Fragmented Almanac: Teaser Trailer and an Interview with Developer Roby Provost

Last month, the Junkyard office was abuzz with excitement when we caught wind of the news that Fragmented Almanac, a compilation of two eerie narrative-based puzzle games, was soon due to be released by fledgling indie studio ANTIRUINS on our beloved Sega Dreamcast. Alas, we don't actually have an office (yet), but the flurry of activity on our Discord and WhatsApp channels did a commendable job of emulating an exuberant water cooler experience nonetheless.

The duo of games contained within the Fragmented Almanac wrapper, The Hideout and Summoning Signals, have been in gestation for many years now, and whenever we had the opportunity to sample the work-in-development, our appetites for more only grew. At times it looked like the projects were sadly destined to join the extensive list of cancelled Dreamcast games, and so it was particularly sweet to hear that they are in fact now complete, and due for both physical and digital release in March of 2024.

Of course, after a lengthy session ogling the artsy ANTIRUINS website, I only wanted to learn more. Fortunately, lead developer Roby Provost has been kind enough to spill the beans in the following interview that covers everything from the conceptual foundations of Fragmented Almanac, down to the nuts and bolts of the game's printing and distribution. To put the cherry on top, Roby also provided us with a new teaser trailer that we are delighted to reveal for the first time here on the Junkyard.

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DCJY: Thanks for taking the time to speak with us Roby. To kick things off, can you tell us what players should expect from The Hideout and Summoning Signals, the two games that are being released together as Fragmented Almanac?

Roby: They are quite unique games. They're not shmups, that's for sure! I honestly think that Fragmented Almanac might be one of the most polished indie Dreamcast releases we've seen so far. As I tried to explain on our website, it is at the intersection of video game, art and alchemy. It's a game that makes you dream, or at the very least, makes you think. We wanted to make a project that lingers in the back of your mind, trying to decode the meaning of "scroll". The whole release is designed like a puzzle: full of secrets, truths and symbols. 

This being said, they are not long games. We wished we could have made the full version of Reaperi Cycle, a game which The Hideout was initially a demo of, but it was way too ambitious - especially when we first started back in 2016. Still, we think that people who enjoy strange, narrative-driven games with some puzzles will enjoy Fragmented Almanac. It's definitely a unique proposition, as games like Seaman or Seventh Cross Evolution were. Of course, I really think Seventh Cross Evolution could have been way better. Maybe we'll have to make Eighth Cross Evolution one day 😉.

And if you had to categorise them by genre, would it be fair to say they are "point-and-click" adventures, or is that too restrictive?

I honestly struggle to find the proper term for these games! You don't even click to move around, so perhaps it's more like a cursor adventure? But even that doesn't have a great ring to it. Maybe they are puzzle games? Strange, narrative-based puzzle games?

Whatever they are, they have a distinctive eerie and mysterious style. What is the inspiration behind that?

I think eerie and mysterious is just in our DNA! More seriously, most of the inspiration for our games is drawn either from ideas of the past, or visions of the future - and in particular, things that have been forgotten or that are not bound to happen. The concept of the almanac, a book or document that predicts the time, felt like a great starting point. It's interesting to think about what motivated the creation of almanacs. Were their authors trying to create a system to anticipate the future? Were they trying to provide a guide, a sense of security? Some almanacs are based on the words of religious texts while others get their predictions from the stars. It was interesting to research the many forms that almanacs take, both visually and in the information we provide.

For us, the Almanac is used to somewhat guide and inform the player. As you play the game, you'll unlock fragments and access more lore and art from the game. Muet (Simon Chiasson Greffard), one of our team members, is the one who infused The Hideout with most of its alchemical philosophies. We dug deep within alchemical imagery and symbols and tried to craft something out of it.

Flea!2 and Super Cambur Origins hit Kickstarter - Dreamcast Versions Available!

On this leapiest of days, the Dreamcast indie Gods are smiling upon us. Not one, but two titles have hit Kickstarter today, and they both have Dreamcast ports available. Must be a record. 

Let's get into them. 

Flea!2

Despite its NES roots, Flea! - from Dundee-based developer Alastair Low - was one of the most surprising indie titles to hit the Dreamcast back in 2020. Mike reviewed it very positively here on the blog, praising its fun but challenging gameplay that involved guiding a constantly jumping Flea through many deadly levels, collecting blood desperately needed by flea-kind. It seems it wasn't just Mike who thought this game was great though, as Flea! would go on to rank at 147 in our 2023 Top 200 Dreamcast Games vote, and 11 in our recent Top 25 Dreamcast Indie Games vote. The exceptionally fun Tapeworm Disco Puzzle followed next, building on the Flea! universe, and further cementing Alastair in the minds of the scene as a super talented developer. Have you seen the pop up book game he's been making too? Holy cow, dude.

Other than his upcoming collaboration with John Riggs, Chew Chew Mimic, which will also eventually be coming to Dreamcast, Alastair has been teasing development of a sequel to Flea! on Twitter for a little while now, but today it has hit Kickstarter - on a "leap" day, just as the original did! With a total backer goal of £7,000, Flea!2 is looking to to be more of the same goodness as the first game, but with some improvements and new mechanics. Alastair says in the Kickstarter teaser video that the game's "later levels will have you absolutely pulling your hair out". Basically, if you loved the first game, you're going to love this sequel too.

From the Kickstarter, improvements are listed as follows:

• Dash ability from the start of the game 
• Animated tiles 
• Wormholes 
• New UI with Level numbers 
• More cutscenes like in Tapeworm New 
• Music Tracks

And the fixes:

• Smaller spike hitboxes 
• Better swimming controls 
• Dash works in boss levels 
• Breakable boxes only break from top now

There is currently an early bird offer available which means you can grab the Dreamcast version of the game for £25 (early bird price is limited to the first 50 copies, and the normal price is £30). Of course there's NES carts available for £30+ (depending if you want the cart loose or complete in box), or if you'd prefer, a digital edition for £10. The Kickstarter is also offering some great add-ons, such as the Funstock Flea! plush, which I was sad to find was sold out on their store after reading Mike's article on Dreamcast game merch. Well, there's only 30 left, so get one while you still can by backing Flea!2! Oh, now there's 29 left, because I just backed (sorry!) You can also add a copy of Tapeworm Disco Puzzle to your order too, which is definitely worth it if you've not played it yet. All this is expected to be delivered in December 2024.

Don't talk shit about Mike's son.

If you’re someone who is unsure about Flea!2 on Dreamcast due to it being an NES game, there is a demo currently available to download for free. So give that a play and I'm sure you'll come away realising that the game is tonnes of fun, just as many others did. The quality and  fun gameplay of Alastair's games speak for themselves.

Once again, the Kickstarter campaign can be found here.

Super Cambur Origins

Our second indie is Super Cambur Origins from Spanish developers NAPE Games, and their title actually shares more in common with Flea!2 than just a campaign launch date. Similar to Alastair, NAPE also have a penchant for threading together universes of connecting storylines and characters, with both Ploid and Reknum Souls Adventure setting things off in 2022. The other thing Super Cambur Origins has in common with a game like Flea!2 is its NES roots.

Super Cambur Origins is an NES platformer featuring a banana superhero (that's what "cambur" translates to!) whose concept may evoke memories in British kids of a certain age… Although that was a human who ate bananas to become super, not a superhero banana... anyway, there's a Dreamcast port available as part of this campaign for €27, along with a digital edition. 

Super Cambur's Kickstarter has actually launched as a campaign to fund multiple games all taking place in the same “multiverse”, with an RPG called Super Cambur and the Sacred Orbs - which appears to just be for PC (Steam) - also available. There is also stretch goal prospects for a Switch and Steam fighting game called Super Cambur Skillmasters. Either way, the game you're getting for the Dreamcast is Super Cambur Origins, the platformer. 

You can check out the project page here. I also recommend watching The Sega Guru's video below for a good rundown of everything.

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Will you be backing either of these projects? Maybe both? Let us know in the comments below, or via one of our social media platforms.

The Top 25 Dreamcast Indie Games... Voted by You! (2024 Edition)

At the beginning of the year, we put the call out to the community to vote for their favourite indie releases for the Sega Dreamcast, and, as always, you have all responded in a big way! We had more than double the number of respondents than the last time we did this vote way back in 2016, with 71 different titles receiving a vote and Dreamcast fans from 17 countries over five continents participating. Well, we've now counted up all your votes, and can finally reveal the results of the 2024 Top 25 Dreamcast Indie Games poll!

As well as our Top 25 indie game ranking, we also asked you to name your favourite Dreamcast indie developer, favourite Dreamcast indie publisher, and most anticipated future Dreamcast indie release, and these results too are presented below. As an added bonus, and because of the sheer number of replies we received, I've also been able to give out some regional awards for the favourite indie games in different locales - so we can present the US, UK, European and Rest of the World regional awards for best indie games alongside everything else... which is exciting if you're a bit of a nerd like me!

My thanks goes out to everyone who took the time to respond and share in our common love of the Dreamcast indie scene - it's been a really, really interesting period of voting, with positions shifting daily and some big surprises to announce!

Without further ado, let's head straight into the Top 25 - if you'd like to follow along with the Junkyard crew (along with The Sega Guru and a return appearance from founder Tom Charnock) as we reveal these positions in "real time", then you can check out episode 128 of the DreamPod podcast on your podcast platform of choice, or on Buzzsprout.

25. Fast Striker

2010 - NG:DEV.TEAM

18 places down on 2016 poll ranking

The first entrant in this year's Top 25 and the first real surprise. Fast Striker may be getting on a bit now (14 years since its initial release), but it remains a technically competent and good-looking vertical shooter that is both accessible for the novice, while also packing some challenge for the veteran shooter fanatic. Whilst it peaked at the number seven spot in the 2016 indie poll, it's never managed to break into any of our Top 200 Dreamcast games lists, and only just makes it onto this Top 25 indie list - which feels a little unfair for it, really. If you're looking to pick this one up you'll have to rely on eBay or other online sales, as copies are no longer able to be purchased new. Ripe for a re-release though, surely?

24. Rocketron 

2021 - Astro Port / JoshProd

New entry

A criminally low ranking for this one. Astro Port and JoshProd's epic sci-fi Metroidvania-style platforming adventure is a hugely enjoyable title that sees you flying around levels via a rocket pack, taking down an array of imposing enemies and exploring an expansive world. Unfortunately, it may be the case that this one was lost in the mix of other numerous JoshProd releases at the time, and despite reaching a very respectable position of 117th in our 2023 Top 200 games list, it struggled to get much attention in this indie poll. Those who have played Rocketron, however, tend to love it, so I will encourage anyone reading this to pick up a copy from the PixelHeart store and give it a try.

NBA Showtime - For The Industry

Designed and published by Midway Games, Inc for the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, NBA Showtime is still worth playing in 2024, and its 128-bit graphics are worth preserving — for character artists and gamers alike.

When we position NBA Showtime on the Dreamcast amongst today’s sports games, something interesting happens. Showtime feels surprisingly fresh with its simple controls and tight playing moves. That is because Showtime is accessible in a way that modern NBA 2K purposefully never will be.

What’s more, Showtime’s old-school graphics and big time dunks led me to a major premise — design choices can impact the lives of the people who create and consume a game. That is because design choices made by big tech directly impact game budgets, development staffing decisions, and can even manipulate player spending habits, too. Powerful.

Without question, economical and responsibly made sports games are needed in the 2024 sports game market. NBA Showtime is a reminder of what is possible on hardware from over 20 years ago; and its 128-bit design may serve as a prescription in the face of an industry profiting billions off of gambling mechanics in sports games.

NBA Showtime’s Economical Design

Showtime’s economical design for the Dreamcast illustrates why arcade sports games are still worth playing. "The NBA on NBC", as it was known in the arcades at the turn of the millennium, is fun and super competitive without complex gameplay controls.

I did not expect to play Sega Dreamcast sports games in 2024. And upon powering up, I did not anticipate Showtime’s orchestral strings to invoke such strong emotions about its standing. But when we position it amongst today’s lineup of sports games, nothing actually compares. Whereas NBA 2K, the top selling NBA Basketball game series of the last decade, adopts a model of endless combinations and movesets, Showtime has just four buttons. Easy. One of those buttons is capable of launching three point shots high into the atmosphere, where the basketball seems to sky just long enough to remind yourself to breathe. Hence, the game does fun things with the sport through its iconic presentation — taking a three-pointer and turning it into an exciting event to replay over and over.

More importantly, Showtime is offline, and thus not connected to your credit card. It feels honest — unlike today’s games ruined by wallet exploits and complicated control schemes. The NBA 2K series, a prime culprit, builds its obfuscated player ratings and movesets into its game economy systems. Yes, the NBA’s flagship game has endless shops of in-game items to purchase. Everything is for sale.

Moreover, sports gamers today are at the mercy of the engineers at 2K Sports because 2K’s gameplay is constantly patched, often without notice — an unethical and potentially illegal business practice. For example, an animation purchased in week one of a game release might lose all value by week ten. Thus, 2K’s confusing layers of ratings systems are purposeful, designed to extract maximum funds out of players’ pockets.

Contrasting with 2K, Showtime’s rosters are locked in at specific ratings, and the game features a handful of player archetypes. Bigs, mids, and guards. That is it, and it works. Showtime is a game to enjoy, and its designers emphasized quick-hitting matches to keep the gameplay loop moving. For arcade machines, the gameplay loop was profitable, but on Dreamcast, players can play endless matches for a flat fee. For context, I purchased the game on eBay for the fitting price of $19.99 in late 2023.

Additionally, Showtime provides an abundance of what it calls its “coaching tips” in-between quarters that provide insight into the game’s AI and logic. Hence, we know a good deal about how Showtime works. And Showtime is not going to unilaterally change its player ratings any time soon via an online update.

When we look at Midway's arcade baller today, its simplicity comes across as a bit underrated. The graphics are blocky, the animations — awkward. But that is part of its charm, and the game can still hammer home the dunks on the genre to remind everyone it is still fun.

A 128-Bit Prescription for the Industry

Perhaps more importantly are the moral and ethical benefits of 128-bit gaming in 2024 in its various polygonal forms. In a word: remasters.

Remasters of 128-bit polygon arcade games like Showtime may be a compromise for all parties to the sports gaming ecosystem. That is because NBA Showtime’s art-style is highly affordable for the industry to adopt in 2024. As such, a remaster of an NBA Showtime in 2024 would be less laborious on designers, and cost less than most AAA games. For an industry known to run artists into the ground, a remaster is a win. While this argument glosses over the issue of obtaining the requisite licensing for all the players, there are always solutions when there is money to be made. We can trust in that notion.

The benefits of 128-bit games also extend to graphic designer and artist employment terms. Silicon Valley’s unethical practice of hiring and firing artists in waves is unnecessary when a 128-bit game costs a fraction of a major simulation sports production in 2024. The 128-bit graphic design choice is an act of acknowledgement to the artists from generations ago. Remasters can take us back to our roots, and maybe that is something the industry needs right now.

Lower development costs for a 128-bit production also thereby lessen big tech’s need to exploit players through in-game monetization systems. And while we cannot conclusively draw a line between development costs and microtransactions in our games, we can certainly argue the correlation. Lower costs have numerous benefits on the industry. Art direction matters.

Thus, remasters of classic sports games like Showtime represent a path towards dignity for everyone the game touches. Remasters can honor the original artists of NBA Showtime, while treating the artists of today with dignity. And remasters lessen the need for companies to build in morally bankrupt gambling modes into sports games. The premise is simple — companies should have a profound respect for persons and dignity. Human rights should be a part of our game design choices and the industry as a whole.

When we revisit NBA Showtime in 2024, it is less about nostalgia and more so about what the game now represents in the sports genre. The use of 128-bit graphics in sports games in 2024 is a practical path to more humane treatment of game artists and sports game players.

Dreamcast Light Gun title Death Crimson 2 has been Translated into English!

For a console that famously championed peripheral use, the Sega Dreamcast sure had slim pickings when it came to games that utilised the light gun. Most notably, the console received arcade-perfect ports of both The House of the Dead 2 and the severely underrated James Bond 'em up Confidential Mission; but what else was there? Those who dared to discover were met with Silent Scope without light gun support, a port of Virtua Cop 2 that was stuck on a disc with a load of poorly emulated Genesis games (unless you imported the standalone Japanese release), a hidden light gun mode in Demolition Racer: No Exit (yes, really), and the Death Crimson series.

Developed by Ecole and released exclusively in Japan in 1999, Death Crimson 2: Meranito no Saidan has the very distinct privilege of being the sequel to a game so notoriously bad that it had a particularly masochistic set of Japanese fans gluing the game's disc into their Sega Saturn so as to make sure the console could never play any other game. Luckily, Ecole did improve, and Death Crimson 2 was received better than its predecessor. Perhaps the most intriguing part about this sequel was the inclusion of a full story mode with almost Resident Evil-esque free-roaming sections where you explore in a third-person perspective outside of the light gun gameplay. While an "improved" version of Death Crimson 2 called Death Crimson OX did receive a Western release (in the USA, at least), it completely dropped the story sections, meaning non-Japanese speakers never got a chance to experience this weird mishmash of gameplay in the English language. 

Well, fret no more, as a fan translation of Death Crimson 2 has just released today! And who translated this Dreamcast light gun oddity, you ask? Well, it's the same guy who did the last English Dreamcast fan translation, too, and many before that! That man being - of course - the ever-busy Derek Pascarella.

With Derek's patch, everything in the game is now translated into English. This includes everything from the story sections, to cutscenes, to textures and graphics; with misspelled English place names (such as street signs) also being corrected to match the official Western release of Death Crimson OX. 

As always with Derek's releases, he's gone above and beyond with extras and enchantments. First up, Derek has added a VMU icon for the game, because Ecole were too lazy to implement one themselves. Next, he added a cheat function, which can up your lives and reset any countdown clock with a simultaneous press of the Dreamcast controller's left and right triggers. The reasoning for this is to allow players to experience the game's story without being having to endure going through numerous difficult stages repeatedly.

Then you have the bonus content section, which is accessible from the game's main menu. Utilising a modified version of the Dream Passport browser, players can access a variety of extras from the series, including a video of composer Kunitaka Watanabe tearing it up on the keyboard as he plays the original Death Crimson theme, along with an archive of fan support messages from Ecole's now-offline official Death Crimson 2 website, which have been machine-translated into English.

So, to download Derek's fan translation patch for Death Crimson 2, just head to its dedicated GitHub page to download it. For detailed steps on how to apply the patch for your desired method of play (i.e. burning to a CD-R, playing on an ODE), see the patching instructions section of the README. While the game does support the standard controller, if you're going to be using a light gun I recommend consulting the section on light gun compatibility. Make sure you report back to Derek if you experience any issues with a particular light gun setup, as he will aim to try and resolve such compatibility bugs in the future.

Are you going to crack out the light gun and give this English fan translation a go? Let us know in the comments below, or by hitting us up on one of various social media channels!

Dreamcast Covers that Go Hard (and Some More that Can Go Straight in the Bin)

Like the greatest album covers in the world, some games make a great impression even when sitting on a shelf. Whilst previews in the media, video trailers and word of mouth are vitally important, it would be wise not to underestimate the immediate impact a game’s cover can have on those with more impressionable minds. Generic artwork or uninspiring stylistic choices may be fine if the game has loads of pre-release hype or a big name license, but stick some glorious artwork from a talented artist on the cover and you're near enough guaranteed some extra interest.

The Dreamcast's small but beautiful library of games is jam-packed with turn-of-the-millennium style and innovation, and this is present in some of the artwork which adorned gaming shelves worldwide. Some are of course, iconic - Ulala's presence on the Space Channel 5 artwork, the striking simplicity of the PAL/Japanese covers of Crazy Taxi, Shenmue's epicness - but there are some that deserve more attention. These are works of art - they deserve to be blown up to a larger size, framed and hung in the finest of art galleries. So it's time to put my best gallery curator hat on and showcase why I think these fifteen choice cuts of Dreamcast cover art glory are examples worthy of so much praise, followed by five duds that deserve the complete opposite...

All covers used in this article come from Sega Retro, unless stated otherwise. Let's get into them...

The Dreamcast covers that go hard...

Spawn: In The Demon's Hand

I could have picked any of the cover variations of this release, as they are all absolutely epic in nature, but I've chosen the standard Japanese cover. Looking more like some great, unknown fantasy war metal album cover, this puts Todd McFarlane's comic masterpiece centre stage with a swirling mass of metal, cloak and spikes. Spawn is the ultimate badass antihero, an imposing demonic hellspawn, and a character that is designed to be visually interesting in whatever angle, pose or situation he is depicted in. As a game, In the Demon's Hand falls a little short, but the cover art surely must have led to a few extra sales.

The artwork for the standard Japanese version, as well as that used on other examples of the game, seem to have been taken from Spawn issue 95. The limited first print edition of the game released in Japan came with a cardboard slipcase with artwork similar to the US and PAL releases - all of which are based on the cover of 95.

The Japanese limited first print edition slipcase artwork (Credit: PlayAsia)

The US cover has the same artwork as both the Japanese slipcase and the PAL release. It's a bit cleaner than the standard Japanese cover, and not as impactful.

The cover art for Spawn issue 95, the artwork of which was the basis for the game covers above.

Mars Matrix (Japanese cover)

Takumi's underrated shooter delivers a depth to the genre that's unrivaled on the console, and has the best cover of any shooter on the system (particularly the Japanese version's cover). I will take no criticism of that viewpoint! This cover is a dynamic, colourful burst of energy which breaks away from the usual clichés seen on the covers of other shoot 'em ups, whilst never going so far out there that you'd be confused as to what genre of game it actually is. Taken as a whole, it's a piece of art; from the fonts used for the title (to continue with the metal references of this article, this text wouldn't look out of place as the logo for some sort of cosmic math metal band), to the colour gradation, to the sleek sci-fi lines and shapes in the background. The US cover (below) isn't awful either, but it lacks the eye-punching appeal that the Japanese release displays.

The US version does many things the Japanese version did, but the change of colours diminishes the appeal somewhat. Still, a decent attempt.

Minecraft-Clone "ClassiCube" now available for Dreamcast - supports Online Play

Do you know Minecraft? No? Have you been living under a block? Joking aside, if you seriously don't know what Minecraft is, then it is a game where you jump around swinging a pickaxe at all different types of blocks to build or destroy whatever your heart desires. It's like Lego with minerals... or something.

The reason I'm referencing a game that is hugely popular with people too young to know that the creators of Sonic once made video game consoles, is because today I was made aware that ClassiCube, a free, open-source clone of Minecraft, has hit the Dreamcast, and it supports online play! Seems the news trail went as follows: YouTuber (and friend) The Sega Guru told YouTuber (and friend) James Jarvis (aka ItsMuchMore) and then I found out from a post by excellent Dreamcast online gaming resource (and friends) Dreamcast Live.

Screenshot from the PC version of ClassiCube.

This Dreamcast port of ClassiCube is currently only in the early alpha stages, which means it is likely to crash/freeze or have issues with performance, but as a proof of concept, it really is an exciting project. Click here to download the .cdi file for it, and if you want to try getting it online, I highly recommend checking out James' video below.

Also check out The Sega Guru's video, which includes an interview with the developers. 

Believe it or not, we actually saw another homebrew Minecraft project for the Dreamcast back in 2017 called "Crafti". Tom wrote about that here.

Are you going to give ClassiCube a go? Do you think this is an exciting project? Let us know in the comments below, or via our social media channels?