The Lands of Zador - Even More Majestic

I've featured The Majesty of Sprites on here before, the startlingly good looking Commodore Plus 4 game from Bauknect, but here's the sequel and it looks even better. The same wonderfully colorful graphics, but this time it seems that all the stages are smoothly scrolling in all four directions. Apparently the gameplay remains much the same, but with some added puzzle elements - a physical release from psytronik software will be coming out sometime soon

Flappy Bird on SEGA VMU and code injected into Super Mario World!

The Dreamcast still receives a lot of attention from homebrewers, with more than a few disc releases in recent years, and it seems like the VMU add-on is almost as popular as a target. It's no surprise then that Flappy bird would eventually end up on here, this game becoming almost as widely unofficially ported as Tetris. The game looks to play slightly differently to the original, but the rest of the elements are there and it's seeming no less irratating. 

   

Whilst I'm about it, here's yet another version of Flappy Bird, but this time with a bizarre twist. The SNES amy already have a version of Flappy Bird, but it's been created once again, this time in a very unusual way. 

Arbitrary code injection exploits, basically a glitch that allows the user to reprogram a game,  have been used in Super Mario World to do all sorts of interesting things for a while now. The Tasbot at AGDQ has got a lot of cool tricks to show off using this exploit and human players have used it to warp directly to the end credits, setting speed run world records in the process. 

This above video showcases something very interesting, a human going through the very laborious process of using a code injection glitch to not just warp to the end of the game, but essentially program a Flappy bird clone in real time. The video explains in all better than I could, so give it a watch.   

Undumpted Famicom Game - Magic Kid Googoo

You'd think by now that every commercial Famicom/Nes game out there would have been dumped as a rom file and made available online. Okay, there may be a few ultra rare unreleased prototypes or betas that aren't circulating (Nintendo no doubt have a few), but surely there can't be any commercial releases out there, right?

Apparently not, as this video of a previously unknown Korean game shows. Whilst it is unlicensed and seems never to have made it out of Korea, it actually looks pretty good and appears to be a fairly well made platformer. Why has it remained so obscure for all these years? No idea at the moment, hopefully more details will be revealed soon, but maybe more Famicom treasures are still out there.

As this game seems to be in the hands of some people associated with Hardcore Gaming 101, it's likely to be dumped soon and hopefully a rom file will me made available so we can all play it.

Hyper Play - The new retro print fanzine.

The age of fanzines has definitely been and gone, replaced of course by the web, like so many other things, but it seems there's a few die-hards still  hanging on. If you're not familiar with the term a fanzine is a fan published magazine, usually put out by amateur enthusiasts and often focusing on niche subjects. Sci-fi, music, football teams and of course computer and video games were popular topics in the past and these magazines were sometimes the only medium by which fans could communicate with like minded others.

It's nice then to see a newly published fanzine, even if it may be one of the last of a dying breed. This one focuses on retro games, particularly RPGs and looks like it could have some interesting content if that's your bag. You can get issue one here at the reasonable price of  £3.50 in the UK and £4.50 for international orders.

ColecoVision Arcade Controllers Kickstarter Funded!

If you have to ask why then you probably don't need one, but it seems a lot of people do. The ColecoVision is a console that has a small but very dedicated following and this deluxe arcade controller from Edladdin does looks pretty cool. I suppose it goes to show that there is no niche to small to fill on Kickstarter if you have an appealing product. This company does have form, having already produced a line of controllers for the 2600 and 7800, so there's probably a good chance that this product will actually appear before the end of the decade. 

There's still just time to back this project (just) and it closes on the 19th of February. 

Famicom: 8-Bit Music Power cartridge release.

If japan has a Nintendo Famicom homebrew scene, news of it doesn't often make it to the west. Whilst you may be familiar with Japan's Dōjin soft, most of these releases seem to be either on modern platforms or classic computers, without much activity on consoles.  That makes this music demo a bit of a rare beast and add the fact that it's getting a cartridge release and you've got something pretty special.

Although it was announced a while ago, 8-Bit Power now seems to be available to pre-order on Play Asia, for the not completely unreasonable price of $29.99 or £20.07, with what looks to be very nice retail packaging too.

Yet More CPC Homebrew 2015

Another two games from the CPC Retrodev contest on display here, this time it's the winner and runner up.
Space Moves is an absolutely rock hard run and gun game, presumably an unofficial sequel to the original Army Moves. Frogalot is a puzzle platformer type thing, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the classic Nebulus. Both are worth checking out if you're into the kind of low key fun that Amstrad CPC homebrew games offer.