ACTUAL HUMANS
AJ Johnson (email) – 8 Bit Horse and 2D RADAR Managing Editor, Writer
AJ is the Managing Editor and primary content creator for 8 Bit Horse and 2D RADAR, and also wrote the dialogue and provided design input for Weapon of Choice, Explosionade, Serious Sam: Double D XXL, and Pig Eat Ball. AJ has over four decades of gaming experience, and knows more about video games than is legally tolerated in most states.
Nathan Fouts (email) – President of Mommy’s Best Games, Co-founder of 8 Bit Horse
Nathan founded Mommy's Best Games more than 10 years ago with a focus on delivering over-the-top 2D action games. Nathan has a love for 2D gaming in general, which should be readily apparent to anyone who has played one of his games. Nathan is the creator of:
- Weapon of Choice - The award-winning high-octane, goo-spilling, gun-blasting romp through beautiful alien-infested environments
- Shoot 1UP - A 1UP-frenzied shmup with up to 30 player-controlled ships, featuring giant alien bosses and dangerous nakedness
- Explosionade - An explosion-powered mech combat game with 40+ levels of rampaging grenade-chucking action
- Serious Sam: Double D XXL - Serious Sam returns, along with his new buddy Huff, in a sidescrolling take on Earth's killingest hero in 2 wonderful dimensions (what else would those two D's stand for?).
- Pig Eat Ball - a game featuring pigs living on a space station, swallowing tennis balls and occasionally barfing them back up.
USER SUBMISSIONS
If you’re interested in submitting writing samples and/or articles for consideration to be published on 8 Bit Horse or 2D RADAR, please direct emails to AJ. Publication of user-generated content is done at our discretion, and all publications are unpaid. This is not because we believe in paying people with "exposure" (we do not) but because this site is strictly a labor of love and doesn't generate revenue to pay writers what they're worth.
8 Bit Horse and 2D RADAR are dedicated to covering current, upcoming, and heritage 2D games for computers and consoles, focusing primarily on action games. If you feel like you’re the best person to do that, then by all means (well, by means of email), let us know.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Outlined below are the minimum requirements for submitting an article for publication on 8 Bit Horse. Read the articles that we've already written so you can get an idea of our style and the amount of detail that we provide on each game.
- We're primarily interested in the mechanics of the games and design choices of the developers/designers. Unless it's particularly noteworthy, we don't typically focus too much on graphics or sound.
- We don't do reviews, and we try to remain objective and discuss the how the design decisions affect gameplay, rather than saying outright that something is good/bad/sucks, or that we didn't like a particular game feature. That's not to say there's no room for opinion about why something does or doesn't work, but it should be backed up by a discussion of the game design.
- Screenshots. Lots of screenshots. We like to back up practically every thought (practically every paragraph, even) with a screenshot. Be mindful of the file size, since we don't want 20 screenshots at 2MB each. For releases on modern consoles, we typically use .jpg format at medium quality and a horizontal resolution of 500px. For posts on 2D RADAR, we include a single screenshot at 640px and an embedded link to the game's latest trailer on YouTube.
- Articles on 8 Bit Horse should be self-contained and have no outside links. Unfortunately, this also means no linking to sources, so keep to the facts and to your direct observations; try not rely on what someone else has written if you can't objectively confirm it or witness it firsthand in the game. Posts on 2D RADAR should include links to the developer's website or Twitter page.
Upon completion, you may email the article to AJ (preferably in MSWord .doc or .docx format). As far as screenshots go, there's no need to put them into the document itself, since they'll need to be uploaded separately, but if you want to send along a .zip or .rar file, that will work for us. Be sure that the document references the screenshots so we know where to place them when we upload everything.
If you have any questions, please send us an email and let us know.
