Showing posts with label Alice Dreams Tournament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alice Dreams Tournament. Show all posts

The Dreamcast Games Of 2017

2017 has been something of a bumper year for Dreamcast releases, what with JoshProd, Orion, Retroguru, Alice Dreams and Senile Team all putting out new software on the system. The range and diversity of these titles has been pretty incredible too - especially when you consider that the Dreamcast was officially disowned by Sega well over a decade ago. 2018 promises even more new additions to the ever-growing library, with Intrepid Izzy, Xenocider, Saber Rider, SLaVE and a bunch of other games we have been sworn to secrecy over all due to hit our favourite little white box.
As we near the year's end, I thought it would be fun to have a little look back over the games that were released for the Dreamcast throughout 2017, and give a bit of kudos to those developers and publishers who continue to support the console with new software. The vast majority of the titles that have come to the Dreamcast in a physical case during 2017 have invariably come with high quality bespoke artwork, authentic packaging and - in some cases - unique extras or inventive aesthetic design. And while it's easy to look at some of the releases and pour scorn on them for being fairly basic in terms of visuals or gameplay, the majority of them have been crafted as labours of love, and not with financial gain in mind. For that, all of the creators should be applauded.
It's worth noting that this list only includes games that have been released for the first time this year, so even though games like Ghost Blade, Alice's Mom's Rescue and Sturmwind were given re-releases, they don't count (although I'll make a note of them at the foot of this article). Furthermore, 2017 marks the first time since Karous in 2007 that official third party support has been bequeathed to the Dreamcast, as even though they were published by JoshProd, Visco's games do qualify as official releases owing to the fact that Visco is listed as a third party T-code publisher (thanks to Scott Marley for that nugget of information). Anyway, let's get down to business and look at - in no particular order - the Dreamcast releases of 2017. Man, it still feels weird typing that sentence...

Alice Dreams Tournament OST Available For Pre-Order

Alice Dreams Tournament finally hit the Dreamcast earlier in 2017 and went down pretty well with the community. The frantic, multiplayer focused Bomberman homage also impressed this gamer (read the review here), and overall Julien Desquenne and Nicolas Pochet delivered what they promised with their admirable Kickstarter campaign. One aspect of Alice Dreams Tournament that was especially noteworthy was the music - anyone who has played it will know all about the ear worm tunes that accompany the explosive action.
Thanks to online store and publisher Côté Gamers, a brand new Alice Dreams Tournament OST music CD is coming in October 2017, featuring 27 tracks - two of which are original compositions not found in the main game. Priced at a very reasonable €13/£12/$15, the 'day one' edition of the Alice Dreams Tournament soundtrack is limited and ships with a numbered certificate of authenticity.
You can pre-order the CD from Côté Gamers here (site is in French, so diligent use of a translation tool is encouraged...unless you can read French, of course!), and international buyers can take advantage of the 'books and brochures' shipping option for reduced delivery costs.

Finally, if you haven't had the pleasure of playing Alice Dreams Tournament yet, or didn't back the Kickstarter, you can now buy the game from the Alice Dreams store here.

Dreamcast Riding High At Gamescom 2017

The annual Gamescom trade fair in Cologne, Germany is always a hit with developers and publishers of the latest and greatest new games and hardware. All the big guns have been in attendance at the 2017 show, with major players like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft showing their wares, and the public have been lapping it up. But what's all this got to do with the humble Dreamcast? Well, believe it or not, the Dreamcast has been exceptionally well represented at Gamescom this year, with a glut of upcoming games on display for Sega's old warhorse.
Intrepid Izzy from Senile Team, Retroguru's Hermes, Xenocider from Retro Sumus, the recent releases from JoshProd, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, and Alice Dreams Tournament have all been on display and fully playable. This is due in part to the sizeable displays laid on by Retro Spiel and German retro gaming magazine RETURN. It's pretty awesome to see the Dreamcast represented at such a prestigious event, even more so with all these new titles on display. Below you'll find an assortment of photos from Gamescom 2017 showing that the Dreamcast is far from dead - it's very much alive and kicking!

Review: Alice Dreams Tournament

In recent times, the rise of online gaming has all but phased out the local multi-player experiences of yore. I'm sure I'm not alone when I reminisce about hours spent playing Golden Eye or Mario Kart 64 on the Nintendo 64; or long periods taking turns on PGA Tour Golf on the Mega Drive. As a kid growing up through the 16, 32 and 64-bit eras, multi-player gaming was all about getting together with a group of friends or siblings and battling it out in front of one TV with a single console and multiple controllers plugged in.

The Dreamcast represents one of the last major consoles to feature four controller ports as standard, and the inclusion of a modem makes it a system that truly straddled the eras where playing with others became an oxymoronic experience with gamers connected via the internet as opposed to being sat on the same couch. Obviously, there are still plenty of games that offer local multi-player play modes but these days it's seen as a unique selling point or gimmick rather than a standard feature. Enter Alice Dreams Tournament, an independently developed Dreamcast exclusive that borrows heavily from the Bomberman series and is all about recreating the local multi-player sessions of old, but with a modern twist.
The final look of Alice Dreams Tournament.
Alice Dreams Tournament has a pretty interesting development history, so we'll start there. The game we see today actually started life as an end of level mini-game in a totally different project, titled simply Alice Dreams. Entering development back in 2003, Alice Dreams was a 2D side scrolling platformer based loosely on the Lewis Carrol novel Alice in Wonderland, and at the end of each stage the player could unlock a short bonus game if certain parameters were met. One of these bonus stages involved a simple Bomberman-like multi-player stage that was only ever intended to be a hidden extra, but it quickly proved popular and was turned into its own game - Dynamite Dreams.

It was with this blueprint that developers Julien Desquenne and Nicolas Pochet launched a Kickstarter to get Alice Dreams Tournament turned into a reality; and the project quickly reached its meagre €8,000 target, finishing with a total of €28,000 from 374 backers (full disclosure - one of those 374 backers was me, along with several others from the Junkyard team).
How the earlier Alice Dreams game looked.
It's a great story and you can read the full history of the game here and the find the Kickstarter project page here; but let's get down to business. Alice Dreams Tournament is finally finished and many backers now have the game in their hands, so how does the Dreamcast's latest new release measure up? Let's go through the looking glass and find out...

Quick Look Video: Alice Dreams Tournament

Some of you out there may have started to receive your copy of successful Kickstarter game Alice Dreams Tournament. We'll have a full review coming soon (well, as soon as all of the Dreamcast Junkyard team receive their copies); but in the meantime I decided to take a quick look at the game dropping into mailboxes as I type:



Have you got yours yet? If so, what do you think of this new game? Let us know in the comments or over in our Facebook group.

Alice Dreams Tournament Shipping Very Soon!

It seems like a lifetime ago that many of us put our money down for a copy of Bomberman homage Alice Dreams Tournament, but it appears that we won't have to wait much longer to finally get the opportunity to play it. For those not up to speed, Alice Dreams Tournament is a modern take on the Bomberman style multiplayer battle game, with players moving around various stages, trying to eliminate each other with bombs. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the developers have been hard at work tweaking and finalising the code and have done plenty of promotion by allowing the public to test the game at a multitude of gaming events across Europe.

The Alice Dreams Tournament team (made up of duo Julien Desquenne and Nicolas Pochet) were in attendance at the RGC - Retrogaming Connexion 2017 event in Meaux, France this past weekend and posted some very interesting pictures on their Facebook page.
On top of this, a Kickstarter update posted on 16th February pretty much confirmed that the PAL, NTSC-U and NTSC-J packaged copies of Alice Dreams Tournament have been delivered and are ready to be shipped to backers:

"A quick news to share our joy with you - we received the games! All versions are here, except the PAL collector's edition where we still lack the front and back covers (they are in production).
As we will be at RGC this Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th February 2017 in Meaux, we will take some photos and share them with you! If you are near Meaux, you can pick up your game and we will gladly dedicate it to you if you wish!"
- Alice Dreams Tournament Kickstarter (paraphrased)

It's really cool to know that we're so close to finally getting our hands on this brilliant looking brand new Dreamcast game; and test audiences at the various gaming events it has been demonstrated at seem to have given nothing but positive feedback. Naturally, we don't know the exact date for shipping, but we'd wager it can't be very long now - a couple of weeks, max? Once it arrives, expect a full review here at The Dreamcast Junkyard.
Were you at the event in Meaux? Did you pick a copy of Alice Dreams Tournament up? If so, tell us what you think of it in the comments or over in our Facebook group!

PS - this isn't the announcement we've been teasing about on social media. For that huge news, you'll have to wait a few more days...

Alice Dreams Tournament Release Date Slips, Online Leaderboards & New Play Mode Revealed

May 22nd saw the release of a new update from the team working on the hotly anticipated Dreamcast Bomberman clone Alice Dreams Tournament. This update brings news both good and not so good; with the latter being that the game will no longer make its intended June shipping date. Reasons cited for this delay include the implementation of VMU functionality, the production of the 'making of' video, and other small bug fixes:

"It is important to be honest and tell you that we will not be ready in June. We still have promises to realize or terminate: the additional VMU interactions, the 'making of' and other small fixes."
 - Alice Dreams Website

While this is disappointing, it is commendable that Alice Dreams are being totally honest and transparent. While no firm release date has been given, I did reach out via Facebook to state that I'd really like to have the game playable at The Dreamcast Junkyard's stand at this years Play Expo Manchester in October, and they assured me it would be ready by then...so that's something at least.

Alice Dreams Tournament Gets Kickstarter Update

Alice Dreams Tournament smashed its Kickstarter goal last year, and this new Bomberman-inspired Dreamcast game from Alice Team looks like it's going to be a winner for anyone who misses the fun of local multiplayer sessions of old. Online gaming is great and all, but nothing beats being sat in the same room as your adversaries for a bit of friendly (or unfriendly, in the case of my Goldeneye 007 days) rivalry. The good news is that the project appears to be bang on target, and Alice Team have updated the game's Kickstarter page with the following announcements:

Time for some news!
  • We're beta-testing the Scoring mode! We're testing some gameplay modifications to make the challenge more interesting. Note, this mode will use an original interaction on Dreamcast! 
  • Some of the new maps are ready for crazy parties! (See an example below)
  • We are still working on US, Jap and Euro covers. Please still be a little patient, we will soon be able to show you them!
One of the new stages
That's not all though. It seems those nice folk at Alice Team are helping out fellow indie developer Mode4 with their Steam Greenlight project Bombslinger. More hands make light work eh? Alice Dreams Tournament looks set to meet its June 2016 release date for backers and I for one can't wait to get my hands on it.

Check out our recent interview with Alice Team's lead developer Julien Desquenne here.

Source: Dreamcast News

Developer Interview: Alice Dreams Tournament

Alice Dreams Tournament hit its Kickstarter goal in little more than a day, and it isn't really a surprise. This homage to local multi-player games of yesteryear has outstanding 2D visuals, a multitude of inventive game modes and a brand new use for the humble VMU. The Dreamcast Junkyard backed the project almost immediately and we look forward to being able to play (and review) Alice Dreams Tournament when it launches. In the meantime however, we caught up with lead programmer Julien Desquenne to ask a few questions about the history of the game, the Bomberman series and (naturally) if he knows the identity of the legendary Dreamcast barber...
The likeness is uncanny!
DCJY: Could you tell us a little bit about who makes up the Alice Dreams Tournament team and how you got together? 

Julien Desquenne: Our team consists of Nicolas Pochet the graphic designer and me, Julien Desquenne the programmer.  We met in 2003. In fact, I began to program a platform game and I was looking for a graphic designer to help me on the graphic parts. I really wanted to realize this game on Dreamcast. So I posted my research of a graphist on a Dreamcast French forum (dcreload.fr) and Nicolas replied very quickly and introduced me to his drawings. I was very impressed by his artistic talent and we decided to work on a common project.

New Dreamcast Kickstarter To Launch - Alice Dreams Tournament


Hey does anyone remember that awesome demo for Alice Dreams?  I certainly was disappointed that it never launched.

But now those same guys are making a NEW game.  And it will BLOW YOU AWAY!


Did you see that Dreamcast VMU Support!? Amazing!

Full details can be found here!