Showing posts with label Dreamcast-Talk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dreamcast-Talk. Show all posts

The Dreamcast Directory: Websites We Love in 2024

Late last year, in a gratuitous act of procrastination, I authored a piece for the Junkyard that surveyed the hefty range of Dreamcast websites that had sprung up in the console’s “post-Sega” era but which had sadly since bit the dust. In reality that piece was an excuse to indulge in some nostalgic daydreaming about the period when I first came across the console as a nerdy teen: a bizarre time when the burgeoning unofficial world (Goat Store, Beats of Rage, Treamcasts) sat alongside the last vestiges of Sega’s official involvement (idiosyncratic Japan-only shmups and surprisingly resilient online game servers).

As this list of deceased Dreamcast websites was pretty lengthy—and could have been even lengthier if not for a couple of oversights—readers could be forgiven for assuming that the hobby of maintaining websites dedicated to a 25-year old console was fading away. Fortunately though, they would be badly mistaken, and therein lies the purpose of this follow-up: to shine a light on the plethora of websites that are alive, kicking, and proudly serving the Dreamcast scene in 2024.

In no particular order, I present to you the Junkyard’s comrades-in-arms:

Dreamcast-talk (https://www.dreamcast-talk.com

Founded in 2004, and thereby pre-dating the Dreamcast Junkyard by a year, Dreamcast-talk is undoubtedly the lodestar of the scene. The website’s founders set out to establish a forum where DC-heads of various stripes could converge to chew the fat, sans what was perceived to be the overly restrictive administrative practices of certain prior forums. Dreamcast-talk quickly achieved that goal, and has continued to do so persistently and reliably for two decades now. Theoretically it's a fairly easy gig: set out a bunch of themed boards where relevant topics can be discussed, weed out spam or egregious flaming, and undertake technical maintenance from time to time. In practice though, maintaining a forum can be a bloody nightmare, and the fact that a day rarely goes by without fresh posts being made or a new member signing up is a testament to how important Dreamcast-Talk remains. 165,348 posts made and not out: as solid an innings as you are likely to see from an internet forum. When the gold anniversary hits in 2054 I promise I’ll deliver a better present than a couple of paragraphs in a rambling blog post…

DCEmulation (https://dcemulation.org

DCEmulation is another of the scene’s OGs that is still trucking in 2024. Actually, screw that. Given that it was founded in September 2000 (!), and is by my estimation the oldest Dreamcast-focused website to grace the worldwide web today, it would only be fair to say that DCEmulation is the OG of the scene. When the historians finally turn their academic gaze to our beloved little white box, DCEmulation will probably be mentioned in every other footnote. 

As the name suggests, DCEmulation’s initial focus was on documenting and discussing the development of emulators designed to run on the Dreamcast. Naturally, due to the type of audience and contributors that flocked to it, this focus quite quickly broadened out to cover Dreamcast homebrew development in its entirety. A few years in, spats between admins resulted in some splitting (which is succinctly summarised by our German brethren at Sega-DC.de), but thankfully this behaviour wasn’t endemic. In fact, efforts turned from splitting to amalgamation in 2010, when DCEmulation incorporated the forum for the unofficial Phantasy Star Online server, Sylverant.

Although the DCEmulation Wiki has now been mothballed, the forum, which alongside the Simulant Discord server is home to some of the most knowledgeable Dreamcast coders out there, is still in active service after 729,068 posts. Props to [darc], Bluecrab, and the whole DCEmulation community for keeping the show on the road all these years. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection heads to Dreamcast

Image credit: k-do / Dreamquest

For those few people who frequent this blog who are not also members of the awesome Dreamcast-Talk forums, allow me to say this: you are missing a trick. See, so many interesting and cool Dreamcast-related projects are borne out of those hallowed threads that it's actually pretty hard to keep up; and I start this post in a such a manner that I might give full and unadulterated credit where it is due. To wit: this is a tale which starts life over at the aforementioned forum - Dreamcast coding legend Ian Micheal is porting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection to the Dreamcast. Sort of.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection released on current gen systems in the recent past and is essentially a potted history of the heroes in a half shells' Konami-developed titles from the late 1980s through to the mid 1990s. Perhaps a little disgruntled that this trip through the halcyon days of the Turtles' domination of arcades and home consoles isn't officially Dreamcast-bound, Ian Micheal has turned his considerable talents to cramming a handful of 8 and 16-bit Turtles titles onto a Dreamcast disc, complete with a proper front end selection screen, music, VMU compatibility and even a few original Dreamcast-specific extras for good measure.

It's still a work in progress and while the project will fetaure SNES, NES, Megadrive and Gameboy titles, Ian has expressed that Gameboy Advance games will not be included due to the Dreamcast's ability to emulate said system being lacklustre: "No GBA games - please don't ask again! I don't want crap running. Not even I can make a GBA emulator worth a shit run well enough..." And to be fair - he's not wrong. Quality over quantity and all that.

No word yet on when The Cowabunga Collection will release on Dreamcast, but like the Technodrome, we'll be keeping one massive mechanical eye on the Dreamcast-Talk thread, and so should you. You can also find more videos of different Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games from the collection running on Dreamcast over at Ian Micheal's YouTube Channel.

Lost Atomiswave fighter KenJu ported to Dreamcast

The number of Atomiswave games ported to the Dreamcast continues to grow, and one of the latest offerings from developer megavolt85 over at Dreamcast-Talk is one we thought deserved a bit of attention. 

KenJu is a 3D fighting game from DreamFactory which was intended for release on Sammy's arcade system, but was apparently cancelled before it could be launched into brick and mortar arcades. The KenJu story has a happy ending though, as you can now get a glimpse at this fairly enigmatic polygonal scrapper either on actual Dreamcast hardware or via emulation! Here's a video of some (ham-fisted) gameplay by yours truly:

There's not a great deal known about KenJu, other than it was in development by DreamFactory (of Tobal No. 1 fame), who for unknown reasons decided not to release the game and consign it to the dustbin of history. Until now, that is. As far as I can ascertain, KenJu was due to hit arcades in 2005 before it mysteriously vanished without trace. KenJu did resurface in 2016 when a collector of Atomiswave boards released footage of it running, and then it slipped back into obscurity once more. The game has a fairly appealing visual style, with psuedo cel-shaded polygonal characters fighting in some nice looking 3D arenas.

The general consensus is that KenJu looks a little like Project Justice: Rival Schools 2, but for me that's pretty much where the similarities end. It has some interesting characters and plays pretty well, but it seems to be missing that certain something...which may hint at the reasons for why it was quietly canned. That said, it's quite good fun and the fact that the Dreamcast is able to recreate the game so flawlessly opens up the door for even more ambitious Atomiswave games such as Premier Eleven. Who thought we'd ever see the day the Dreamcast got a decent footy (soccer) game?!

It's worth noting that as with the other Atomiswave to Dreamcast ports released so far, KenJu is only available as a GDI file, so you'll need some additional hardware to play it on an actual Dreamcast. Personally, I had no joy getting the game to run under either DreamShell or RetroDream using both a Compact Flash modded system or an SD Card reader via the Dreamcast's serial port. It did however run using a GDEMU, so you may want to give that method a go if you're determined to play KenJu on original (well, original modded) hardware. That minor hiccup aside, KenJu seems to be perfectly playable and also mostly complete.

If you'd like to download the game for yourself, visit the Dreamcast-Talk forum thread here. Huge thanks once again to megavolt85 and other forum members who not only continue to expand the Dreamcast collection, but are also preserving some of the Atomiswave's most intriguing and lesser known titles.

Have you played KenJu on your Dreamcast or on an emulator? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Previously unknown Dreamcast game discovered - The Simpsons: Bug Squad!

Just when we thought that 2020's surprises were all but over, another gem is uncovered by the Dreamcast community!

Dreamcast-Talk user 'sreak' revealed in a recent forum post over at Dreamcast-Talk that they had a Dreamcast development kit that they were going to export the files from. The initial list of contents seemed to be fairly uninteresting, but things  - as they are known to do - developed quickly.

After dumping the contents, it became apparent that there was a very early playable version of a game that nobody knew existed. Behold: The Simpsons: Bug Squad!


There appears to be zero information about this game available anywhere, indicating that nobody even knew it was in development at the time. This isn't the first time hitherto unknown Dreamcast games have come to the fore - things like Millennium Racer and Deer Avenger 3 were complete unknowns when they leaked onto the internet.

The game certainly doesn't look like any other Simpsons themed games we've played and is a fairly bizarre use of the license - almost like a sort of Toy Commander or Roommania style thing but set inside 742 Evergreen Terrace. Perhaps this is why it didn't get any further in development? We can see from the title screen that the development team behind The Simpsons: Bug Squad! was Red Lemon Studios, who were also working on another Dreamcast game that never saw the light of day, Take the Bullet, which Tom expertly covered in his article on that game back in 2015. Update: it appears the same dev kit also contains a beta version of Take the Bullet - more on this soon!


Fascinating stuff, we're sure you'll agree! Hopefully at some point in the near future somebody with the know-how will export what remains of this mysterious title and create a playable version that can be burnt to a disc and finally experienced on the Dreamcast hardware it never managed to officially grace.

We've said it before and we'll say it again, it is absolutely amazing that even now, almost two full decades after the system's natural life was brought to an abrupt end, that we're still discovering things Dreamcast-related that have never been seen before. Thanks also go to Dreamcast-Talk moderator and all-round Dreamcast knowledge miner pcwzrd13 for bringing this to our attention

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter.

Update: Here is some footage of the tech demo, captured by pcwzrd13 from his DreamcasticChannel on YouTube - be sure to go over and subscribe!



Let's play some Atomiswave games on Dreamcast!

As discussed in a recent article here at The Dreamcast Junkyard, Dreamcast-Talk forum members megavolt85 and yzb have been porting Atomiswave games to the Dreamcast. While many people reading this will no doubt get a lot of joy from playing these esoteric titles on an emulator - as did I initially - we thought we should get these titles running on an actual Dreamcast and see how they play with a standard HKT-7700 gripped in our mitts. So that's what we did!

Below is the fruit of our labour, which in reality was no more difficult than grabbing the various GDI files for games such as Dolphin Blue, Maximum Speed, King of Fighters XI, Samurai Shodown VI, Faster than Speed and Metal Slug 6, and dropping them onto the Compact Flash card which slots nicely into the side of the Compact Flash modded Dreamcast. Booting through DreamShell allows you to navigate to the files on the storage and simply boot them as you would any other game. I'm pretty sure this would work with any other type of solid state storage device you may have in your Dreamcast too, so let us know in the comments if it works with things like MODE or GDEmu. If you have any specific questions though, be sure to head to the FAQ on Dreamcast-Talk. Enough waffle, enjoy the video below!

Have you tried any of these games? If so, what are you thoughts? And are there any hidden gems on the Atomiswave crying out to be ported to the Dreamcast? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to head to Dreamcast-Talk, join the forum and thank megavolt85 and yzb for their stirling work.

Atomiswave games are being ported to Dreamcast...which is awesome

The Atomiswave, for those who may not be aware, was an arcade system co-developed by Sammy and Sega and released back in 2003. As explained in Ross's excellent deep dive on the hardware here, the origins of the arcade platform are thought to have been born out of Sega's pivot out of the home console market, leaving the firm with a surplus of hardware it had no use for (namely, bits of Dreamcast tech). 

The Atomiswave was first unveiled at the Japan Amusement Show in 2002, and piqued the interest of some of the biggest names in the arcade scene at the time, with SNK, Dimps, Psyko, Treasure, Compile, IGS, Visco and Tecmo all lending their support to the fledgling platform.

And lo, the Atomiswave became something of a hit among arcade gamers, hosting numerous inventive and colourful titles; and Sammy went on to purchase CSK's shares in Sega before eventually buying out the company in 2004. The intriguing thing about the Atomiswave is that even though its hardware was quite similar to the Dreamcast and NAOMI systems it was based on, Atomiswave games were incompatible with Dreamcast and so considered to be solely the preserve of dedicated arcade collectors. Until now, that is.

That's because developer megavolt85 has begun porting Atomiswave games to the Dreamcast, and if you head over to the Dreamcast-Talk forums you'll be able to see (and download) the fruits of their (very obvious) labour. So far, several Atomiswave titles have been ported to Dreamcast, and the GDI files made available. Of the handful of titles released so far, I have only played Faster than Speed - an arcade racer which plays (and looks) like the bastard lovechild of Need for Speed Underground and Scud Race.





It's actually a pretty fun racer, with lots of tracks and vehicles and some really nice handling. Oh, and it looks gorgeous. I've been playing this on ReDream on a MacBook Pro, and compatibility with some controllers has been a bit iffy, but as far as I can tell from browsing the forums, other emulators on PC work even better so your experiences may be better than mine. I did try to also play the game using an actual Dreamcast by loading the GDI file onto the Compact Flash modded Dreamcast, and while it would display the Faster than Speed custom artwork in Dreamshell, the game would not boot. So close...yet so far!

Edit - I got games working on a Dreamcast (thanks to Pcwzrd13 once again!). Check out the results.


One thing is clear though - this game and the work of megavolt85 is a revelation for the Dreamcast library. That Atomiswave games can now be sampled - in my case for the first time ever - is truly amazing; and a massive boon for digital preservationists. And this could be just the start of a whole new side of the Sega arcade library being opened up to Dreamcast owners who never knew such experiences existed. Exciting stuff indeed.




Apart from Faster than Speed, other Atomiswave games to be ported to Dreamcast in 2020 include King of Fighters XI, Metal Slug 6, and Samurai Spirits Tenkaichi Kenkakuden, and we'd be a bit daft to think that even more Atomiswave games are not on the cusp of being ported to our beloved console.

Head over to the Dreamcast-Talk forums to find out more. Thanks also to @pcwzrd13 for alerting those of us (me) who have maybe been a bit lax on keeping up with Dreamcast news this year.