3 New Dreamcast Games You May Have Missed

There are loads of new Dreamcast games in development at the moment, and most of them we've been keeping an eye on. Xenocider, Elysian Shadows, SLaVE, Alice Dreams Tournament, Ameba and In The Line Of Fire (more exclusive info coming on that very soon, folks!) all look fantastic and if nothing else show off the breadth and depth of indie development on the Dreamcast. That said, there are a few more smaller projects on the go that may have slipped under your radar, and we thought it was high time they got some attention.

Hermes
Coming from prolific indie developer and publisher Retroguru, Hermes is a 'run and jump' game in a similar vein to Sqrxz. Sqrxz, apart from having an unpronounceable name (unless you're a Klingon) is a side scrolling platformer where you control a little rabbit-looking creature and must jump over gaps and avoid enemies...and die. Lots. It's like the Dark Souls of platformers and revels in its difficulty and frustration levels, and it looks like Hermes may follow this template.
From the PD Roms article on Hermes:

"Retroguru of Giana’s Return and Sqrxz fame are heavily working on their new game Hermes. In this Jump’n’Run you must chase a chicken to get your stomach filled with delicious meat. The game is sort of anti-vegetarian and features a doubtful sense of humor. As all Retroguru games, it’s expected to see this game on several other platforms than just Sega’s Dreamcast."
- Retroguru

There's no release date for Hermes just yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar it'll have you pulling your hair out in the very near future. Going off past Retroguru releases like Fruit'Y, it'll probably be cheap as chips, too.

Survival Code
An interesting take on the Gunlord/Turrican style run and gun, Survival Code is coming out of Brazil and is the brainchild of indie developer Titan Game Studios. The game was recently covered over at SEGA Nerds and I've seen the teaser video being shared on social media quite a bit over the last couple of weeks, so I thought it was only proper that we featured it here. Survival Code does look fairly rudimentary at present, but the blueprints for a fairly cool-looking weapons-based platformer appear to be in place. It should be noted that the lead developer also writes for SEGA Nerds, so the 'ethics in games journalism' furore could be about to blow up again (bantz!).
Survival Code is actually planned for both Dreamcast and Saturn, as well as mobile phones, and promises some innovative cross-platform interactivity through the use of QR codes. Quite how this will be implemented in the final game is a little unclear at present, but Titan Game Studios hints that the use of these QR codes will unlock new paths through levels and weapon upgrades. One aspect of Survival Code that interests the sci-fi nerd in me the most is the story's reference to the Wow! signal, which is a real life space anomaly picked up by SETI radio telescopes in the 1970s. Anything to do with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and I'm there. Gotta be more in the cosmos than there is on Earth at the moment.


Titan Game Studios is doing a great job updating their website and keeping those interested up to date with the development of Survival Code. At the time of writing, a level editor is up and running and bug testing is underway. Check out the site and developer blog for more info.

Project Bennu
Perhaps the most enigmatic of the three games listed here, Project Bennu is a visual novel style game set in a futuristic anime-esque world. The vast majority of the information on this game is located here at the Segasaturno forums and here at the Bennu Game Development website, however I have spoken with developer Alfonso Martinez and been able to glean some more details from him.
The name of the project comes from the development suite used (Bennu, funnily enough), which is is used mainly in the creation of Linux and GP2X software. The Bennu tools were ported to work with the Dreamcast by veteran indie coder Indiket and the rest is history.
According to Alfonso, Project Bennu is more a personal project that a AAA adventure, but it will feature traditional visual novel gamplay, mini-games and VMU support. I'm hoping to get more info from Alfonso in the near future, so watch this space!

Links
Retroguru
Titan Game Studios
Project Bennu
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