Six Monthly Update

Hi all - I hope you are doing OK and you and your families are well. It's been a nightmare six months here since my last update, with further lockdowns, home schooling, busy jobs and the stress of Brexit. I'm sure it's been no easier for the rest of you, but I've had very limited time for running RGCD lately and I've had to really juggle with my work and life balance. Here's hoping for a more positive and productive 2021!

The good news is that some progress has been made (albeit slowly) on a number of projects here and I have several announcements and releases lined up for the near future that I'm really excited to share with you. I've also recently become the proud owner of a MEGA65 Devkit which has been an inspiration to start writing on this blog again - so expect a future post about that soon.

Sadly I've been unable to set aside any time with fellow RGCD member Jamie to finish the new website. Although mostly complete, we had planned to spend a week together last year finalising the site functionality and fixing/updating the 500+ blog posts here after migrating across, but for obvious reasons that has been impossible (I actually spent all of 2020's annual leave home schooling my kids). Hopefully we can get to that after COVID-19, but before COVID-20 ;)

Frequent visitors to our online shop may have noticed that I've also gradually been replacing the packaging to some of our games; LuftrauserZ, Super Bread Box, C64anabalt, Bomberland and Aviator Arcade II have now all been given the upgrade treatment, and I hope by the end of the year to have discontinued the use of Universal Game Cases. The new three-part cardboard boxes are available to buy sperately so you can upgrade your own collection, and as Universal Game Cases are selling for around £2-3 each on eBay there's always the option of making some of your money back ;)

Actually, on the subject of Super Bread Box, imagine my surprise when Richard McManus tagged me on Facebook to say he'd just seen the game being played on Channel 4 daytime TV by former professional footballer Chris Kamara whilst Peter 'Nostalgia Nerd' Leigh talked about the wonders of 8-bit computers. However, I'm not sure that Kammy knew how to hold a joystick - he was pretty terrible at the game! On the plus side, I can now proudly say 'AS SEEN ON TV' when it comes to promoting Super Bread Box again in future. Nice one Nostalgia Nerd!

Back in a bit!