There's gold in them there Dreamcasts (apparently)!

Did you know that every Dreamcast's CPU contains about 50 milligrams of gold? I didn't, but apparently that's true...not that I can find a source to back it up. Turns out there is also a community of people in this big old world who extract gold from CPUs for the purpose of making money. Although, according to this website: "there is very little profit from extracting the gold content found in most computer chips and electronic components yourself unless you have significant quantities of recyclable material to be processed." So fret not my fellow Dreamcast fans, if you are lucky enough to own multiple Dreamcasts, you could extract enough gold from them to afford some fries at McDonalds or something.

If you fancy some of that Dreamcast gold goodness for yourself, and can't be bothered retrieving it from your own console, 'Retroldtech' has just the product for you: an engraved gold bar of Dreamcast gold - or a 'lingot' - as it is listed, for the bargain price of €75.00 (£65.68/$77.19)! It is apparently the "finest gold on earth," has a purity of "9.9.99" and comes in at a mighty 128 karats.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this product is completely in jest. If you take a quick glance at the product's page, you will soon realise this is not actual gold, and is merely a joke/novelty product.

In recent years, there has been a surge of independently-crafted joke toys. Most likely inspired by parody artists such as Obvious Plant, creators across the internet have took to making and selling their own ironic homemade toys, all presented rather smartly with cardboard backings, just how the old Star Wars 3.75 inch figures were presented. 

Probably the best way to demonstrate the lengths of absurdity this trend has reached to, check out Ben Gore's 'Saturn's Son' figure. Inspired by  Francis Goya's infamous painting of Saturn Devouring His Son, you receive his son, devoured, presented as if you could've walked into Toys 'R' Us back in the day and found it amongst the action figures. Products like this aren't really meant to be taken out of their packaging and are intended as a novelty, the kind of thing you'd display in your house to make your friends chuckle when they visit, provided they have a very specific sense of humour.

Retroldtech has some intriguing products on their website, including cool miniature replicas of Sega consoles and some awesome (but very pricey) Nintendo 64 fairy lights. It appears they have now moved into gag/novelty gifts with their recent Dreamcast 'gold lingot,' and it appears there potentially may be more to come, as the product is marked as '#001' of 'RetroLOLTech'.

Now you know this isn't real gold, perhaps the price seems a bit on the steep side, but I guess you just have to remember that this won't be a mass produced product, and is most likely made in someone's home just for the fun of it. Still, 75 euros though…

Will you be purchasing a novelty Dreamcast lingot? Let us know in the comments below!

Let's take a look at Generations - the Dreamcast compatible music album from Remute

As recently reported here at The Dreamcast Junkyard, the latest album from electronic artist Remute - titled Generations - is a little bit special. That's because, as well as coming with two free balloons, it features MIL-CD functionality. What this means is that if you pop the compact disc into a compatible Dreamcast console (later systems had MIL-CD compatibility removed, so check your system before buying), then you'll be able to enjoy some lovely visuals which accompany the audio tracks.

Rather interestingly, these visuals are created by none other than Duranik - the mastermind behind stellar shmup Sturmwind. This isn't really a music review as such, as I'm not really qualified to give an informed opinion on whether the particular tracks on Generations are instant classics (I'm more of a Jimmy Eat World fan to be honest); however what I listened to was definitley the type of thing I was expecting when I learned of Remute's preferred genre. 

Let's just say that all the tracks are definitley of the 'electronic' persuasion, and most certainly the type of music someone of advancing years might tut/tsk at before uttering something along the lines of "the music was better in my day" or "kids don't half listen to some rubbish these days" and hobbling away as fast as their walking stick can carry them.

Regardless, the trippy visuals match the 15 electronic choons perfectly and are rendered in real time by the Dreamcast. It's worth mentioning that you can't really do anything but look at the visuals as they play in the background during each of the tracks, so don't expect to actually be able to 'play' anything - this is a music CD and not a game afterall, and the Dreamcast features are simply an added extra. 

Some of the tracks and visuals are more engaging than others, with the Tempest inspired 'Versions,' Asteroids-esque 'The Known Unknown,' and the Sturmwind flavoured 'Tentacle Love' being particular favourites of mine. Anyway, here's a very brief video showing some of what you can expect should you slap Generations in your MIL-CD compatible console:

It appears that the visuals simply repeat during the music and aren't really 'generated' by the tracks or are influenced by them (the big heart on the screen during 'One Heart' does beat in time with the music, but I suspect that the visual is hard coded to do that rather than being reactive); however they're a varied bunch of vignettes, and if perchance you happened to find yourself in an altered state of mind while watching, could possibly become quite mesmerising. If...er...you get my drift.

Top marks to Remute for trying something new and interesting with this latest release, but as it stands Generations is probably a purchase recommended only for the Dreamcast completionists out there; or those who have a particular interest in electronic music. If you're a Dreamcast completionist who also enjoys electronic music then Generations is a must buy...but if you don't fit into either of those camps, then I fear this is little more than a curio you may only really put in a Dreamcast once or twice in order to see the (admittedly excellent) visuals for yourself.

If you're not perturbed and still want to sample this impressive and intriguing release (and get your free balloons while you're at it!), then you can purchase Generations from Remute here. At the time of writing the album is priced at €24.99.

Have you also bought Generations? If so, are you enjoying your free balloons? Let us know down there in the comments!

Modern Vintage Gamer checks out the Dreamcast BBA

The current trend of Dreamcast games being brought back online shows no sign of slowing down (in some cases, totally new online games are being developed for the console); and if you have a DreamPi and a selection of online-enabled titles then you have no reason not to get fully involved. Just go to Dreamcast Live and follow the instructions and you'll be fragging, slam dunking, and racing with single analogue-sticked cramp in no time flat.

But what of the previous, more contemporary methods of connecting a Dreamcast to the world wide web? Those 33k and 56k modems may be a little dormant these days, but the Dreamcast Broadband Adapter is still quite operational with a modicum of effort, and YouTuber Modern Vintage Gamer (MVG) has done a deep dive into BBA game compatibility and web browsing functionality in 2022:

I've been a fan of MVG for some years now, his dulcet tones effortlessly deciphering even the most complicated of topics when it comes to many aspects of gaming and game development. In short, the man is a something of a genius (this is not a paid post, I should add). 

So yeah, even though MVG in no way needs a boost from this inconsequential little blog to help his astronomical viewing figures, I thought it might be nice to share his video here in case you somehow missed it. Also, if you dive into the comments over on YouTube, you'll spot some familiar names from Dreamcast-Talk and the wider Dreamcast community. Lovely stuff.

The Band that Played the Dreamcast - an Interview with Adam Demirjian of Brave Little Abacus/Me in Capris

At the beginning of this year, I was doing some early research for an article I wanted to write for my personal blog. As part of that piece's intro, I wanted to explain how now-defunct band Brave Little Abacus were able to escape the cruel fate of obscurity thanks to file sharing and a passionate cult fanbase... I think I wanted to prove some grand point about the importance of music preservation in the modern era of music streaming. Y'know, stick it to the man, or something. Like I said, that research was early.

While searching the internet for information about the band, however, I stumbled upon the following quote attached to a YouTube video of them performing live back in 2010:

"For some reason around this time we stopped playing backing tracks off of a Dreamcast or Playstation/Small CRT and started rocking the much more regular laptop."

They performed live… with a Dreamcast?! I'd heard of game consoles being used as part of musical performances before, such as the Game Boy being used by chiptune artists, but the idea of a band lugging a television to a show and hooking a whole console up to it for the purpose of playing backing tracks was definitely something I'd not heard of before. We're no stranger to the unconventional here at the Junkyard, though - so of course I instantly wanted to know more. 

The next thing I knew, I had contacted Adam Demirijian, who was the lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist for Brave Little Abacus, and now plays in the band Me In Capris. I wasn't sure what to expect back at first, but Adam did reply and was actually really stoked to talk all things Dreamcast with me!

Before I dive into mine and Adam's chat, some background on Brave Little Abacus. For the uninitiated, they were a band from Sandown, New Hampshire, USA that existed from 2007 to 2012. Writing for Sputnik Music, staff writer Trebor described them as "hard to pin down. They were eclectic, energetic, experimental, odd, off putting, and above all else, they were remarkable." While their music was very experimental, many consider BLA to fall under the genre of 'emo.' They were also known for their abundant use of video game and pop culture samples in their songs. 

Their cult status can be attributed primarily to the online popularity of their final album, 'Just Got Back from the Discomfort - We're Alright' which was quietly released onto Bandcamp in 2010, initially to limited fanfare. This was the album that would go on to earn them the reputation as one of the most important bands of the emo revival. Spin Magazine even placed the album 27th on its 30 Best Emo Revival Albums, Ranked list... but because the band was disbanded by the time their fanbase really started to bloom, and had no real online presence, they retained an air of mystery about them for the longest time.

For this same reason, a geek like me looking for something as specific as photo or video evidence of a Dreamcast or a CRT television present at a BLA performance before 2010 had me coming back empty-handed... so I appreciate Adam for being so gracious as to fill me in on this intriguing part of the band's history, as well as taking the time to dig up some photographs taken at a show on February 21st, 2009, that feature the setup in question! Thanks, Adam! Also, thanks to James Gentile, the individual who snapped the photos a whole thirteen years ago!

"Just Got Back from the Discomfort - We're Alright" album cover

If you want to know more about BLA, I highly recommend 108 Mics' video about them, as well as Adam's interviews with podcasts i might go to the beach and The E Word. Those interviews are the real meat and potatoes when it comes to unravelling the lore surrounding Brave Little Abacus. This interview, however, is about Brave Little Abacus and their love for video games, in particular, the Sega Dreamcast. It's the interview the core fans never knew they wanted! Let's get into it...

Dashy no Blast - Halloween-themed Dreamcast Demo released!

It's spooky month, people. While I personally have made little to no effort to acknowledge it whatsoever this year (I literally put a pumpkin emoji in my Twitter name, and that's it); retro game developer Voxel definitely has with a brand new demo just in time for All Hallow's Eve...

Voxel is no stranger when it comes to developing for the Dreamcast, as evidenced by his previous projects, such as proof of concepts RUINS and Unfungused Game. 

Voxel's latest project, Dashy no Blast, is a Halloween-themed 3D multi-directional shooter where you take control of a witch flying around on a broomstick shooting an assortment of fiendish ghoulies. 3D graphics in Dreamcast projects are always a welcome sight, and Dashy no Blast is looking really good visually, especially coupled with the spooky aesthetic. Voxel says he's been working on this game's engine for a while, which leverages "the powerful open source KallistiOS and GLdc libraries."

While the game doesn't currently support twin sticks, the left stick is used to move, and holding the right trigger will lock on to an enemy, in a similar vein to Cannon Spike. Basically, Dashy no Blast is like if Cotton met Cannon Spike, and I'm totally here for it.

Getting Jersey Devil vibes from these pumpkin heads... Anyone remember Jersey Devil? No one?

While Dashy no Blast is just a pre-alpha with one level for now, Voxel has asked on Twitter for people to let him know what they think, as he's "seeking as much input as possible before deciding on the future direction of this game." I know for certain I'd definitely love to see more. A game like this could definitely be a perfect candidate for an indie release once it's complete. If you give Dashy no Blast a go and like what you play, please let Voxel know!

To play Dashy no Blast, just download the .cdi from the itch.io page. It is playable on real hardware (VGA only) and emulators. Happy Halloween!

RUN=DIM as Black Soul is now Translated into English!

Despite being a Dreamcast super nerd, I must admit I wasn't aware of the Japanese-exclusive "RUN=DIM as Black Soul" until community stalwart Rolly announced that an English fan translation was in the works for it. Today, I am reminded of this game yet again, because late yesterday we learned that that very translation patch had finally been released.

For those unaware, Rolly (along with frequent collaborator RafaMGam) has been involved in many translation projects for some really cool Dreamcast games, such as The Lost Golem, Karous, L.O.L.: Lack of Love, and probably most notably, Blue Submarine No. 6: Time And Tide. Rolly has also been responsible for some translations of DC games into Polish too.

So, back to RUN=DIM as Black Soul. Peculiar name, but it's essentially a turn-based strategy RPG with mechs. It was developed by Yuki Enterprise and published by Idea Factory in 2001. It appears to be part of a wider franchise (Run=DIM) which includes an anime series, as well as titles for the PlayStation 2 and the WonderSwan Color. Those who worked on the translation recommend the game to fans of Front Mission, Rayblade or Super Robot Wars.

Writing about Run=Dim as Black Soul in his A to Z of Dreamcast games guide, fellow Junkyarder Mike explains that the game "has a fairly large amount of Japanese text interspersed with its stat heavy presentation, which is rather daunting, and it's not exactly clear what is going on to anyone who can't understand the language." He finishes his blurb by saying "I just wish I knew what was going on." Well, Mike, today's your lucky day! With this translation patch, Run=Dim is now penetrable for English speakers. I will definitely be giving it a go. 

Anyway, enough from me, you can download the translation patch here. The translation is playable on real hardware, ODEs (GDEMU/MODE) and emulation. Thank you to Rolly, RafaMGam and EsperKnight for their hard work and dedication bringing this to us.

Driving Strikers: it's online! - an interview with Luke 'Kazade' Benstead

Last December, Reality Jump delivered to the Dreamcast community a gift on Christmas Eve in the form of the first playable Driving Strikers demo. In the months that have followed, the game has been further developed and expanded into what is now the first ever indie Dreamcast release to support online multiplayer gaming!

Whilst the game isn’t ready for a final release yet (that will be in early 2023), Reality Jump have just released a new demo which includes much tighter controls and online multiplayer for everyone to try out.

Following this latest demo release, I caught up with programming wizard Luke 'Kazade' Benstead to get all the juicy details on what promises to be by far the most ambitious indie release to date.

DCJY: Hi Luke, thanks for chatting to us again! So, what inspired you to first start work on Driving Strikers?

Luke Benstead: Last October, Dave Reichelt and I worked on a Halloween demo called 'Tunnels' - we thought it would be a nice little thing to put together to demonstrate the capabilities of my Simulant game engine, and Halloween was also an immovable deadline so it gave us something to focus on.

Following the release of Tunnels, we looked at the calendar and figured that a Christmas demo would be great. We threw together some ideas and Dave suggested a 2.5D Rocket League-style game. So we frantically spent November and early December 2021 putting together a quick and dirty multiplayer game.

I think as we approached Christmas we started discussing making it a full game, which is why we released it as 'Driving Strikers: Holiday Edition' - with the idea to follow up with a full game in early 2022…that obviously didn’t happen.

Retrospective: Nettou Golf - a Golfing Hidden Gem for Dreamcast

Given the plethora of Golf titles available on virtually all Sega systems leading up to the Dreamcast, it’s somewhat of an oddity that, even with the Dreamcast's shortened lifespan, there was only a mere three golf titles released worldwide, one of which was a sequel. 

Tee Off was the only golf title released in PAL regions (meaning a poor showing for the home of Golf itself!), as well as NTSC, and isn’t a terrible game. While its name change (from Golf Shiyouyo) and cover reworking completely belie its cutesy presentation and characters, it's still a reasonable enough effort. Its sequel never left Japan.

Whilst there were stories and news reports that Sega had been in the process of converting their arcade title Virtua Golf, no real evidence that this was actually in the works exists from what I can see. For more information about Virtua Golf, check out Dreamcast Today's article.

There was another golf game, however, that is probably not as well-known by many. Step forward Nettou Golf.

A Dreamcast version of this with a trackball controller would have been incredible. 

Nettou Golf isn't well-known to us Dreamcast gamers in the West due to its Japan exclusivity, but, in my opinion, it’s rather good, and surprisingly playable without needing an English translation of any sort. The fact it was published by Sega themselves (it was developed by Data East) is vaguely curious to me considering its lack of a worldwide release. Given that the name derives from "NetGolf", because the game had online capabilities, it's even odder considering Sega's global touting of online play as a big marketing push for the Dreamcast, but it was apparently decided we weren’t considered as a territory for the game. Seems like a bit of a missed opportunity at the very least given how little in the way of a translation would have been needed to cover a game in this genre.

As previously mentioned, Nettou Golf is very accessible despite the language barrier. Not only does Google Translate do a very competent job of allowing you to understand the menus and modes, but I discovered this handy site (pictured below), that despite now being defunct, appears to be a couple's attempt to provide others with enough understanding to functionally navigate through certain less heralded Japanese games that were likely never going to get a localisation of any kind. They only translated seven games prior to stopping, but luckily for us, one of them is Nettou Golf.

Puyo Puyo~n English Fan Translation released!

I’m partial to a bit of Puyo Puyo. Precise Museum, however, really love Puyo Puyo, as evidenced by the plethora of independent Puyo-related English translations this talented team of megafans have completed over the years. Their translation efforts span multiple different types of Puyo media - games, comics, drama CDs, light novels, and more. The reason we’re talking about them today is because they’ve finally added a Dreamcast release to their catalogue: an English translation of Japan-exclusive Puyo Puyo~n (also known as Puyo Puyo 4).

While the classic gameplay of Puyo Puyo doesn’t require a knowledge of Japanese to be enjoyed, Puyo Puyo~n has a lot of story elements that will be missed out on unless you understand the language. Precise Museum’s translation has finally solved this issue for English speakers, so a big thanks goes out to them for all the work they’ve put into making this project a reality.

Anyway, that’s enough talk from me. Here’s a link to get the translation, which is playable on both real Dreamcast hardware and emulators. Also, the team put together a cool trailer for this project, so check that out below.

DCJY welcomes Shenmue Dojo

In this episode of the DreamPod, we welcome James Brown (aka SkillJim) and Matt Oliver to the show to talk all things Shenmue! For those few people who haven't heard of Shenmue Dojo (there can't be many of you out there, surely?!), it is the longest running Shenmue fan site / community on the internet, recently celebrating 20 years in operation. 

In this episode of the DreamPod, regular hosts Tom and Lewis grill James and Matt on the origins of the Dojo, their earliest memories of Shenmue, the Dojo's continued success as an online destination for pretty much anything related to Yu Suzuki's magnum opus, the reception of Shenmue III, the cancellation of Shenmue: The Animation...oh, and there's a quiz too! 

You can visit the Shenmue Dojo here, see sicknote footballer Darren Anderton in Shenmue here (this will make sense when you listen to the episode!) and follow the Dojo on Twitter here. If you love/hate what you've heard, please do consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts (or whichever service you get your pods from) as it really helps us spread the word. Cheers (and enjoy!).

New Remute music album 'Generations' to feature Dreamcast exclusive visuals from Duranik

As reported by Anthony Wallace over at Retro Dodo, it appears that a new music album will soon be released with some interesting Dreamcast-specific features. Generations from electronic music artist Remute will not only be compatible with your common or garden CD audio player; it will also come with added MIL-CD functionality, meaning that if you pop it into a Dreamcast that can read said format, you'll be treated to some awesome visuals courtesy of Sturmwind developer Duranik.

Music albums being released on retro formats isn't anything new, with numerous NES and Mega Drive carts housing albums having been thrust upon the gaming community in recent years, however a new album being released with Dreamcast-specific functionality isn't an everyday occurance. Indeed, some of Remute's previous efforts have graced other classic systems in the not too distant past. From Remute's Bandcamp description of Generations:

After releasing albums for the Nintendo 64 and Gameboy Advance, Remute's third (!) album in 2022 comes for Sega Dreamcast and ends the year with maximum 128 bit power!

Generations features 15 brand new songs and stunning visuals by Duranik - developer of one of the most popular shoot 'em up games on the Dreamcast 'Sturmwind.'

Generations will feature 15 tracks and releases on 22 November for the price of €24.99. You can hear a sample of the track The Known Unknown over at Remute's Bandcamp, find his website here and follow him on Twitter here. Personally, I'm equally intrigued by the Duranik visuals being as I am a huge fan of Sturmwind (read our interview with Duranik here). 

The few screens released so far appear to have a similar space-themed vibe, so consider my interest levels piqued even higher than they would normally be:

Thanks again to Retro Dodo for the heads up on this. Our pre-order is already in, but will you be grabbing a copy and rocking out to Generations on your (MIL-CD compatible) Dreamcast while having your retinas caressed by Duranik's trippy polygonal visual light display? Let us know in the comments!

Let's take a look at Hermes: Limited Edition - the first indie-branded VMU!

If you have dabbled in anything Sega Dreamcast in the last so many years, you'll most likely be aware that the modern indie game scene for the console is bustling, with no signs of slowing down any time soon. Despite the abundance of new indie software releases for the Dreamcast, there was one physical indie release in particular that seemed to peak my interest recently for an entirely different reason unrelated to the game itself, that being Hermes: Limited Edition, and its included Hermes-branded Visual Memory Unit (VMU). 

Hermes is a fun indie platformer developed by Retroguru with a glorious chiptune soundtrack where you play as a chef chasing after a chicken. Mike has already reviewed it on the blog a long while back, and you can check out his review here. In this post, though, I wanted to focus on that special VMU, because it is pretty much the first of its kind: the first indie-branded Dreamcast VMU. The only thing that would have come remotely close to something like this was the VMU lamp for Alice Dreams Tournament, which seems to have have been a Kickstarter-exclusive backer reward, as Adam Koralik and James from Shenmue Dojo both told us they own one.

Released by Video Games New York (aka VGNYSoft), Dreamcast diehards across the globe were understandably eager to get their hands on one of these cool VMUs. Unfortunately, dwellers of the United Kingdom like myself couldn't order from Video Games New York's website as they don't ship here. Luckily, Wave Game studios put a very small batch (ten, I think) of the limited edition up for sale on their website, so I snatched up one of those. Thanks, dudes!

The transparent green VMU is printed with the Hermes logo, as well as the chicken you play as, and the chef's meat cleaver. It actually comes packaged in an official American VMU box, which is stored inside the larger Hermes: Limited Edition box. It is pretty obvious that the VMUs used for this release are leftover brand new official VMU stock, but the printing on the VMU is such high-quality, you'd be mistaken for thinking it could have actually been an official release from Sega back in the day. Also, VGNY made a great choice in using the transparent green VMU!

Because I was so excited to receive my Hermes VMU, I actually mustered up some courage and decided to record a short clip showcasing the VMU, so check that out below! Apologies if I say “erm” a lot, I was ad-libbing!

If you want to get yourself one of these VMUs, there is currently stock available on VGNYSoft's website and Canadian site Video Games Plus. As for whether or not either will ship to your country, I'm not quite sure. Either way, let's hope this is the first of many indie-themed Dreamcast peripheral releases to come!