Welcome to www.rgcd.co.uk, the online home of the RGCD discmag!
RGCD is a new downloadable CD-ROM based magazine containing the very latest retro reviews, features and developer interviews, providing its readers with an essential one-stop resource for all their retro gaming needs. RGCD's main focus is on the new releases for 8/16-Bit computer platforms, but we also dedicate a good percentage of our reviews and feature space to retro look-and-feel PC-based remakes and independent games, so if that's what you're into then you are in the right place.
The RGCD project is the brainchild of James Monkman (a long term reader of Imagine Publishing's 'Retro Gamer' and 16-bit Atari fanatic) and it was created with the long-term goal of becoming a community run discmag. Starting initially with a team of three people, the plan is to create sufficient interest amongst members of the retro-gaming community and to actively recruit new members so that future issues of the magazine are released regularly and without all the work being left to one person. Hopefully, RGCD will eventually have a team member dedicated to each of the 8/16-Bit machines that are still being actively supported and developed for by their respective 'scenes', but as our manpower is currently limited, we are unable to cover every machine out there in each issue. However, our main aim is for quality content over quantity, so you can rest assured that if a release is featured in the magazine then it's probably worth playing.
In each issue of RGCD you'll not only find reviews of all the latest retro releases, but there'll also be direct links (to files on disc) of each game, emulator or tool reviewed irrespective of platform. Also, as it's a CD based magazine we've also made the effort to create easily printable, full scale jewel-case artwork so that you can keep each issue in its own CD case along with the rest of your retro paraphernalia and memorabilia.
Please note that at www.rgcd.co.uk you can preview each issue of the magazine (essentially just the featured game review and a list of the other content), but in order to actually read the rest of the articles and reviews you'll need to download the full-fat .ISO image and either burn it to disc or mount it on a virtual drive. There is also a cut-down 'lite' version (excluding all games and emulators) is also provided as a downloadable .ZIP archive for those of you with limited internet access or slow download speeds.
Also, because the magazine (and website) uses javascript to display the game screenshots in a funky little window-box-thing (click on the small images to see what I mean), please do not panic if Internet Explorer flashes up with warnings about 'active content' and so-on.
RGCD is 100% spyware free and all files are virus checked before uploading.
James Monkman
Founder of RGCD and currently the magazines main contributor, James has a near obsessive passion for retro gaming, especially with regard to collecting and playing new games for old and unsupported machines.
Officially a 'hater' of next-gen consoles, James likes to pretend that it's still 1992 and prefers his computers to have 16-Bits (or less).
If you feel so obliged, you can become one of his 'friends' by clicking here: www.myspace.com/heavystylus.
Dudley
British videogame and motorsport expert Dudley is well respected by at least three people for his honest and occasionally completely fictional writing. He runs the combined sarcasm and blog site Ask Duds and is a contributor to Retro Fusion where he runs the regular audience participation feature 'Let's All Play'. By day he works in development for a medium size software company where he attempts to change the universe through innovative accountancy solutions.
Dudley lives in London with a flatmate, about 50 games machines and several broken pieces of electronics which "might come in handy". While he is the Walrus, he has not spoken to the Egg man in several years.
Gnome
Gnome (aka Gnome), son of Gnome, is a gnome, or, to be more precise, a retro-gaming, adventure obsessed, Amiga loving and 8-bit micros cherishing gnome, with a sick passion for video games and blogging that usually comes in 10 minute bursts.
Already trying to figure out how cities work, maintaining the Gnome's Lair gaming blog (gnomeslair.blogspot.com), searching for Retro Treasures (retro-treasures.blogspot.com), wantonly pocket gaming (pocketgaming.blogspot.com) and wondering about life's wonders, Gnome has ambitions of becoming the first and only bearded RGCD cheerleader.
Graham Humphrey
Graham Humphrey has been a die-hard Amiga fan for longer than he cares to remember and is very active in the Amiga scene. He's a moderator on the English Amiga Board, has programmed a few games with another one in development and has been writing reviews and articles for Amiga-related magazines since December 2005.
He owns several newer consoles and a PC but his souped-up Amiga 1200 still gets used on a regular basis. He doesn't like to think about how much money he must have spent on it...
Mike Bevan
Mike Bevan first became aware of the strange world of home computer gaming with a rather random encounter with 'Manic Miner' at a local school fete. Enamoured by this not very educational but rather eye-opening application for Sinclair's rubber-keyed wonder he proceeded to nag his parents for his own machine which resulted in the surprising acquisition of a Commodore 64.
He has run 'Destroy all Monsters!'(www.stickycarpet.com/dam/), a website supposedly dedicated to 2D shoot'emups, on and off (mostly off) since 1999, which is very handy for keeping him off the streets. His current passion is attempting to electrocute himself with old arcade games.
Mike Rawlings
Mike has recently finished his degree in BSc (Hons) Computer Games Technology gaining a 2:1 and hopes to one day (preferably soon) work in the computer games industry. He enjoys many different genres of games on a variety of platforms but mainly cares about the gameplay over graphics.
Aside from gaming he enjoys going to the cinema, the pub, and clubs. His various sport interests include Football and Snooker and he plays 9-Ball Pool in Pro/Am Tournaments.
Strongbow is probably his favourite alcoholic beverage, so buy him a pint or two and he might make something in 3D for you. Speaking of which you can see his work at www.digital-renegades.co.uk/michael.
Neil E.
Neil's introduction to computers came via Deathchase on the Spectrum 48K (at the tender age of 4 years old), marking the start of a life long love affair with computer games. A huge fan of 80's computer magazines, such as Your Sinclair and CRASH, meant a largely misspent youth of endlessly typing in listings, only to return to fix said listings to get them to work!
The 90's saw acquisitions of the NES, Mega Drive and the Amiga A600 and A1200 respectively, an era he refers to as his 'Gaming Golden Age'.
Currently in his final year at University, studying a BA in Music Technology, retro-gaming remains a major past-time. He also allegedly updates his fledgling retro-gaming blog www.typingoutloud.com when he can find the time.
Ruari O'Toole
Ruari O'Toole is an avid gamer who found himself caught between both sides of the Amiga vs Atari wars of the eighties and nineties. He is an obsessive scourer of car boot sales and junk shops, and misses the days when chunky polygons and parallax scrolling blew peoples' minds.
SirClive
SirClive is a retro gaming collector with a particular fondness for the Commodore 16, VIC-20 and the ZX Spectrum. He can be found regularly at the Retro Gamer forum and also runs the Weekend Gamer VIC-20 Archive.
He is a support member of Team Weekend Gamer, contributing to WGTV - a downloadable gaming TV show.
Both the VIC-20 archive and WGTV show can be found at www.weekend-gamer.co.uk.
T.M.R
T.M.R (aka Jason Kelk) has been playing, designing and programming games for 8 and 16-Bit hardware for over twenty two years, almost all for his own entertainment, and writing about them for the last eleven. In short, he's a bit of a show-off, really.
When he finds time in his busy schedule (mostly filled with self-aware sarcasm) he pretends to manage and edit Oldschool-Gaming.com (a reviews site dedicated to recent games released on classic hardware) and is a member of multi-platform 8-Bit game and demo development team Cosine.
Travis Fahs
Travis hails from the US, presently residing in the New York area. This means he never knew the joy of arguing over a dozen different home computer standards with his friends, but he made up for it by bickering about everything else gaming-related.
Travis may not live in the past, but he at least keeps a summer home there. A lover of losers, he can't help but gravitate to the systems time has forgotten. As a freelance gaming journalist, he feels a sense of obligation to know his gaming history as well as he can. Plus he's just a sucker for all things 2D.
Elliot Taylor
Without Elliot, none of this would have been possible. Elliot Taylor is the technical wiz behind the mechanics of RGCD and is solely responsible for all the ASP/XHTML code and design of both the RGCD website and the discmag itself.
Although originally a hardcore Atarian, Elliot now spends the majority of his time creating bespoke business software and web-based solutions. More details can be found on his website at www.ejtstudios.com.
Ethan Worley
Ethan has been creating digital art for about 8 years and drawing since before he was even conceived. He is currently trying to teach himself animation, guitar, and actionscript but is quite an unfocused pupil. He is also in a volunteer fire brigade and plays basketball poorly. In his free time he enjoys sleeping and looking for food to eat. He thinks typing in third person is strange.
