10 Very British Games for the Sega Dreamcast

The British are an odd bunch. We're not really a country (look we're not, you have to admit it. It's like someone got a bunch of nations together who don't really like each other all that much, told them the same rich pricks are in charge of them all and everyone was like "oh okay" and went on about their business. Other than the Irish, obviously), but we have contributed far more than our share towards modern culture (partly by being real arseholes to just about everyone else and insisting they consume our culture whilst invading them), have terrible cuisine, terrible weather and a really, really shit flag. Yet the internet (and by "the internet", I mean Americans on the internet) views all of us Brits as a bunch of posh people who live in country estates who apologise to each other every other second; generally a bunch of genial, mostly nice and horribly polite people with bad teeth. Of course, the Europeans don't see us like that, and instead see us for our true selves - a bunch of gammon-faced troublemaking binge-drinking tourists who invented the sport they're now better than us at. And of course by "us" I mean "the English" because somehow the Welsh and Scottish get a free pass from everyone else despite them both sitting right alongside us when we were arseholes to the rest of the world. So yeah, we're not really a very nice country all in all, if you can even call us a country. What has this to do with the Dreamcast? Absolutely nothing - other than the fact that there are several games on this little Japanese 128-bit wonder that try and come close to truly capturing the real essence behind "being British" - and those games are my target for the latest in my ongoing series of lists about Dreamcast things.

So, without further ado, let's take a look at the ten most "cor blimey, fish n' chips, bottla wateh, tea and crumpets, god save the king" games on the Dreamcast.


Disney's 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue

Set mostly in London (aren't all UK-based video games?), this Disney adaptation contains Big Ben, posh English people and dogs. All quintessentially British. The little canine stars travel to various locations either directly modelled after real-life locations (or at least as far as "modelled" can be attributed to a Dreamcast-era movie tie-in) as well as some more generic locations with a British feel. As the game is based on a live action movie and not an actual Disney animated film (which was always a bit of a weird mix), there is some definite artistic license taken, especially as developer Toys for Bob are based in the distinctly un-British state of California, along with Prolific Publishing, who dealt with the Dreamcast port. This all results in a "Disneyfied" Britain that will be familiar to most of us but doesn't quite reflect the hard streets of London or the rubbish-strewn, annoying middle class walker-infested countryside we all love. At times, you half expect Mary Poppins to emerge from a chimney with a hopping Dick Van Dyke singing some ridiculous song behind her. Disney's bastardisation of British culture is something we should all bemoan, especially if you've ever visited the city of Bath and had to contend with the culture-shocked American tourists despondently trudging the streets who thought that everything would be posh, cultured and historic but instead have to contend with crackheads trying to sell shit-stained PS2 games from a carrier bag to people on the street. And that's just Bath - can you imagine their reaction if they visited Swindon?

This is Piccadilly Circus. Sort of. Points for the phone box, but it's slightly less busy than I remember it.

The first appearance of a red double decker in the article. Surely more will come?

The British countryside in all its glory. Sort of.

Britishness Rating: As British as Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Dancing chimney sweeps should, however, make a return.

British Town it Best Represents: London, I suppose. If you're American, anyway. 

DCJY welcomes SEGA SATURN, SHIRO!

 

In the most exciting crossover since Jay-Z and Linkin Park did Collision Course, in episode 129 of our podcast, the DreamPod, Brian and Lewis are joined by two stalwarts of both the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast community: SaturnDave and Patrick (TraynoCo) of SEGA SATURN, SHIRO

SHIRO! originally started in 2017 as a podcast dedicated to the Saturn, but has since grown into a website, YouTube channel and community dedicated to spreading the love of Sega's misunderstood 32-bit wonder, and later the Dreamcast. We at the Junkyard are fans of the work these guys do, so it was great to finally get them on the pod to talk all about it, as well as their love for the Dreamcast.

In this episode, we go into detail about SHIRO!'s origins, the present and future of the Saturn, the strengths and similarities of both consoles, and much much more. We also put SHIRO! on the spot and ask them to name their top three Dreamcast titles.
You can listen to this episode of the DreamPod and all of our previous episodes on Buzzsprout, along with all great podcatchers... and remember. You MUST play Sega Saturn!

Replacement VMU Shells head to Kickstarter - VGNYsoft give us the Lowdown!

 

Based out of New York video game boutique Videogamesnewyork, publisher VGNYsoft have been well known in the Dreamcast scene for a long time now for publishing a whole load of indie games stateside for our beloved Sega console. For a list of what they have released in the past, check out Mike's Complete Guide to Commercially Released Dreamcast Indie Games.

I was particularly excited last year to see them venture into releasing custom VMUs, starting with a limited edition of Hermes featuring a Hermes-branded VMU, which I showcased on the blog back when it came out. This was then followed by a Blockbuster-branded VMU (actually authorised by the Blockbuster's owner Dish) which was offered as a prize for the fourth World Video Game Championship at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. I rightly presumed these two VMUs were a sign of more to come, and today at 12pm EST VGNYsoft will launch their campaign for replacement VMU shells in a variety of unique colours.

We got a chance to talk with Daniel Mastin of VGNYsoft and get the scoop on this brand new Kickstarter campaign, along with some teases about upcoming indie releases.

Credit: Adam Koralik

DCJY: Hi Dan! Thanks for chatting to us about your Kickstarter. I think we can speak for a lot of Dreamcast fans when we say that we are excited for the prospect of replacement VMU shells. What can people expect from the Kickstarter? And what was your reasoning for going to Kickstarter as opposed to just selling them via your normal store?

Dan: The Kickstarter is a way to connect with the community before all of the production numbers become finalized. The initial production is set to include six colors, with stretch goals and a community vote to help add additional colors. Each VMU shell includes five injection-molded parts: the front, back, cap, battery door, and the D-Pad, and will have an MSRP of $16. In future productions, we will continue to introduce new colors as we produce more. 

Where did the inspiration come from to produce replacement VMU shells?

The idea came to light as a culmination of circumstances. Our retail store handles a considerable number of repairs and shell swaps for customers. Additionally, our publishing company (VGNYsoft) continues to produce and release numerous indie games for the Dreamcast, and our warehouse happened to have an abundance of new, sealed clear green VMUs. With some creativity, we pieced together the concept of elevating Dreamcast indie releases to the next level! 

So were the Hermes and Blockbuster VMUs early tests for this idea?

Hermes was our proof of concept, we used new [official] VMUs for that production. The Blockbuster VMUs were a very small batch built using some of our early production samples.

You are based in the USA, will fans overseas be able to get hold of these VMU shells?

The Kickstarter will ship to most international countries, and we will also collaborate with international retailers to offer additional overseas solutions once the production is complete. 

You previously released a Hermes-branded VMU. Can we expect to see more custom VMUs to tie in with other Dreamcast indie releases?  

Custom VMUs are the secret sauce behind the entire production and the foundation for funding the very expensive injection molding process. We have a lineup of future limited edition releases that will feature custom-printed VMU shells. The first one will be announced in just a few weeks before the VMU shell Kickstarter is finished! 

That's exciting to hear! Finally, is there anything else that Dreamcast fans can expect from VGNYsoft in 2024?

VGNYsoft recently released North American versions of Ploid and Reknum from Nape Games (who also has a new game currently on Kickstarter). We have a few titles in the works for 2024 as well, which will be announced soon. In general, we are always looking to build deeper engagement with Dreamcast indie developers. Our goal is to help uplift their projects and bring them to a wider audience through high-quality physical productions.

***

Thanks to Dan for giving us the lowdown on the Kickstarter campaign. Click here to go check it out for yourself, and be sure to let us know in the comments below which colours you'd like to see VGYNSoft produce next.

Star Wars: Dream of the Rebellion - Rogue Squadron Inspired Prototype Playable on Dreamcast!

As casual Star Wars fans tie themselves in knots with questions such as "who shot first? Han Solo or Greedo?", homebrew developer Frogbull is asking the real questions. There were three Star Wars games on the Sega Dreamcast; Jedi Power Battles, Demolition, and Episode I: Racer, but why do none of them let you pilot an X-Wing?!?

If you haven't encountered Frogbull before, they are the talented individual who showed off a proof-of-concept back in November of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty running on the Dreamcast, which was actually built using Luke Benstead's Simulant Engine and other homebrew tools. They also showcased similar prototypes of the first Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII running on the Sega Saturn, too. Their mission as a developer is clearly to prove these games can run on these Sega systems that they never got a chance to release on.

Yesterday, Twitter was awash with hype as Frogbull released footage of "Star Wars, Dream of the Rebellion" - a Rogue Squadron-inspired prototype - playing on the Dreamcast, which you can check out below. What's more, unlike previous efforts, Frogbull actually plans to release a playable demo of this project to the public for free in two weeks in the form of a .cdi file, for play on GDEMU, emulator, and I'm sure you’ll even be able to burn it onto a CD-R. Frogbull was generous enough to send me a playable build of it early, and I must say, I'm very impressed.

Once again running on the Simulant Engine, the Dream of the Rebellion demo currently features a single mission referred to as "Star Destroyer Pursuit". On the mission select screen, you can even press Y to hear C-3PO talk about the mission. Frogbull has utilised AI to get C-3PO's voice sounding accurate, and it really does sound good. Along with music and the famous title crawl Star Wars fans know and love, this demo is incredibly polished. 

The gameplay of the mission has you following after the star destroyer in the X-Wing, shooting down approaching TIE fighters, with your goal being to get the best score possible by shooting down as many as you can as accurately as possible. You don't actually control the X-wing's forward movement, instead being limited to moving around the screen. But with the stars moving in the background and the slight movement of the star destroyer at the top of the screen, it really does give off the illusion that you are constantly moving forwards. If you dodge the TIE fighters, seeing their 3D models zoom off screen (as seen below) really is very impressive.

Finally an X-wing on Dreamcast? Who knew it'd take until 2024 to see it happen. Anyhow, if you want to follow Frogbull, you can find them on Twitter, YouTube and Patreon. May the force be with you.

Kickstarter launches for Ambitious Multi-Platform RPG “Breath of Thunder” - includes Dreamcast stretch goal!

Update (11/03/2024): Due to online feedback, the creator of this Kickstarter has pulled all the stretch goals for retro systems, including Dreamcast.

It must be Dreamcast Kickstarter launch fever recently, as another new Kickstarter campaign was brought to my attention today in the Junkyard Discord by user Techno Hammer. For a goal of 30,510 AUD, developer Jerrel Dulay wants to develop an old school-style JRPG called "Breath of Thunder" for multiple modern systems, including the Switch, PC, the Atari VCS (the newer one that no one ever talks about, not the 2600), the PlayDate and the PS Vita (as free homebrew). But the project's ambitions for being a multi-platform release don't stop there, however...

I hadn't heard of Jerrel before, but from reading up on him, it seems he has a lot of development experience with a whole range of systems, with his survival horror series Silver Falls seeing releases across multiple platforms, such as the Game Boy, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, PSP, PS Vita, 3DS, Wii U, and Switch. He has even just delivered a Kickstarter-funded Silver Falls entry on the gosh darn Pokémon Mini, of all things!

This actually looks really nice.

The game itself looks to pay homage to the kind of turn-based RPGs that were beloved on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, like Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire (it’s in the name!), Dragon Quest, and Secret of Mana; though that is probably the least interesting part of this campaign. Remember how I said Jerrel had development experience with lots of different systems? Well, if multiple stretch goals are reached, this game could come to eleven more potential systems, both modern and retro, including our beloved Dreamcast. Get a load of this list:

  • Sony PSP for 48k AUD
  • Nintendo DS for 61k AUD
  • Game Boy Color for 91k AUD
  • Dreamcast for 152k AUD
  • PlayStation 4 and 5 for 168k AUD
  • Xbox Series S and X for 168k AUD
  • PlayStation 1 for 229k AUD
  • Atari Jaguar for 305k AUD (Tom will appreciate this, I'm sure.)
  • Sega Saturn for 543k AUD
  • Game Boy Advance for 611k AUD
  • Nintendo Virtual Boy for 760k AUD
  • Other consoles that haven't even thought of yet for 916k AUD

All of the stretch goals for the retro systems mention that they are "unique" versions. On Jerrel’s channel, he showcases an early concept for the Atari Jaguar version and explains that it would have pre-rendered backgrounds instead of being 3D to avoid technical hiccups. I imagine this is most likely what would happen with the potential Dreamcast version, along with other retro versions. Also, for all the retro systems, including the Dreamcast, ROMs will be distributed for free upon completion, for play on an emulator (or maybe even an ODE?)

Jerrel also put a video out explaining how he’d be able to tackle so many systems if the stretch goals were successful, which you can watch below.


I guess we'll have to see how the Kickstarter campaign pans out as to whether or not a Dreamcast version will be available even happen at all. Anyway, if you'd like to back this project, the campaign can be found here.