You see, it's funny, 'cause the original book was How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Stella was the internal name for the Atari 2600, but I am more of an Atari 8-bit computer man, and the internal name for the Atari 800 was Colleen. Do you get it? No? Never mind. It made me happy, and that's what's important.
Anyway, yeah, I thought I'd update and reflect on my decision to refocus my YouTube channel back on the Atari computers that have always been so important to me, and it's been going well! Viewing figures for the last few videos have been very good (even bearing in mind YouTube changing the way it counts views a little while back), and I've been getting some good comments on each and every video, with a lot of regular viewers coming back for each new video.
In other words, I think this was the right decision. The temptation was always there to want to cover as much stuff as possible on YouTube, but in doing that you risk a few things: never being able to cover anything in as much depth as you want; never being satisfied that you've covered every thing you want; and never being able to nail down a consistent, recurring audience. Because while "retro gamers with broad interests" is definitely an audience, on a platform as saturated as YouTube is, specialising really does seem to be the way forward. As with, I would argue, pretty much all kinds of media; sadly, the mainstream video games media never learned this lesson and now we barely have any. But I digress.
I thought I'd take this opportunity to share my recent videos on the off-chance you've been reading this for God knows how many days and you've still never paid my YouTube channel a visit. I've somehow made 1.2 thousand videos on there over the years — although I will grant you that there are a chunk of those which are nothing but raw gameplay. The vast majority involve either my "live" commentary, or a reading of something I've written, though. The former, with a brief(ish) introduction to give some historical context, are where I've settled on what I enjoy doing the most; the latter occasionally break out and do very well, but the former is, for me, the more sustainable format that I can keep on doing without it feeling like work. Because I want YouTube to be a fun hobby, not something that becomes a second job.
Anyway, with that in mind, I don't make a lot of effort pushing these videos outside of their immediate audience and a cursory share on Bluesky when they're first published. I frankly cannot be arsed with all the promo work you're "supposed" to do if you're trying to build an audience, and to be honest, I've never really been trying to build an audience. All I'm doing with YouTube is doing something that amuses and entertains me, and if people happen to stumble across it and find it entertaining or informative, so much the better. Same as what I do with my writing, really; I have no great designs on being "famous" or anything, but it is nice when someone happens across your work and is able to take something worthwhile away from it.
Enough of that, though. Here are some videos about old games on older computers.
The rebooted Atari A to Z series, focusing on Atari 8-bit computers, began with a look at a game I've been meaning to cover for ages: Astro Chase by First Star Software. This is a cool multidirectional shoot 'em up with some flashy graphics and cutscenes. It even made it into arcades… kind of, anyway. It's a great game, but one I've just never gotten around to until now.
Next up is Batty Builders, a game by English Software, a company that was renowned for its high-quality output on Atari 8-bit in the early to mid 1980s. Batty Builders is an intriguing take on the action-puzzle game, and pre-empts pretty much every other "falling block" puzzle game I can think of with its own distinctive twist on the formula. Its balance is questionable, but it's a game I've always been very fond of.
Then we come to Clowns and Balloons, a game by the prolific Frank Cohen, and one of the first games I remember playing on Atari 8-bit. It's a simple game about bouncing a clown on a trampoline to pop a bunch of balloons, but it's well-presented, looks and sounds great for the time, and plays well. This is one I regularly go back to if I'm just playing Atari 8-bit for fun of an evening.
Next we have Desmond's Dungeon, a game I remember hearing the name of a lot, but which I had never looked into. Loosely (very loosely) based on the arcade game Bagman, or at least modern commentators tend to conjecture, it's an arcade-style game with some good presentation, solid mechanics and decent overall gameplay. Perhaps a bit repetitive over the long term, but it at least introduces some intriguing elements to the mix as you progress through its difficulty levels.
Archipelagos is the game that kicked off my new "season" of Atari ST A to Z. This is a game I always thought looked amazing back in the day, but could never picture how it actually played. Turns out it's pretty simple, but thoroughly compelling and very atmospheric. This is one I intend to spend some more time with by myself now I've made the video.
Eastern Front (1941) is a wargame designed to be deep and complex, but also accessible and easy to control. Sure enough, it is very straightforward to get started in, but the intricacies of play could keep one busy for a very long time indeed. Suffice to say as a wargame newbie and strategic idiot, I barely scratch the surface of its possibilities in this video, but it should be enough for those interested to "get" what it is going for. Noteworthy for being the creation of the immensely talented and very clever Chris Crawford, who produced some of the most interesting, deep, inventive games on the Atari 8-bit.
We return to a classic Atari series with Blasteroids, the third entry in the Asteroids series, released during the "Atari Games" era. The Atari ST port of this game is pretty solid, though Atari Games pulling a lot of its usual bullshit — tutorial messages, constantly draining health, harsh difficulty spikes — does mean it puts up a bit of a fight. I have always been rather fond of this game, though, and it was nice to revisit it.
Finally, for now, we have Firefleet, a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up by the same guy who gave us Batty Builders. It's riffing on the Caverns of Mars formula, but has plenty of its own things that make it appealing and interesting. Caverns of Mars is, overall, the better game, for myriad reasons, but this is certainly an interesting title that those who have the patience to deal with its difficulty wall seem to really like.
And that's that for now. I have another Atari ST video in the pipe ready to go out later this week, then at the weekend I'll likely be making some more videos. I'm settling into a good rhythm of doing these, now, so hopefully these will be reasonably regular. I hope you enjoy them, whether you're a newcomer to my channel or you've been stopping by for ages. And if you've never experienced the games of the Atari 8-bit and ST computers, well, I have a huge library of both for you to take a look at on the channel!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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