican. Besides the video I also recommend this interview with Chris Huelsbeck on gulli.com (it’s in German) [via]

2.

There’s an interesting interview out with the independent game developer Cactus. He makes interesting and experimental games, that are meanwhile well known and talks in the interview at Gamelab about his games, how he does it and why.

3.

A really good ep was released on the German netlabel Jahtari called Atari-Ska L’Atakk. Its style is very at the roots, described as “Chipmusic meets Ska” and if you follow the harmonic lines you will figure out why this release is at the roots. Think of Giana Sisters and that sort of stuff.

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