WAVE Game Studios – an interview with the indie publisher keeping the Dream alive

WAVE Game Studios is a name you will be familiar with if you recently bought a copy of Senile Team's excellent Dreamcast platformer-cum-beat 'em up Intrepid Izzy, and has recently announced that they will also be publishing Yeah Yeah Beebiss II in Europe. The UK-based outfit has been busy establishing itself as the hottest new label in Dreamcast indie game publishing, and we thought it would be cool to catch up with WAVE as they start to make a splash in the community. Splash? Wave? See what I did there? I almost went for 'dipping a toe in' but pulled myself back from that particular cringeworthy literary cliff edge with mere keystrokes to spare.

Anyway, if you're not familiar with WAVE Game Studios, their history, and what they have planned for the future; hopefully you will be by the end of this interview. Furthermore, if you're an independent developer working on a Dreamcast game and you have dreams of putting your game in a physical case and into the GD-ROM drives of Dreamcasts the world over, then read on...

DCJY: Hi, thanks for agreeing to talk to us about WAVE Game Studios. Before we begin, can you give us little bit of background about who makes up the team?

WAVE Game Studios: It’s our pleasure! WAVE is primarily made up of two brothers, Daniel and Nick. We’re based in Norwich, Norfolk, UK.

Norfolk, known for Alan Partridge, mustard...and now WAVE Game Studios! So, when was WAVE Game Studios established and what was the reasoning being the creation of the label?

WAVE has a fairly long history, but the most recent incarnation stems back to 2015 which is when we started distributing games to UK based retailers. We really started to ramp up our efforts this year, which is when we began publishing games in addition to just distributing them.

That’s interesting – this might sound like a daft question, but what is the main difference between distributing and publishing a game?

It’s a very good question. The role of a publisher is to, in short, take a game and turn it into a saleable product. Usually the publisher will help with artwork, marketing, production, and various other tasks such as providing review copies to magazines and influencers.

The distributor, on the other hand, deals primarily with ensuring the product is available for sale in as many appropriate places as possible. In the indie games world, these two roles are often (but not always) filled by the same company or person.

DCJY welcomes Video Game Esoterica

In the latest episode of our podcast DreamPod, Tom, Lewis and Martin are joined by Anthony Bacon of the excellent Video Game Esoterica YouTube channel. In this episode, we discuss Anthony's YouTube journey thus far, as well as everything odd to do with the Dreamcast, legendary developer Kenji Eno, and his game D2. They even squeeze in some chat about the 3DO's failed follow-up; the Panasonic M2, and even the Apple Pippin. You don't want to miss this one!

Use the embedded player below to listen here on the main Dreamcast Junkyard blog, or alternatively you can grab the episode on either your podcatcher of choice or over on our YouTube channel.

Links to things discussed in the Podcast:

• Video Game Esoterica YouTube channel
• Junkyard article going over the Dreamcast PHS / Dreamwire service, and the official Dreamcast wireless adapter
• Dreamcast MIDI cable
• O.to.i.Re: Dreamcast Sequencer
• Junkyard article discussing Dreamcast non-gaming software for stock market, betting, car sales, education etc

Thanks once again to Anthony - be sure to check out Video Game Esoterica on YouTube and give Anthony a follow on Twitter.

Interview: Out of Print Archive

Many gamers of a certain age will no doubt recall those halcyon days when the only way to really get your fix of gaming news, was to await the monthly publication of your favourite magazine. The internet of the early '90s was far removed from the internet of present year, and as such watching video of new releases or flipping through hi-resolution images direct from developer on social media wasn't something you could do. Indeed, most of my early memories of using the internet to find out about new game releases involve sneaking into the school IT suite at lunchtimes to employ Alta Vista in my insatiable quest for knowledge. Oh, and using Game Sages to get cheats. Does anyone else remember Game Sages or am I just making that website up?

Kids these days will never know the anticipation of that illuminated N *shakes fist at cloud*

Yes, back in the day, the magazine was king and it was through reading those printed materials that I took an interest in pursuing games journalism as a profession. Nowadays, I'm actually quite glad that I am not a professional games journalist, such is the the way online discourse has morphed, but for a period back in the late '90s and early 2000s it was all I wanted to do with my life. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that ambition either. 

Magazines of that period, and more to the point - the people who created them, were our heroes. They were the influencers of their day. Gus Swan, Marcus Hawkins, Caspar Field, Les Ellis, Jaz Rignall, Radion Automatic, Zy Nicholson, Wil Overton, Paul Davies, Keith Stuart, Simon Phillips, Ed Lomas, Tim Weaver, Mean Yob...just a few of the names I can instantly rattle off as an avid reader of a plethora of UK magazines from the 90s and 2000s. And I'm sure those in other parts of the world, and of a certain age can name the authors of their favourite magazines too.

The point I'm trying to make is that magazines were a huge part of many gamers' formative years, and the popularity of podcast Maximum Power Up's superb series of interviews with journos of yesteryear proves this. Furthermore, one website which encapsulates the magic of print media and preserving those memories is the excellent Out of Print Archive. A repository for digitised copies of print magazines of a bygone era, the Out of Print Archive has cemented itself as one of the premier online destinations for anyone who is looking to re-read those magical tomes of their childhood and take a walk down memory lane.

For this reason, we thought it would be pretty cool to speak to the people behind Out of Print Archive, ask them where the inspiration for the site came from, their digitisation process for various Dreamcast-related (and other format) magazines, and to find out what makes them - and the Archive itself - tick. Enjoy...

DCJY: Thanks so much for agreeing to speak to us about all things magazines! Could you tell us a bit about who you are, and what your roles are at Out of Print Archive?

Andy: Hello, my name is Andy (meppi64), I’m from Belgium and I’m working my way through scanning all my UK magazines, editing and restoring them. I also do all the coding and design work on the website itself and I run the Twitter account.

Neil: Hi, I'm Neil, I'm from the United Kingdom (Scotland) and I am one of the admins at Out of Print Archive. One of my initial roles when starting the project was to reach out to the UK publishers in an effort to obtain permission (officially and unofficially) to archive their back catalogue of gaming magazines. 

This allowed us to archive classic video gaming magazines without the nagging feeling that a publisher might come along with a cease and desist order. I have also written the odd article on classic magazines and have caught up with a few important people from the magazines in questions for an interview or input for a feature.

What’s the origin story of the Out of Print Archive? When and why did you decide to set up the site?

Neil: I have always been a fan of classic gaming magazines which lead me to create my own digital retro gaming magazine called Retroaction in 2008. After the release of the first issue, Carl, a fellow retro gaming magazine fan commented on how the ‘zine reminded him of the classic magazine GameFan, particularly its design and layout. 

He asked if he could post the news of the release with a small write up on the retro gaming forums where he was one of the admins along with Andy. This in turn introduced me to the world of magazine archiving and to Andy and his fantastic method of archiving Official Sega Saturn Magazine. I knew then that I wanted my own magazines to be archived in a similar way.

By 2009, we felt we needed to start our own archiving project. One that was totally transparent: free from ads, donations, or any other hindrance. Our main reason for this was to follow on from one of our main goals, in that to reach out to the publishers from yesteryear and get their permission to archive their back catalogue of magazines.

Andy: Originally I came across just 3 digital scans of the Official Sega Saturn magazine online, this must have been somewhere around 2004-2005. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find any more. Reading through these made me remember just how incredible this magazine was and how it was seemingly lost to time, hardly 6 years after the final issue was released.


So this set things in motion for me. I started the hunt down a complete set, with the goal to scan them (in a rather poor fashion at that time) and looking for various ways to get them into peoples hands again. From here, it snowballed into collecting a lot more magazines.


I met Neil as well as Carl, who has since moved on to other projects, on a message board and after a lot of trial and error, as well as seeing how several scanning projects handled things in ways we didn’t agree with, we decided to set up our own site. Focussing on putting quality above everything else, but also doing things with respect towards not just the publishers, but also the editors, writers, designers, etc.

Basically all the people who originally created these magazines we all fell in love with at one point of our lives.


Wow, so we effectively owe the creation of the Out of Print Archive in some way to the Official Sega Saturn Magazine. Not what I was expecting! You clearly have a love of print media - what are your earliest memories of print magazines?

Andy: My earliest memories of a print magazine has to be Club Nintendo. Not quite sure how I found out about it, but I believe there was some kind of postcard included with certain NES games, which you could send in to Nintendo to request a subscription. Once you were signed up, every 2 months you would receive a free copy of Club Nintendo magazine, which lasted from 1989 to 1993.

Neil: My earliest memory of print magazine is picking up C+VG in 1988. I was fairly late to notice magazines, considering I had been playing games for at least three years up until that point, but C+VG opened my eyes to the wonders that were out there. I eventually reserved a copy of C+VG and continued to receive a copy of it until the early 2000s. My other earliest memory is of grabbing a copy of Amstrad Action in 1989. It was an anniversary issue where they gave away a cover-mounted cassette tape with demos and freeware stuff. This issue also reviewed one of my favourite computer games of all time, Laser Squad.

DCJY welcomes DC-UK founder Caspar Field

In the latest episode of our podcast DreamPod, we were lucky enough to be able to (virtually) sit down with the former Deputy Editor of Edge Magazine Caspar Field. Let's be honest though - most of us know him as the man who launched the iconic Dreamcast magazine DC-UK; and who then went on to launch the short-lived (but equally excellent) Mr. Dreamcast magazine.

Here, in episode 87 of DreamPod, regular hosts Andrew, Tom and Mike chat with Caspar about his time at Edge, the beginnings and end of his tenure at DC-UK, the Mr. Dreamcast project, his successful career in the games industry, the launch of the Dreamcast, the tank shooter Red Dog and its potential PS2 sequel...and a host of other random things you've probably never heard about before.

Huge thanks to Caspar for appearing on our podcast, huge thanks to the graphics maestro Lewis for his artwork, huge thanks to Andrew for sorting this interview, and huge thanks to you lot for listening to our podcast (hint: you don't want to miss this one!).

Be sure to follow Caspar on Twitter, and remember you can find all of our previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and pretty much every podcatcher out there. If you like what you hear, feel free to subscribe and give us a review. Cheers!

The Dreamcast Junkyard's New Year's Resolutions for 2021

Happy New Year! It's 2021 at last and we can finally put what has been an incredibly tough year for everyone firmly behind us. As is tradition straight after Christmas, New Year's resolutions start flying about around how you're going to eat better, workout more and save your money. But not here at the Junkyard! All we're interested in is what promises we're all going to make towards our favourite white box.

We'll kick things off with recently anointed Father of the Junkyard, Tom who has lots more lovely Dreamcast content planned for us this year:

"I guess my main resolution for 2021 would be to try to get back to being more prolific when it comes to creating articles and video content for the Junkyard. 2020 was a bit of a weird one, as even though working from home initially gave more time to spend on content creation, work stress really ramped up and sucked the creativity out of me in a big way. Spending all day at a computer and then having the prospect of doing the same in the evenings really stopped appealing after a few weeks and my motivation suffered. I'm hoping that 2021 will herald a return to some kind of normality and allow for us all to have a better work/life balance; no longer feeling like the days are one long workday after the other with no respite."

Next up is friend of the Junkyard, Dreamcast developer and creator of the wonderful Dreamcast Now service, Luke "Kazade" Benstead:

"Err resolutions... I guess actually finish and publish my first Dreamcast game (Swirling Blades), but also make more time to play Dreamcast games with my daughter. I'd also love to add an official Sega branded fishing controller to my collection. Finally, give Dreamcast Now a refresh, it's getting on a bit now!"

A new fishing rod is on the horizon for Kazade.

Junkyard staffer Lewis wants to get more involved with the ever expanding Dreamcast indie scene:

"My Dreamcast resolution for next year is to buy and play more indie games. For the longest time, the only Dreamcast indie game I've owned has been Fruity. I don’t know why, I just happened across it one year and now I own it. It wasn’t until I got involved with the Junkyard that I started hearing about the plethora of current and upcoming indie releases for the system. I’ve always been solely focused on collecting the official releases, but with the hype around the Dreamcast being a “current gen” system as of late, I felt that I can’t miss out on being part of its current renaissance. I ordered a copy of Alice Dreams Tournament the other day after it was recommended in our DCJY Advent Calendar Twitter series, and look to get more in 2021. I’ll also be looking out for Kickstarters and other opportunities to support the Dreamcast indie scene!"

Next up is DreamcasticChannel owner, Dreamcast streamer and all-round good egg, pcwzrd13:

"My New Year's resolution is to beat Super Magnetic Neo. I've attempted it several times in the past and given up, but this time I mean it! This game will not get the best of me! I've beaten some of the hardest games in existence, including but not limited to Contra, Contra: Hard Corps, Ninja Gaiden, and Red Dog: Superior Firepower! I've even conquered a Spelunky hell run! Gosh dang nabit, I can do this! I may take out a few Dreamcast's in fits of rage but luckily I have plenty of spares... Of course I'm kidding. I would never harm a Dreamcast, but I will beat Super Magnetic Neo! Mark my words!"

Super Magnetic Neo, one of the DC's toughest games?

For Kev, this year is all about racking up the hours actually playing his Dreamcast:

"In 2020 I significantly cut back my spending on all games and Dreamcast ones in particular, however, my one big outlay was for a GDEMU Dreamcast, whilst I have been enjoying this I haven’t used it as much as I would like, so my 2021 goal is to try and play at least one hour of Dreamcast a week, particularly as that GDEMU machine came preloaded with a stack of games that I have never played, including some of the higher places titles from the DCJY Top 200 games list."

As for me, 2021 will be about ticking off a couple of games that have been on my backlog for a while:

"My Dreamcasting goal for 2021 is to finally get around to playing two games that I can't believe I've managed to go twenty years without playing. The first one is the rather bizarre Pen Pen Triicelon. An often forgotten launch game, Pen Pen (as it was titled in Europe), was something that I thought looked gorgeous back in the day, but not something I wanted to play. It's time to make amends. The second game is Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future. When I was younger, I loved Ecco on the Game Gear and always thought of that dolphin as an equal to Sonic as the SEGA mascot of the 90s. The Dreamcast sequel looks outstanding and has always been a game I've wanted to play, but never got around to."

Defender of the Future will be my first Ecco experience since the Game Gear.

And there we have it. What about you? What's your Dreamcast New Year's Resolution? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter.

An interview with Tom Charnock: Father of the Junkyard and Dreamcast Royalty

There hasn’t been much to celebrate in 2020 thanks in no small part to a global pandemic that has kept us locked up inside like Claire Redfield at the beginning of Resident Evil – Code: Veronica. So when we had the opportunity to celebrate the Junkyard’s 15th birthday earlier this month, we took it with open arms.

We talk about the Dreamcast a lot here at The Dreamcast Junkyard. Of course we do. It’s the reason we’re here (and the clue is in the name). But what we don’t talk about enough is the man who made all of this possible. A man who has spent countless hours researching the most bizarre Dreamcast trivia and interviewing even the most tenuously linked people to our favourite console. I felt it was about time someone put a microphone in front of his face for a change and got a little insight into the history of the Junkyard from a true member of Dreamcast royalty.

Tom is far too humble to reflect on what he’s achieved so far with the Junkyard, and indeed the immeasurable contribution he’s made to the Dreamcast community as a whole. So, if I may, allow me to do it for him. 15th birthday celebrations wouldn't be complete without talking to the man of the moment, so I caught up with him for good old fashioned chinwag.

“Before the Junkyard, I’d created an all-format gaming website on a defunct service called Treeway, where I basically just copied news from other sources and created my own articles about them. Around that time I was quite obsessed with making fanzines as well, and made ‘Cast-Aw@y’ - a Dreamcast magazine”, Tom remembers, keen to point out that he’s very proud of his improper usage of an @ symbol in the title, for full late 90s edginess.

Humble beginnings with "Cast-Aw@y" fanzine.

“I had my Dreamcast about two weeks after the UK launch, but a friend of mine had an imported Japanese system just after it launched there. We would play games like Tokyo Highway Challenge and be absolutely blown away by the graphics. That was my first real experience of the Dreamcast and once I’d saved enough money from my paper round, and sold my N64, I was able to get a console for myself.”

Tom grew his Dreamcast collection throughout its short life, and then he did the unthinkable…

“In 2001, I made the very foolish decision to part-exchange my Dreamcast and all of my games for a PlayStation 2 and the latest NHL game. It was only when I got home and played it that I realised I’d made a big mistake,” says a teary-eyed Tom. Luckily for us, it was not too long until he was a Dreamcast owner once again.

“When I went to university I managed to buy another Dreamcast bundled with Metropolis Street Racer, Jet Set Radio and Virtua Fighter 3TB which was ultimately replaced when I graduated, with a shiny new Xbox and Gamecube. And then in 2005, I’d been to visit my dad and I was standing at a bus stop which was right next to a GameStation store. I was just looking in the window and there was a Dreamcast there for £40 or something with a load of games, which was too good for me not to buy. I took it home and showed all my housemates and they loved it too. So I started buying up all the games again and one day had an epiphany to document my purchases and experiences in general on a blog, and the Junkyard was born.”

A blog which would ultimately turn into one of, if not the biggest Dreamcast fansite on the web.

“I had an affinity with the Dreamcast because it was the last SEGA console and me and my brother had a SEGA childhood with the Mega Drive, Mega CD, 32X and the Saturn - it was always a SEGA household. My love for the system really grew after I set up the Junkyard because I started to explore the more obscure and import titles rather than the games that everyone knew.”

Tom was quickly acknowledged as a "Dreamcast expert".

Tom’s early vision for the Junkyard was purely a blog set up out of boredom.

“There was no real vision in all honesty. It was a case of being bored and wanting to document what I’d bought. I was accepted into the Navy and was waiting to join - which took months - so I was taking on temporary jobs and spending the money I made on Dreamcast games and accessories. In reality, going on day trips to different towns to visit small independent gaming shops and then blogging about it was just my way of killing time.”

“It was a bit like a diary. I didn't expect anyone to read it. I was doing it purely for my own enjoyment and entertainment, and then slowly but surely a couple of people started commenting on the posts. I was completely oblivious to other online gaming communities at the time and so to me, this was all quite new and exciting - I felt like it was all happening inside a bubble.”

As the community started to grow and more and more people commented on Tom’s hard work, he’s in no doubt that this pushed him to keep updating the Junkyard and find new ways to engage with his newfound audience.

“Yeah, it definitely spurred me on. You'll notice that there is a definite turning point in the very early days where it went from just being a blog with random nonsense about the games I’d bought to doing actually researched features and reviews. I don't think anywhere else was really doing that at the time, not for the Dreamcast anyway as it was becoming something of a forgotten console.”

Exploring EMAP's Lost Official Dreamcast Magazine: An Interview With Dave Kelsall

Magazines are an important part of gaming history.

They were the only way that regular people could absorb all the news from the industry and get opinions on games before they spent their hard-earned cash on them. Like much physical media though, they have become increasingly niche as the internet and digital technologies saturate the market. News can be fed right to your phone as it happens, while user and influencer reviews are taken on board just as much, if not more, than the professionally written ones of established journalists.

For many of us who revere retro (and especially Dreamcast, of course), physical media and good-old-fashioned games journalism feels sorely missed. Personally, I can find a place for the old and the new in my life, but when flicking through old magazines I never fail to stumble upon that one thing that made them special - magic.

Okay, I don’t mean magic in the make-believe sense (and most definitely not in the Dynamo sense either), but rather that feeling of holding in your hands the key to a world that is beyond the norm. They were a guide to all of those computers, consoles and games that you had no idea were coming. They held updates on things you were eagerly awaiting, and reviews of games you’d seen in the shop but had no idea if it was worth paying £39.99 for.

• Related article: Book Review: Dreamcast Year One

When I wrote my first book, Dreamcast: Year One, I took this very specific love of gaming magazines and injected that into the pages - both in the style and also the content. Specifically, I interviewed three people involved in that scene from the time of the Dreamcast; Caspar Field (editor of DC-UK), Ed Lomas (reviews & deputy editor of Official Dreamcast Magazine) and also David Kelsall (graphic designer at Official Saturn Magazine).

The latter of those interviews was more than just a chat about the good old days though, as David had a never-before-seen pitch from the magazine publisher EMAP for the Official Dreamcast Magazine. I therefore decided to share an edited down version of his interview, along with a few of the images he shared with me, in the book itself.

I had always intended to share a longer version of the interview with the images I didn’t use, and as we approach the launch of my campaign to fund Dreamcast: Year Two I figured this was the best time to do that. So here it is!


Andrew Dickinson: David, could you please tell us a little bit about how you got into games journalism?

Dave Kelsall: It’s quite a long story! I’ve always been obsessed with games magazines (and games of course). I used to buy everything available, even books with type-in BASIC listings. I wouldn’t necessarily type them, but I liked to read the code and look at the artwork.

I was on an art trip to London with my Sixth form college and I spotted Julian Rignal (renowned games journalist and editor) sitting in the buffet clutching a camera. He was off to do one of his seaside reports on the latest arcade machines, so I went over to say hi. I didn’t live that far from Ludlow (where Newsfield, the publishers of Crash and Zzap! 64, were based) and so he invited me down to take a look around the offices whenever we were both free.

A few weeks later I went down for a visit and he very kindly showed me around, took me to the pub, and we of course played games. Fast forward a few years and I had just finished my HND in Graphic Design and I was on the train accompanying my girlfriend who was going for an interview in London for a job in the fashion industry. I happened to be reading a copy of Mean Machines and there was an advert in the News section looking for a designer. As I remember it, I turned up to the EMAP offices and enquired about the job. I think I spoke to Julian beforehand and mentioned who I was, and I was promptly shown upstairs and told to design something. They must have liked what I did as I was offered the job the next day and that was the start of a career in magazines, and initially games journalism. I absolutely loved my time there and I only left the games division when EMAP sold it to Dennis. I moved on to other titles within EMAP.

Bleemcasting: An Interview With Bleemcast! Developer Randy Linden

As the amount of online articles and Tweets around the recent anniversary of the North American 9.9.99 release date illustrates, the Dreamcast is still very fondly remembered. While the scene continues to grow at a steady rate in terms of bootleg and independent game development, there are still a fascinating number of Dreamcast areas that remain either untouched or that haven't had their rich historical veins fully exposed. One of those areas that myself and others in Dreamcast fandom are fascinated by is the story of bleemcast!.

A bit of a throw forward, I have another article in the works about ‘Why I Dreamcast’ even though it’s fast approaching 2020; and a large part of that is a deeply personal and nostalgia-fuelled longing and sense of clinging to a certain place in time. The Dreamcast, as much as I love it, and despite my role here at The Dreamcast Junkyard is a console I am wilfully ignorant on compared to the other staff members. The main reason for this is that I had only owned the console for a mere 8 months when I packed up and left home for the bright lights of university. The console, therefore, existed for me during a stage of enforced self poverty. New (well, pre-owned) games I still managed to justify occasionally, but instant noodles and supermarket value bread were prioritised over games magazines; and the internet was something I went to the library to check for roughly 1 hour a week when hungover and between lectures (and even then was mainly to email friends who had gone to other universities...and nearly almost always simply to tell them how hungover I was). Anyway, what I am trying to paint a picture of is that my finger during the 2000-2004 era was hardly on the pulse of information about anything...let alone Dreamcast.

• Related article: Official bleemcast! Press Release Discovered 

So for me, I didn’t learn about bleemcast! until way after the events of the Dreamcast had long transpired, and it was years later still that I actually discovered this had been an actual retail product, and wasn’t like my copy of DreamSnes that had been created and uploaded from some shed somewhere. This was instead a full-fledged and commercially available product release promoting legal emulation that allowed you to load PlayStation game discs on the Dreamcast, adding a load of graphical improvements along the way.

What all this leads up to then, is that I tracked down Randy Linden, a member of the original PC bleem! and Dreamcast bleemcast! team. I fired off some questions and Randy was kind enough to answer. Hopefully you will enjoy reading them as much I did, and will give an interesting insight into the development of one of the most notorious releases on the Dreamcast...

Retro Fighters 'Next Gen Dreamcast Controller' Kickstarter Update

Image from the Retro Fighters Kickstarter update

Retro Fighters have just posted an update on their progress on the Next Gen Dreamcast Controller they are working on (via Kickstarter). While brief, the post does state the analogue stick 'feels great' and that there is a video of it in action is on the way, (we'll link to it once it's up).

In the questions section of the update, they confirm the pad will work with the microphone attachment, which added with the rumble and VMU support, makes the pad as fully featured as possible.

We are always fans of new work Dreamcast related, so I reached out to the Retro Fighters crew and they agreed to answer a few additional questions for us folk here at The Dreamcast Junkyard.

DCJY - Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, having previously worked on different systems, what made you choose the Dreamcast this time for your project?

Retro Fighters - We chose the Dreamcast because it holds a special place in our retro gaming collection. We at Retro Fighters are avid retro gamers and the Dreamcast has many gems in its library of games. Secondly, we saw that there wasn’t many companies making products for Dreamcast (especially controllers), we felt that there was a need for a new controller for the Dreamcast gaming community.

What has been the biggest challenge so far?

The biggest challenge with the Dreamcast controllers has been engineering the ergonomics while maintaining functionality. Everything from the controller shape and analog stick size was put into consideration to make sure we deliver nothing but the best playing experience for the Dreamcast. We started the initial ideas & designs for the Dreamcast controller about 2 years ago, so you can see that we are taking our time on getting everything right for you guys!

How have you found working with the Dreamcast community compared to the fan bases of the other products you have done so far?

Honestly we really haven’t noticed much of a difference between the two different communities. They both have a loyal following, we have gotten a lot of positive feedback, support and comments. We feel that the N64 community has been great with their response on the Brawler64. Both N64 and Dreamcast gamers have been very positive about what we are trying to do for the gaming community, we are trying to make fun and innovative products (that we also want to use) for all gamers.

What are the teams personal experiences with the Dreamcast?

One of the owners personal experience: “The very first game I played on Dreamcast was Sonic Adventure back in 99, the graphics and gameplay were impressive and fun, even the VMUs were innovative, being able to be used for other things besides saving files. Some favorite titles: Sonic Adventure, Power Stone, RE: Code Veronica, Shenmue, Soul Calibur, to name a few!” Another team member expresses her love for the Hello Kitty Edition and hopes that we might consider a future transparent pink color.

The Retro Fighters Brawler64 for Nintendo 64

A big thanks to the team at Retro Fighters for taking the time to answer these questions for us. If you are interested in checking out their previous work for the N64 and the PC and NES, then head over to their site here. Find the Kickstarter here.

If you own any of their products then let us know what you think in the comments, and also let us know your thoughts on their upcoming Dreamcast pad.

Rare Dreamcast-powered SEGA Fish Life preserved and released by Musée Bolo

SEGA Fish Life is a bonafide oddity of the early 2000s SEGA pantheon, and one that we've covered a couple of times in the past here at the Junkyard. It's also one of the rarest, most expensive, and most bizarre variations of the Dreamcast hardware. And by 'variations,' I mean: it's a virtual aquarium which runs on Dreamcast hardware that was intended to be placed in hotel lobbies, restaurants etc.; but which was only sold in small quantities and is barely known about outside of its native Japan.

How the SEGA Fish Life was marketed to businesses (Source)

The whole unit consists of a base (which contains the derivative Dreamcast hardware), along with a touch screen and a microphone. When used in conjunction, those with a passing interest in the serene aquatic panorama playing out on the screen could interact with the various fish by either tapping on them to reveal an info panel, or by speaking into a microphone embedded in the screen.

The unit in its final form with the screen (Source)

Both the software and the hardware that run SEGA Fish Life are amongst the rarest in the whole of the Dreamcast story. But now, thanks to the hard work and dedication of volunteers at the Swiss computer and games museum Musée Bolo, you can experience it yourself for (possibly) the first time.

Tranquility is the name of the game

Before we get the to the meat and potatoes (or should that be cod and chips?) of the SEGA Fish Life unit itself, it's probably worth me reiterating just how big of a deal this whole story is for both the Dreamcast and wider games preservation communities. The various SEGA Fish Life software iterations have never been dumped online, and are considered something of a Holy Grail for fans of esoteric, Japanese oddities - me included. The Dreamcast-derived hardware on which the software runs is even harder to come by, which makes the following story even more incredible...

Hardware Review: DCHDMI - The 1080p Dreamcast

Playing older games in higher resolutions than they were ever intended to be played in is all the rage these days. Be it through emulation, or via the relatively recent trend of the remaster, getting titles of yesteryear to play on modern display screens in the best possible quality is a prize many are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to attain.

The Dreamcast CD player in 1080p (960p bordered)

Here in our little corner of the gaming sphere, things are no different. There are some people who will never plug their Dreamcasts into anything but a CRT television through an RGB SCART connection. Others champion the clarity of a good old fashioned CRT computer monitor and a VGA box. And for those who simply don't have the space for the luxury of a proper old television or monitor, there's the HDMI passthrough boxes from Beharbros and Pound Technology.

The Akura and Gekko are both well built, high quality devices

The limitations of these HMDI boxes and cables are well documented, but for those with either limited space or on a budget, simply connecting a Dreamcast to a flat panel HD display and enjoying their favourite games in 480p is a perfectly acceptable and affordable way to continue gaming on Sega's old warhorse in the modern era.

Of course, what the Pound and Berharbros adapters do is simply take the VGA signal from the Dreamcast and spit it out through a HDMI cable. There's no upscaling at all, and the larger the screen, the poorer the image. It isn't really true high definition gaming, in all honesty. Things are about to change though, as a new contender has entered the ring: DCHDMI.

The DCHDMI board is an internal mod replete with an onboard FPGA

The DCHDMI is an internal board that is slotted into the Dreamcast shell, beneath the main board and is connected directly to the Dreamcast's GPU. What this means is that a digital signal is taken directly from from the GPU and is output in true HDMI through a mini HDMI port on the back of the console. The results are truly staggering, and as we'll see in this review, outside of emulation, the image quality and clarity afforded by the DCHDMI is leagues ahead of anything ever seen before from a Dreamcast console...

Stampede: The Lost Dreamcast Sheep Herding Sim

Of all the aspects of being a Dreamcast fan, discovering lost and cancelled games is by far the most fascinating to me. Yes, the games we actually got are numerous; and a large proportion of them are pretty darn good, but the merest glimpse at titles that never made it give us a tiny peek into an alternative reality. A reality where the Dreamcast was the commercial success it could have been, and a reality in which all those titles that were unceremoniously shelved received full retail releases.

There are some cancelled games that are widely known about and that have even been released in some form or another. Half-Life, Propeller Arena, Hellgate, Geist Force and PBA Bowling are famous examples; and more recently titles such as Agartha, Deer Avenger and Millennium Racer: Y2K Fighters have shown us that there are still lost games waiting to be discovered. We can now add another to that ever growing list: Stampede.

You'd be forgiven for scratching your head at this point, as Stampede is likely a title you've never heard of. But there's a reason to be excited about this one - Stampede for Dreamcast was running well on Dreamcast hardware when it was cancelled, and now a playable build has found its way into the hands of Xeno Crisis developer Bitmap Bureau. What's even more interesting, is that the guys who make up Bitmap Bureau (developers of the upcoming Xeno Crisis) were part of the development studio that originally worked on Stampede all those years ago.

With this in mind, there's a very real chance that Stampede could finally see the light of day, nearly 20 years after it was canned. But what exactly is Stampede? And why should you care? Read on for the answers, and an exclusive interview with the game's creative director...

It's Thinking: An Interview With Brian Bacino - The Man Behind The Iconic Dreamcast Slogan

The Dreamcast's North American launch was one of the most successful console launches of all time. It boasted a line up of games that was unmatched in terms of variety and quality, and an air of untouchable swagger and confidence swirled around Sega that hadn't been seen since the days of the Genesis. Key to the success of the Dreamcast's introduction to the lucrative American market was undoubtedly the bombastic and memorable advertising campaign that supported the console.

The iconic 'It's Thinking' TV commercials and the memorable launch date of 9.9.99 were powerful weapons in Sega's arsenal when waging a marketing war against Sony and Nintendo for consumer dollars. However, these two components of marketing collateral did not come about by pure coincidence. They were thoughtfully constructed prongs of the same pincer movement strategy, and arguably helped to propel the Dreamcast into millions of American homes in those first few months post launch.

Here, in an exclusive interview we talk to Brian Bacino, the man behind the North American advertising campaign. As former Creative Director at respected advertising house Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) of San Francisco, Brian was instrumental in the creation of the Dreamcast brand and the system's early success...

DCJY: Brian, first allow me to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. The Dreamcast console really was a game-changer when it was released (pun intended!) and still holds a dear place in the hearts of a lot of gamers. To kick things off, could you give us a brief description of what your role was at FCB and specifically with the Sega Dreamcast commercials?

Brian Bacino: Hi Tom – thanks, I’m totally psyched to talk about the Dreamcast launch. It was an epic adventure in advertising, full of drama, plot twists and explosions! I was FCB San Francisco’s SVP Group Creative Director/Writer in charge of the launch and roll out of The Sega Dreamcast. My partner, Steve Fong, and I conceived and created the ‘It’s Thinking’ campaign and the ‘Apocalypse’ launch film – heralded in 1999 by several video game magazines as “the most epic video game commercial ever created!” Steve and I would not argue.

An Interview With Bernie Stolar

There are few people who are more intrinsically linked with the history of the Dreamcast than Bernie Stolar. Along with personalities such as Peter Moore and Hidekazu 'Mr Dreamcast' Yukawa, Bernie Stolar is extremely well known and was the man who kicked the whole party off. Here, in this candid interview we welcome Bernie to the Junkyard and pick his brains on the history of our favourite console and the current trends in the Dreamcast community.

DCJY: Hi Bernie, firstly let me just say how much of an honour it is to have you grace our site with your virtual presence! As huge fans of the Dreamcast, it’s quite awesome to have the opportunity to speak with you first hand. Never did I think way back in late 1999 when I picked up my first Dreamcast, that in 20 years' time I'd be conversing with the man who helped create the console!

Bernie Stolar: No problem, thanks for asking me. I consider it an honour that a product I helped create still has a loyal fanbase to this day. Thank you for keeping the 'Dream' alive.

Bernie delivering the Dreamcast keynote at GDC 1999

To kick things off, I wondered if you could enlighten those readers who may not be familiar with who you are and what your role was with the Dreamcast?

I was President and Chief Operating Officer at SEGA of America from July 1996 to August 1999. I was hired by SEGA of Japan CEO, Hayao Nakayama. I conceived the idea of Dreamcast and hired Peter Moore, Chris Gilbert, and the entire product development team.

You were at Sega of America from 1996 to 1999, all the way through the Dreamcast’s most important and formative years - can you recall the very first time you heard the name ‘Dreamcast’?

I believe it was called 'Dural' and later 'Katana' at one point. I want to say May of 1998 was when I first heard the term 'Dreamcast.'

On the topic of the early days of Dreamcast, can you recall which came first - Dreamcast or NAOMI? Or were they developed in tandem?

I believe NAOMI was released first. If I remember correctly, Dreamcast came about at a time when we were switching from Model 3 arcade hardware to NAOMI. I remember this because, I was disappointed with the fact that the Dreamcast would not really be able to support ports from both arcade units. I had wanted ports of several licensed units, including Star Wars Trilogy and The Lost World: Jurassic Park series. I felt these would be very popular, especially in the American market. To answer your question though, yes they were developed in tandem, definitely with the thought in mind that many of the games such as Crazy Taxi and House of the Dead 2 would be ported to Dreamcast. As a side note, I believe we also licensed the NAOMI architecture to Capcom, Namco, and Taito.

Early Dreamcast concept designs

Just sticking with the origins of the Dreamcast, were there really two different concepts for the Dreamcast in development? There are plenty of forum posts and articles online that state that there were competing projects - one from SEGA of America called Black Belt which was 3Dfx based, and another from SEGA of Japan called Dural which was NEC PowerVR based. Can you comment on these projects and how it was decided that the Dural concept was the one that won? If so, how different do you think the 3Dfx system would have been?

I believe SEGA of America wanted the 3Dfx version and SEGA of Japan wanted the NEC PowerVR. Both made sense for different reasons. With 3Dfx, there were more resources and documentation available for development in the US and Europe. That and it was understood that development would be easier, especially for PC ports. The NEC PowerVR made NAOMI ports simple and was easy to program, however, it was not as well supported (yet) in the US. I doubt Model 3 games would have worked too well on either. Although there was a PowerVR chip shortage when the Dreamcast launched in Japan, both chips had their pluses and minuses. In the end, I'm not sure it would have made too much of a difference.

Famously, you moved from Sony’s PlayStation division to work with SEGA of America in 1996. You're quoted in a VentureBeat interview as stating that the Saturn needed to be killed off as soon as you arrived. What were your initial thoughts on the fledgling successor to the Saturn? Did you envisage that the Dreamcast would become a huge success based on the hardware specs?

When I went to SEGA, they needed a new hardware system because the systems that they had were not selling – all eight of them. Saturn was not being supported by SEGA the way it should have been. When I showed up, it was my idea to develop a new hardware system that had the ability to play online. Before signing with SEGA, I racked my brain on a way to salvage Saturn, but it was just too far gone and too expensive and difficult to develop for. SEGA was nearly bankrupt, they needed a new console and they needed it quick. The only options were to go big or go home.

Developer Interview: Senile Team

Senile Team is one of the premier independent studios currently developing games for the Dreamcast. With an impressive portfolio comprising such well-known and critically acclaimed titles as Rush Rush Rally Racing and the ever-popular Beats of Rage, Senile Team has already claimed its seat at the top table. With this in mind, we though it was about time that we got together with one of Senile Team's main men Roel van Mastbergen to find out a little bit more about the history of the outfit, their influences and get some details on the brand new platform adventure heading to PC and Dreamcast very soon - Intrepid Izzy.

DCJY: Hello Roel, thanks very much for agreeing to talk to The Dreamcast Junkyard! We’re big fans of your output on the Dreamcast. Could you tell all those people who may not be familiar a little bit about yourself and the history of Senile Team?

Roel van Mastbergen: Hi Tom, thanks for inviting me to this interview. I’m Roel van Mastbergen, designer, artist and programmer for Senile Team. Senile Team is a small indie developer (currently made up of four people) originally founded in 2003, when we created Beats of Rage. This beat ‘em up based on Streets of Rage proved very popular, and we decided to keep making games, especially for the Dreamcast. Our next release was the Micro Machines-inspired Rush Rush Rally Racing, of which we recently did an updated re-release - Rush Rush Rally Reloaded which we also brought to the Nintendo Wii a few years ago.

It’s very interesting that you mention Beats of Rage - I’m pretty sure that most Dreamcast owners are familiar with it, but possibly don’t know that Senile Team is responsible for the original engine. Before we get to Beats of Rage though, one thing I have to ask - where does the studio's name ‘Senile Team’ actually come from? You don't strike me as being particularly old or decrepit. Much.

Well, back in the day we used to communicate via a mailing list. When creating the mailing list, I found that most names that actually made sense were already taken, so I sort of randomly picked the name 'Senile.' When we completed Beats of Rage, we decided to stick to it. We felt it made sense in a way, because we'd just made an old school game. 'Old' and 'senile' go hand in hand, after all!

An Interview With Pierre Santino - The Dreamcast Barber

It took us over a year, with countless emails and tweets and hours of internet searching. But we finally did it, we found The Barber. The full story is documented in this series of articles:

• In Search Of The Barber: Part One
• In Search Of The Barber: Part Two
• In Search Of The Barber: Part Three

We know how the tl;dr (too long, didn't read) modern internet works though, so the abridged version is this: a guy played a barber in a Dreamcast commercial. He was the face of the console in Europe and his image was everywhere for a few months in late 1999 and early 2000...then he simply disappeared. No record of his name, or who he was left anywhere on the promotional materials, and internet searches turned up nothing. His identity could have been lost to the digital mists of internet lore...that is until The Dreamcast Junkyard stepped in and decided to find out who he was. If you've been following this whole saga you'll know how we did it (and the assistance we had from the wider Dreamcast community), but if not I urge you to read the previous In Search Of The Barber articles to get a full appreciation for how mammoth a task this has been.

This photo is from Pierre's private collection and has never been published before.

Anyway, it's all come to this. We have found him. His name is Pierre Santino and he is alive and well living and working in France. An actor and comedian with an extensive portfolio of work spanning 40 years, Pierre was only too happy (and possibly a little surprised) when we showed him the previous articles documenting our search for him. As he is French and speaks very little English, we enlisted the help of Arnaud Bonnet (author of 1000 Jeux Vidéo, 1000 Anecdotes published by Pix'n Love Editions) who acted as an interpreter. Huge thanks go to Arnaud for his assistance in the translation of this interview from English, to French...and back again. Enough from me though. Let us turn our attention to the man of the moment - The Barber himself, Mr Pierre Santino...

Developer Interview: Tom Napior (guacasaurus_mex)

Tom Napior hit the gaming headlines earlier in 2016 when he successfully ported Flappy Bird to the humble VMU. Later, also under his Instagram name of 'guacasaurus_mex,' he released Street Race, an Outrun-inspired racing game that showed just how capable the tiny memory device could be when squeezed. Most recently though, Tom has been in the spotlight for his attempt to bring Pokémon GO to the VMU, and we thought it was about time we caught up with this talented homebrew developer to see why the VMU holds so much appeal for him...

Street Race features greyscale VMU graphics not seen before.

DCJY: Hi Tom, thanks very much for taking the time out to speak to us. First things first - your Instagram name, guacasaurus_mex...are you a fan of guacamole?

Tom Napior: Haha! I’m a fan of all Mexican food...and dinosaurs, so it seemed like a good fit.

I did wonder. Now we’ve got that cleared up, let's discuss your fantastic endevours with the Dreamcast, and more specifically the VMU. What’s your history with the Dreamcast? Did you have one when they were contemporary hardware?

I sure did! I picked one up back in 2000 from a local game store and have never looked back really. I got Soul Calibur (which to this day is one of my favourite games of all time) and have always been fascinated by the VMU…such a cool idea!