Xump Your Dreamcast

Xump. How do you pronounce a game called Xump? I'd go for "Zump" personally, but to be honest it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because Xump is yet another homebrew game that's totally free to download, burn to CD-R and pop in your Dreamcast to play. Here's the jargon from the rather lovely retro-themed, pixel-art Xump website:

Xump - The Final Run is a simple multi-platform puzzler by Retroguru. Initially released by Psilocybin Development in 2005 the game has been improved in almost every aspect you can imagine. New graphics, new levels, new music, new options, new everything...

Help Holger to clean up deserted space fields. As this is a very dangerous task for a human being a headbot named Xump will be the one who has to suffer.

Your main task is to clean all dissolvable tiles on several single-screen levels by simply stepping on them, one by one. Few fields are secured with mines and need a double tap. Mines can be blown up when passing by or de-mined by Xump when staying on this specific field for a short moment. Certainly the mission sounds easier than it will be.

Doomcast

I'm a huge fan of the Doom games. I have played or own every single console release of the game, and know the ins and outs of each version with quite frightening detail - from the music-less Atari Jaguar version and the texture-less floors and ceilings of the SNES port, to the windowed 3DO and 32X versions and the sublime multi-coloured PS1 iteration. I've also played the PC originals to death and more recently the Brutal Doom mod on my mac...yet my personal favourite has got to be Doom 64. You can read about my love for that game here if you so wish, but let's get down to business - you've come to the Dreamcast Junkyard for DC-related prose, not N64 circle-jerking.

Sadly, the Dreamcast never got an official retail port of id Software's genre-defining shooter, which is understandable when you consider the timing of the console's release and lifespan. It was probably too late to put the original games out as an official release, and too early for Doom 3; plus the idea of semi-retro compendiums was quite new at the time and so a re-issue would probably have been derided as unnecessary, and a bit of an insult to those people who had shelled out for a 128-bit system. While retro collections are all the rage these days, back in the early 2000s they simply were not the de rigueur. That said, Doom 3 was years away from release and the game we all know today would have been far too much for the Dreamcast to handle with it's complex vertex shading and texturing techniques - even the original Xbox had to make do with a heavily compromised port of the PC game.

Sydney Hunter, I Presume...?

Another week, another new game. First Pier Solar HD gets announced (see Barry's awesome SEGAbits podcast episode below) and now it appears that after some mild success as a browser-based flash game, Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death is being ported to several retro systems...including the everlasting, ball-busting, mother-f*cking Dreamcast! There aren't any screens from developer StudioPiña as yet, but you can play the original here for free. Yes, free. There are no paywalls here, my friends. Anyway, you play as the titular Sydney Hunter - an 8-bit Nathan Drake with some rather special boomerang-hurling skills - and must traverse various caves whilst avoiding enemies, climbing ropes and retrieving treasures. It's actually a damn good game, with easy controls and nice graphics.

Sydney Hunter is meant to look like an MSX or Colecovision game according to the author, and even though I haven't played on either of those systems, I did have an Amstrad CPC back in the day so it kind of reminds me of Amsoft's Roland on the Ropes and other similar titles. Sydney Hunter is much better than those games though, and is slightly reminiscent (to me at least) of Spelunky. Hopefully the Dreamcast version will feature better visuals and animation, but even without any upgrades, Sydney Hunter will be a welcome addition to the Dreamcast's amazing catalogue.

Upcoming Homebrew: HyperTension

Want even more homebrew FPS goodness on your Dreamcast? Well I've just been informed about this project by TDGMods called Hypertension. It's based on and the Monolith series Blood, and is being developed with an engine called EDGE, which is based on the Doom source code. Here's the video preview:



The game is unfinished so all the bugs haven't been ironed out yet but either way it looks interesting. The game has some RPG elements including an inventory so you can combine items to make weapons. Looks like theres some good fun to be had setting enemies alight with a lighter and spray can, reminds me of Dynamite Cop/Die Hard Arcade!

Giana Returns Trailer

The team working on an unofficial homebrew sequel of the famous Commodore 64 game Great Giana Sisters have released a trailer showing of the new version of the game, with completely re-drawn sprites and a re-done engine since the version supplied on the DCEvolution disc 'The Sandman'. Kudos on the choice of music: Machinae Supremacy are brillaint, go download some free songs by them if you get the time.

A Dreamcast SD Card Adaptor!

The Dreamcast homebrew scene never fails to surprise me. Not content with developing games and game ports for the system, we now have a piece of homebrew Dreamcast hardware on the way via those chaps over at dreamcast.es! Here's the translated article from DCemu:

"After turning several months, we've assembled an adapter to connect an SD card for the Dreamcast port of the link. The truth is that the speed is amazing and we already have a library to use. More info on our wiki.

But for the production of a few adapters and selling, we need to know how many people would be interested. Cost about 20 € with shipping to SPAIN (+10 € for some foreign countries) and sent with a CD with a program that will be able to exchange files with VMU BINS and launch from the SD card.

The prices have been changed to make them accessible to the world, remember that this is not done for profit but for the common good. For this reason we have reset the price originally agreed to cover costs of materials, and assembly time.

Later we will use the library and implemented quickly to a pager for the big games of AES4ALL, load / save snapshots DCaSTaway all emulators and ROMS can be loaded from the SD card.

Reason for development

The Dreamcast has support CD / GD, and visual memory card (VMU). The first one is read-only, and the latter has clear shortcomings: transmission speed and size. For this reason, are always looking for an alternative storage unit that saves the main support (save states) and other files, such as the configuration in our emulators. For a time it was speculated that the port expansion (G2) where the currently connected network adapter (or modem) is ideal for access via the new peripherals. But unfortunately, its architecture and requirements are far beyond our reach. Therefore, the serial port of an alternative that, while not enjoying all the privileges of the port allows for expansion if the most part, our wishes for a new carrier additional capacity and speed. This port allows us to use an SD card adapter that are usually used in mobile devices such as phones, MP3 players, etc..

Key Features

* Good transfer rate in both reading and writing (about 500 KBytes / s).
* Very low average access time for reading (a few milliseconds).
* Support for cards up to 2 GBytes of SDS (not tested with larger cards).
* Loading binary from the card as a backup utility dcload and to / from VMU."

What an amazing development, I wouldn't of thought something like this was even possible! It even uses the extension port at the back of the console that was barely used! Imagine having all of your VMU save files in one place! I know in my case at least it would be major handy as I have around 15 VMU's worth of save files and it's hard keeping it all organized. Imagine being able to run emulators without having to keep burning CD-R's? This is one of the most exciting things to happen to the scene in a long time, and the fact there are going to sell it for rather cheap (cheaper than it'll cost to make) is highly commendable.

Chui is currently looking to see who's interested in one when they're ready, so if you'd like one of these reply at either the Dreamcast.es or DCemu forums. I know I'm putting myself for one!

Neverball

(Yep, another custom cover.)

I guess I'm a little late to the party with this homebrew release, the beta of which came out some time ago, but I've been on a bit of a homebrew high lately thanks to some recent releases like the amazing Counterstrike port below, catching up with games I had not got around to downloading until now, mainly content from DCevolution.

Neverball is a freeware PC game that has been ported over to the Dreamcast and released over at DCemu, and is essentially a Super Monkey ball clone, which is great as if the Dreamcast lasted just a year or two longer it may of got that game. It is a beta so it isn't quite perfect yet: for example the ball which should looks like it does in these screenshots looks more like a ball made of bubble paper and sometimes when there are a lot of objects on the screen things can disappear(though I believe this only happens if you have the polygon settings to high). Still, there isn't many 3D homebrew games about and for what it is it looks the part.

(Take note these are PC screens. It's almost there, though.)

What really makes this worth playing though is how additing it is. There are two games on the disc: Neverball is the Monkey Ball style game where you must collect a certain amount of coins and reach the exit before the time runs out. Just like that game you can fall off the stage and you only start with three lives, but can gain more by collecting lots of coins. You unlock the stages as you beat them, and luckily there is a VMU save state feature, as well as a replay save feature if you want to re-watch a skillful round. There are three sets of stages on the disc, including a set of harder ones all alphabet shaped!

The 2nd game Neverputt takes the same physics and apples them to a crazy golf game. If you ever played the highly additive golf game in the otherwise average 101 Dalmatians game on the DC it plays a whole lot like that, only the stages get just as surreal and topsy turvy as the Neverball stages, with teleporters and traps. Again theres three sets of difficulty stages, and it's great fun.

Another great thing about this game is the ability to add new stages. You can't make them in game, but if you check out the Neverball forums you'll see there are lots of extra stages that can be downloaded, and if you're tech savvy enough you could burn a disc of the game with these stages added. I haven't tried it myself yet, but if I get time I might have a go at it. There is software that will let you develop your own stages too if you really wanna put some love into it.

So if you're looking for something a little different to Beats of Rage mods and first person shooter ports this is a neat little game to pass the time with. It has some sweet MOD tunes as well. This is the only video of the Dreamcast version I could find online (being played terribly), but I might rip some footage myself at some point.

Counter-Strike DC Final 1.0

(borrowed your cover, gagaman, hope you don't mind :P)

Looks like Counter-Strike DC has finally reached its final stage of development. Here's what the guys behind it have to say:

This project has finally reached its final v.1.0 release.
You will find hours of Counter-Strike gameplay, now on Sega Dreamast.
This final release is now very stable, and is fully playable with a standard controller.

And for the record, this project was intended from the begining to be
a great single-player experience. So to answer with certainty,
online/multiplayer will never be possible on Dreamcast.

Standard half-life dc codes work from the menu, for example:
"Otis Loves Dreamcast" --> God mode
"Dreamcast Gives Firepower" --> Infinate ammo

Also, huge credit goes to original authors of the content that has
been borrowed with or without permission for this release.

Looks good to me. You can download it here, and here's a gameplay video:

Custom covers for Homebrew games/ports

I've set up a folder on the Dreamcast Junkyard Photobucket of custom box art I've put together, so far all in the PAL style (might make American style versions soon). Quite a few are just edits of DCEvolution covers to make them look a little more official while some are completely made up designs like the Marathon trilogy cover using the highest res artwork of the game I could find, the Counterstrike one based on the X-Box cover art. Lot's of covers I made for the Dreamcast Forums scene years ago, mainly of Bleemcast releases. I like to make these from time to time so I can print them up and put them with the discs in their sleeves. All credits to whoever drew what in each image, these are just for free fun. :)

Splatterhouse Dreamcast Trilogy Released

Pulled from DCEmu

Yet another collection of Beats of Rage homebrews for the Dreamcast has been released.



This time it's all three games in the Splatterhouse remake.

It's the classic Sega game remade for the Beats of Rage engine.

It's amazing how much effort people are putting into these mods.

Check out the special moves for just one of the characters in the game.


Rick:
*down, up, attack (Head attack)
*forward, down, attack (Slide attack)
*forward, down, forward, attack (Spinning Razor)
*forward, down, up, spacial (Brutal Combo)
*back + attack (Back Punch)

*forward, forward (hold) (Run)
*forward, forward, attack (Shoulder Attack)
*while running press: jump, attack (Long Flying Kick)

*while jumping press: up + attack (Flying Spinning Razor)
*while jumping press: down + attack (Knee attack)

*while grabbing press: up + attack (Kick Blast)
*while grabbing press: down + attack (Heel Attack)

SH part2 Special Move
*back, forward, attack (Special Combo)

SH part3 Special Move
*back, forward, special (Critical Combo)

More about the mod.

Amazing really.

Download Links

DC Evolution

Lavalit

Custom Cover and Art

Homebrew Project Dead Sky is Still Alive!

Project Dead Sky is a homebrew RPG that is being created for the Dreamcast and PC. From this update I can see that these guys are pretty serious about making this a reality. The game itself seems to be an interesting mix of RPGs. I would be pleased if they used more gameplay elements from Chrono Trigger.

In any case it will be great to have another RPG on the Dreamcast considering how there were only about a half dozen released on the Dreamcast in the US.

http://thechaosrift.com/

Another Update! This one is a bit dry and only interesting if you like programming (or Mountain Dew). Feel free to check out some of the other videos the team has made.

Law56kers NXdoom Collection - Homebrew Collection

Do you like the Dreamcast?

Do you like Doom?

Do you wish there was a way you could play well over 100 modifications of Doom on your Dreamcast?

Well the future is now.



Law56kers has released a HUGE 2 disk collection of practically every Doom modification that will work on the Dreamcast with Nxdoom. All you need is the original Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 .wad files.

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=106657

So, if you happen to want to shoot some Nazis in Outerspace...



Or go insane with Doom cranked up with Doom 2 Extreme.




Or if you happen to feel like going nuts on some Nintendo characters...Nobody is gonna judge you...




This collection is pretty sweet for anyone who is a fan of Doom. I know I am going to have some fun just going through the lists and seeing what each of the mods looks like. Half Life Doom? Zombie Doom? Duke Nuken Doom? Star Wars Doom? Half the fun is just seeing what the insane Doom modders community have put together.

Big thanks to Law56kers for putting this collection together.

Help, Download, and Discussion Topic:
http://dcemulation.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=96980&p=992988#p992988

Some interesting Homebrew projects

Well I think we all need a fresh breath of air to keep our spirits up after recent events.

If nothing else, the past week has shown that there is still alot of interest in the Dreamcast out there.

Speaking of interest in the Dreamcast...check out this quote from http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/


"Dreamcast Scene is going through a major resurgence with the releases of a New Genesis emulator, New Games, a new compilation and much more. If you have a Dreamcast rotting away at home or can pick one up cheap then you could be enjoying one of the best console homebrew scenes" wraggster


Let me give you a quick rundown of some of the releases he is talking about.


Gens4All


Yes, you heard right! A brand new Genesis/Megadrive emulator has just been released for the Dreamcast!

I am still playing Genesis games on my Genesis of course but emulation on the DC is a close second. I really enjoy being able to emulate games on a console vs a TV.



Read all about "Gens4All"


Neverball


Neverball, a game similar to Monkeyball.

It reminds me of one of those old wooden box games where you tilt the top to move a ball around a maze. One false step and your ball goes kerplunk.

Like Monkeyball I play this game even though I am horrible at it.


There are some very prettty colors though.


Read all about the new version.



Visit the Neverball Homepage.

Captain Commando And The Avengers by Gabo-Hanzo

Another Beats of Rage Mod.

It looks pretty spiffy and I like most games where you can play as Captain America or The Punisher.

Read all about it.

EmuForge Homebrew Compilation CD

Do you like ZX-Spectrum video games? Do you also happen to like the Dreamcast? Well then by Golly you are IN LUCK.

This lovely CD image comes with a bunch of ZX-Spectrum games inlcuding Cannon Bubble, Phantomasa and Sokoban.

Camelot Warriors (the hardest platformer I have EVER played) is also present on this disk.

In addition it comes with an EDGE 3D engine port with FreeDoom.

All in all a very promising look toward the future all on one .cdi. I love the Dreamcast homebrew community for putting together such awesome compliation disks.

Read about it here.

http://chui.dcemu.co.uk/

nxDOOM vs Escena DOOM

This seems to be a Doom mega disk filled with mods and new levels.

You do need the original Doom2 .wad to play this homebrew though.

I have not had a chance to run this yet since it's split up into different parts.

But, hey, I like playing DoomDC. The loading times on that kinda sucked but the game itself ran fine once you got into the program. Some of the mods seem like good fun.

Read about this.

So there are a number of great releases for the Dreamcast and the homebrew scene seems to going strong.

Brand new Dreamcast port...and yes, it's a Shump.

The first release of Tyrian on the Dreamcast has snuck it's way on the off white box.

God, Dreamcast Homebrew devs must LOVE shumps.

It does have bugs. For example the instruction screen doesn't work. Some people also said it's a bit slow, but I didn't notice that much. As with most first releases you can't save games yet.

The arcade version of the game plays nicely enough and the analog control stick is supported.

Get it here:

http://iberdc.dreamcast.es/ports/opentyrian/openTyrianDCcdi.zip

Pulled from DCNewsUKat DCEmu.co.uk:

http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/tyrian-for-dreamcast-95043.html

Also there was a Golden Axe remake on the Dreamcast as well. Since I was out of the loop for a bit I forgot to mention this one before. It looks pretty sweet.

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=91011

In Praise Of Caleb...

It's been a while since Mr. Caleb, (the American Dreamcaster) walked into our lives and made The Dreamcast Junkyard a truly international affair... Apart from the Dreamcast love he's shown quite a lot, over on his excellent Hunyak Blog, he's also put quite a lot of sterling work over at our sister site, the Saturn Junkyard...

But he surpassed himself this week. You see apart from juggling about twelve jobs, and supplying residents of New York State with their lovely televisual pleasures, he's also taken the time to post me a shitload of unusual Dreamcast goodness...

Let's start with Smash TV, it was the winner of some sort of Homebrew development award... It's a lovely Robotron style shooter and it's so great to see new development on our favourite console... (but God Damn! - wouldn't it be nice to see something other than a shooter put out there? I guess Alice Dreams comes close - that was in the last package of lovely CDR's he sent me...)

Next there's Vampire Beat's Of Rage... BOR is a lovely cross between Streets Of Rage and erm... some other stuff... A fabulous piece of Homebrew that recreates the lovely linear 2D beat 'em ups of Megadrive/Genesis days...

But perhaps the newest kid on my Dreamcast block has to be the ability to play the lovely Lucas Arts classic "Monkey Island" from way back in about 1990... Yep, I'm able to access that lovely PC point and click classic tale of Mr. Guybrush Threepwood on my Dreamcast, courtesy of the lovely Scumm VM emulator...

It was a very lovely bunch of stuff! (Slightly disappointing was the failure of my CDR Street Fighter III - Third Strike, to load up... In the wake of the upcoming SF4, Games TM Magazine heralded SFIII as the best incarnation of the series..._

OK, I'd just like to say a big thanks to Mr. Caleb! He's a diamond! And thanks for expanding the Homebrew side of my DC collection!

What The F**k???

In the second of a series of videos requested by DCJY correspondents, it is with a massive degree of trepidation that I post the above video... I'll do it, because long term commentor and Planet Dreamcast forum chum, Nick944 has requested it. And I'll take whatever (inevitable) flack comes my way for doing so.

What relevence does this have to the DCJY then? Well apparently this is the video journal of two guys who are producing a Dreamcast Homebrew title called (possibly) Chaos Rift... (Well that's what the developers website is called...) From what I can gather it's an RPG featuring... erm a crudely drawn massive knob, and an even cruder representation, of a ladies... erm... "Lady Garden"...

Apart from being a rather poorly made video, with bad sound, it is also, dare I say it rather tedious... And this is just one snippet of a vast catalogue of diary-type videos on Youtube, based on enlightening us all on what it takes to develop a homebrew title. Now I know some of you tech-types might marvel at the ins and outs of 'coding' and 'sprites' and the like, but I would rather pour red hot salt in my eyes, and wash it out with rancid horse piss, than watch any more of these two chickless dweebs, showing off their homebrew adventures.

So there you have it! my genuine apologies to my friend Nick for not sharing his enthusiasm about this project, for I will NEVER, EVER play this game even if Sega announce they are launching The Dreamcast 2 bundled with the title!

Counterstrike on Dreamcast??? WHAT!?!?!!?!??!

I am hesitant to post this since I can't tell if it's finished development or not. It's very interesting though.



http://www.dcfan.net.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=689

So it's single player with Counterstrike weapons and bots. I assume that multiplayer would be almost impossible. Still pretty cool. I have played single player Half Life mods with Counterstrike weapons before and they were fun.

This is actually more of a technological step for the Dreamcast than anything else.

If any Dreamcast or Half Life coders are out there listening please considering making this playable on the Dreamcast:

http://manke.planethalflife.gamespy.com/theyhunger.htm

They Hunger. The sweetest single player mod for Half Life EVER. It would be AWESOME to play this on the Dreamcast!

Or as a close second:

http://hosted.planethalflife.gamespy.com/heartofevil/default.asp

If either of these mods was playable on the Dreamcast I would be able to die a happy death.

They both feature zombies.

The future of the Dreamcast looks pretty good if people can get more Half Life mods to work on it.