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!