A Closer Look At The Dreamcast Internet Starter Kit

In this day and age we kind of take it for granted that the internet is a thing we have at our disposal with almost effortless availability. It truly is a ubiquitous resource of entertainment, learning, communication and screaming at each other on forums. The internet is, I'm pretty confident in stating, one of the most important inventions the human race has ever come up with. I'd even put it up there with the wheel, the microchip, the instant noodle and the screw-top beer bottle. Yes, old Tim Berners-Lee really hit on something back in the early 1990s when he and his motley crew of super nerds at CERN gave birth to what we now more commonly refer to as the t'interwebs. It goes without saying that anybody reading this right now is doing so using the power of said network, be it on a mobile phone, a tablet, their watch, games console or even - heaven forfend - an actual desktop PC or Mac.

Now, the Dreamcast was - as most of you will be aware - the first console to come as standard with a modem and the ability to browse the internet and access multiplayer games right out of the box. Well, unless you lived in Europe for the first few months...but that's a moot point. The fact of the matter is that the Dreamcast was marketed first and foremost as a games machine, but also as a cost-effective way for people to get a taste of the internet without having to buy a computer; and in those heady days of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when flannel shirts, Backstreet Boys and Eiffel 65 were still en vogue, that wasn't something to be sniffed at.

For my sins, I did go through a short-lived spell of buying a UK-based magazine called .net after getting my Dreamcast, just so I could sit on the bus reading it looking like I was 'jacked in' to the power of the 'information superhighway.' In reality I still looked like a scruffy, fat nerd. But this is the point I'm trying to make - back in 1999, the internet wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now and people didn't have 3G and 4G enabled smart phones bouncing around in their pockets, getting scratched up by a bunch of keys. The internet for many - me included - was a vast and wondrous new frontier and by God I was ready to ride the wave on my digital surfboard, tits akimbo.

But herein lies the conundrum. Sega probably knew that the pseudo tech-savvy among its target demographic for the Dreamcast would be onboard with this idea of web surfing and online gaming. How then, would the Japanese firm entice the average person? The outliers in this new digital wonderland? The ones who didn't know a byte from a flimflam, or a googolplex from a Yahoo!? Here's how: by devising a 'starter kit' for the unlearned, one that was created with basic and easy to understand instructions and a guide to what this whole 'internet' thingy was all about. And to top it all off, by including an internet guide...for housewives.

A Beginner's Guide To Aero Dancing & AeroWings

Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height! Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring...Up through the atmosphere, up where the air is clear - oh, let's go fly a kite!

So sang the patriarchal Mr Banks in Walt Disney's 1964 classic horror Mary Poppins. And, oh how we flew our kites and wore the shit out of our pinstripe suits while we did so (I for one can't wait for the upcoming sequel, which reportedly features a dubstep remix). But let's be honest - while kites are fun, they aren't a patch on F-15 Aggressor fighter jets; and happily, the Dreamcast has those in abundance. Yes, the Dreamcast is a console that wasn't left wanting when it came to flight games, both of the simulation and arcade varieties. Indeed, some of the first games I ever played on Sega's final console involved two-winged harbingers of death - namely the Japanese releases of Incoming and Air Force Delta.

Alongside those two, others came: Toy Commander featured some aerial combat missions, while Iron Aces/Imperial No Taka - Fighter of Zero was a pseudo World War II flight sim, complete with a totally fictional theatre loosely based on the events of 1939 - 1945. Later, Propellor Arena promised pure arcade dogfighting thrills before being cancelled - allegedly - due to the horrific events of 9/11, although it's available online if you know where to look. The one series that really grabbed the genre by its horns though, was undoubtedly CRI's Aero Dancing franchise. A series that began primarily as a skill-based jaunt through the clouds as an aerial acrobatics pilot; but which ended with players earning their wings as full blown combat pilots, engaging in aerial dogfights, taking out warships and destroying ground units with well placed missiles and bombs. Quite the turnaround, no?

Join us as we dissect this intriguing and well regarded series of flight sims, and take a look at the dedicated hardware released for the Aero Dancing games; as well as the individual entries in this rich and engaging franchise. Dig our your flight suit, don your helmet and strap in as we get ready to engage in some Aero Dancing at supersonic speeds...

A Quick Look At Free-DC

As you're no doubt aware, the Dreamcast was served by a plethora of online services depending on the territory. In Europe we got the Dreamarena service; the US got SegaNet and in Japan Dreamcast owners were treated to the Dricas service. Dricas - to me at least - looks like it was by far the most feature rich of these three services, and offered such delights as video calling (through the Dreameye) and the ability to spam your friends with nonsense in the form of Dreamflyer. Dricas itself is a truly vast topic of discussion but due to the nature of the internet I fear much of the features and functionality that users enjoyed is lost to the mists of internet lore. No amount of internet archaeology or Wayback Machine plundering can bring back a service that just cannot be accessed anymore because the servers are now in landfill (probably).

Dreamarena went through a flamboyant midlife crisis.

Dreamarena was totally serviceable for web browsing; and SegaNet was fine for gaming (at 56k speeds) over in the US as far as I can ascertain...but Dricas was the real deal. Going from the scant details I can find trawling the internet, Dricas offered Japanese Dreamcast owners some really intriguing features, including something called Dream Map which was powered by Japanese mapping firm Zenrin and allowed Dreamcast owners to locate each other on a Google Maps-style thing and connect with people in their locality. It sounds a bit like the Near function incorporated into the Sony PS Vita...but y'know, actually used by people.

Garish enough for ya?!

There was also a thing called MailChum!, which - and I quote - "...provides you with an instant e-mail penpal, from a variety of characters ranging from beautiful girls to mythical animals." Erm. Anyway, the reason I'm banging on about Dricas and other long-dead internet services for the Dreamcast is that I wanted to discuss something I knew of previously...but just didn't think anyone else would be interested in reading about: Free-DC.

Guest Article: Was The Dreamcast Released Too Early?

Daniel Major is a gamer who has been twiddling his thumbs since 1989. Not happy with the direction of the industry in the mid 90s, he decided to quit trying to pretend the Amiga hadn't died and moved to a woodland to sacrifice Atari STs by fire ritual. Also plays Super Famicom & Megadrive. Here in this guest article, Daniel takes some time out from hitting broken JAMMA boards with a stick in his local park and asks the question: was the Dreamcast simply released too early?

Let’s pretend that the Dreamcast didn’t actually exist. Imagine the sixth generation without the Dreamcast. Let’s all forget that the sixth generation started with Sega’s dream machine and begin to ponder how different the rest of the sixth generation could have panned out. If you can imagine this then can you imagine Sony or Microsoft actually bothering with some of the included specs of their consoles? Online play for example. If Sega hadn’t bothered introducing this to the Dreamcast, would Sony have been inclined to do this? Let’s face it, did we all play online when the PS2 hit? No not all of us. Maybe that changed slightly when Xbox hit, but even then it was a well-known fact that this wouldn’t be the sixth generation's most potent or show stopping feature.

A Closer Look At The Dreamcast Memory Card 4X

There are tonnes of third party memory cards for the Dreamcast, almost all of which don't feature the same monochrome LCD display and internal wizardry of the official VMU. There are also a plethora of third party cards that offer an advantage over the official memory unit in that they contain more storage space, and multiple 'pages' that can be switched between using a little button. I have several of these made by Joytech and while they look a bit garish with their blue/green plastic shells, they do the job just fine. Offering four times the capacity of a regular VMU but omitting a screen and face buttons, they are cheap and cheerful alternatives.

What you may not know, is that Sega actually released their own official multi-page non-visual VMU in late 2000, imaginatively titled the Dreamcast Memory Card 4X. This multi card was only released in Japan and the US (in the US, it was called the 4x Memory Card), and never made its way to Europe, like so many other cool devices for the Dreamcast. Anyway, I recently saw one of these Memory Card 4X things on eBay for the bargain price of £20, and having never seen one in the flesh (plastic) I snapped it up. A few days later it found its way through my letterbox in a scrunched up brown envelope and here for your delectation are my thoughts and closer inspection of the thing.

Developer Interview: Orion

Orion has been creating indie games for retro consoles for quite some time, and is behind the latest title to be announced for the Dreamcast: Zia and the Goddesses of Magic, out in September 2016. Orion's impressive back catalogue also includes recent Atari Jaguar to Dreamcast ports such as point and click adventures Elansar and Philia, and platformer Alice's Mom's Rescue. The Dreamcast Junkyard recently caught up with Orion to find out a bit more about this elusive indie dev and ask what is coming next from the French outfit...

DCJY: Hi, thanks for taking the time to speak to us and the Dreamcast community at large! Could you explain just who makes up the Orion team?

Orion: There is no team - just me! Orion is my internet nickname, I'm just one guy on my own trying to create games as a living.

Zia comes to Dreamcast in September 2016

A true one man outfit then! How did you get started in indie game development, and what are your earliest memories of wanting to be a developer?

My earliest memories are when I was playing games on my Atari STe computer at the age of 8, looking at those nice graphics and thinking to myself "I want to do the same!" From there, I quickly began to learn the Basic language by myself, and finally made my first 'game' when I was 12 years old. When the internet became popular, I started learning other programming languages, and continued making small games as a hobby. Later, I worked for 5 years at a small game company in Paris, and finally I decided to go solo and start my own company. It's been 3 years now that I've been creating commercial games on my own for various retro platforms.

A Different Type of Football: NFL on Dreamcast

With the Euros just around the corner (for our American readers, that refers to a soccer competition, not piles of European cash...although both definitions have some validity), and with our finger on the pulse of the public as always at the Junkyard, what better time to look at one of the worlds most beloved sporting activities than now?

Actually though, the Dreamcast's 'round ball' football output is particularly laughable. I mean, there are only so many articles you can read which basically state they're all crap, with the familiar "oh why couldn't we be blessed with a PES or FIFA?" thread running through them. Instead, allow me to take you on a tour of the very best examples of a sport played in one country, whose very name makes no sense to those raised passing a ball around a muddy field at school lunchtime. Allow me to present, on the eve of the European Soccer Championships 2016...The Dreamcast Junkyard's ultimate guide to American hand egg, American carry-the-rugby-ball American football!

The England defence was no match for the Italian striker...

Unlike many of my compatriots, I do follow the noble sport of American football (henceforth to be referred to as 'football'), and when I'm not following my beloved New York Yankee Men or the fearsome Denver Buffalo Bill Packer Patriots, there's nothing I like more than to indulge in a bit of rugby-for-cowards in digital form (last joke, honestly). And my word - doesn't the Dreamcast have a solid line up of games representing the sport? A total of 8 titles replicate NFL on Sega's little-machine-that-could and whilst the quality varies, US gamers could at least take solace that none of them was quite as poor as 90 Minutes and it's butchering of our beloved Association Football code...right?

Broken Dreams: The 10 Worst Dreamcast Games

I realise I touched on this subject in my recent retrospective look at the Kalisto/Konami car crash Nightmare Creatures II, but I thought it about time that we temporarily suspended the blinkered praising of our beloved Dreamcast and investigated the pungent underbelly of the system's library more thoroughly. As Dreamcast fans, I suppose it is all too easy to look back at the console from an artificially rose-tinted perspective; and while there's nothing wrong with that it doesn't help those gamers who may be new to the system or those who perhaps didn't get the exposure to online game reviews or print magazines in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

You see, we can easily recall the monumental highs of Shenmue, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi and the other genre-defining software titles that make up the star-studded top tier of the software lineup; however just like every other console, the Dreamcast has a number of sub-par titles. Games that are just plain bad for any number of reasons. Games that should really be avoided unless you're one of those 'full set' collector types (you know who you are). To this end, we thought it was about time that we looked to the other end of the spectrum and brought you a run down of the most insipid and downright reprehensible games ever to 'grace' a Dreamcast. And by 'grace,' I mean be deposited onto the console through the weeping anus of a particularly unpleasant and malodorous giant.

Yep - LJN returned from the grave for one last troll on the Dreamcast

I understand that there are other terrible games that may not be on this list, but I'm not listing titles that I can't play due to either a language barrier or a lack of functionality due to internet services being discontinued. No - I'm looking at games that were deemed fully functional by testers, but were unleashed on the games buying public in states not fit for human consumption. Horrific frame rates, terrible controls, broken game engines...these are all criteria that have helped to get the following titles onto this most unholy of lists. Now, please get comfortable and allow us to take you on a rather unsettling journey as we reveal the very worst games the Dreamcast has to offer...

ElysianVMU - A Brand New VMU Emulator From Elysian Shadows

Elysian Shadows burst on to the Dreamcast radar in 2014 with little more than a dream and a Kickstarter pitch for a revolutionary new role playing game. The project was funded in less than a week and since then lead developer Falco Girgis and his team have been working away behind the scenes to bring what is perhaps the single most ambitious independent title yet to Sega's system. Featuring graphical techniques not yet seen on the Dreamcast, and an adventure that promises to engage players for hours upon hours, Elysian Shadows is easily one of the most exciting upcoming prospects for many Dreamcast gamers.

The game is also launching on PC and Mac however, and due to the game's reliance on the humble VMU for certain aspects of the adventure, Falco took it upon himself to develop a brand new and totally bespoke VMU emulator for Elysian Shadows; thus allowing computer-based players to get the full experience. Not only that, the emulator - titled ElysianVMU - will allow gamers to take the myriad mini-games away from their computer and play them on Android and iOS devices. To this end, I'm extremely excited to allow Falco Girgis himself to explain in his own words what this new VMU emulator is all about and what it means for the Dreamcast indie dev community going forward. Falco, over to you...

Dreamcast Vs Wii U: Which Failed Harder?

Nintendo has finally revealed that the successor to the Wii U will be released worldwide in March 2017. This is good for two reasons. The first is that my birthday is in March so I might try to coerce my nearest and dearest to contribute some cash towards an NX as a present. That said, I usually don't get much more than a card written in feces/blood and a voicemail reminding me that I owe somebody a tenner when the anniversary of my birth rolls around, so I won't get my hopes up too much.

Update: we now know this console will be called Switch, so probably ignore the NX logo below. Ta.

The other good thing about this announcement is that finally, the Wii U has been handed a respite and the agonisingly slow death of the console looks to be coming to an end - euthanised, even.  Let's not beat around the bush here - the Wii U has been a bit of a disaster for Nintendo in comparison to past hardware releases, and while the system does play host to some fantastic games that simply ooze typical Nintendo quality, no-one can deny that the thing clearly occupies the 'also-ran' spot in both of the console generations it straddles.

For me, the Wii U was cursed from the start simply because it confused the fuck out of the casual market Nintendo was aiming it at; those people who bought the original Wii thought it was an add-on, and those who had Xbox 360s and PS3s were shown a system with a dinner tray for a controller and a bunch of launch titles that were already available (for the most part) on the console they already owned. Now though, Nintendo has pretty much signalled its intent by announcing the NX (or whatever it ends up being called) and so, just four years after introduction the Wii U looks like it'll be put out to pasture quite soon. Inevitably this has lead to forum threads such as this one, where the question is asked: which system enjoyed a better time during it's contemporary lifespan - the Sega Dreamcast or the Nintendo Wii U?

Source: ZhugeEX Blog

The news came out recently that it took the Wii U nearly 3 years to match the 10 million Dreamcasts Sega flogged in 18 months, and there have been many, many comparisons drawn between these two glorious console failures. However, we wanted to go step further and take a more in-depth look at the Dreamcast vs Wii U topic. While it's obvious that the Wii U hasn't really made a dent in Nintendo's $10 billion fortune (whereas the Dreamcast pretty much killed Sega), the question remains: which console pushed more boundaries, had a better games and excited the gaming world the most?

The Death of the Dreamcast in Press Releases

It's a funny old world. I say that not because I've just inhaled an entire bottle of laughing gas (I have though, anything to get me through the day). No, I say it because it seems that every time I fire up my creaking MacBook and open Safari I discover something new about the Dreamcast. Well, not new as such...but new to me and probably to you too. New in the sense that you've probably not seen it and now you will, thus making it 'news.' See? Not in the same sense that the shite printed on the front of any random tabloid is news, but news nonetheless. Am I rambling? Thought so. Excuse me while I open the valve on this gas bottle a little wider.

Right, what I'm waffling about is this: I found a website that basically appears to list the Sega press releases in a sort of creepy chronological order, unwittingly documenting the death of the Dreamcast like some kind of obituary locked in time. The best bit about this is that the website isn't actually online anymore and can only be viewed by using our old friend the Way Back Machine.

I swear this blog isn't sponsored by Internet Archive by the way - I realise how often I've mentioned the thing recently but it really is an invaluable tool when trying to preserve lost Dreamcast-related stuff. Stuff the average person wouldn't give a shit about, but that us Dreamcast obsessives find totally fascinating. Most of this stuff has slipped into the past, forgotten and barely ever looked at since it was written by unknown fingers on long-lost keyboards (probably attached to a P90 with 128MB of RAM), and due to hardly anyone having the internet back at the turn of the century (yep, that's technically what it was called) I doubt many people gave much of a toss back then either. Happily, I'm here now so don't worry - I won't let this rubbish pass into antiquity without spamming your Facebook/Twitter/Reddit timeline with it first! Huzzah!

Warning. I feel it is my duty to announce here that this post is quite text heavy, so if you don't like reading stuff (reports show only around 9% of internet users actually like reading articles as opposed to sharing pictures of cats and burgers on social media), you should probably skip it. Still here? Excellent, let's go!

The Dreamcast Dreamphone

Up until today I'd never heard of the Dreamcast Dreamphone, and I'd wager many other people haven't either. What meagre information there is on this little-known device can only be accessed through liberal use of the Way Back Machine; but I'll explain how I came to find this odd and fascinating contraption before explaining what I've pieced together about it.

Sorry. Wrong number.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Twas a dark and stormy evening and I was randomly browsing the internet for cheap Dreamcast games, when I happened across the following listing at US website eStarland.com. At first I thought I must be looking at an April Fools' hoax or something because even though I consider myself to be quite well versed in Dreamcast peripherals, the Dreamphone is something I've never, ever heard of.

After finding this item (it's out of stock by the way, and is likely to be so for some time to come forever), I did some Googling but could find barely any information on it. There are thousands of references to a board game of the same name (see above), and a couple of forum threads from 2004 and 2007 where people seemingly stumbled upon the Dreamcast Dreamphone in exactly the same manner as I did...and virtually nothing else, anywhere.

For Whom The Bell Tolls...

Question: What is the greatest piece of video game music ever written?

Answer: The Justice Ray, by Hyakutaro Tsukumo

This is the face of unparalleled musical genius. Truly.

What do you mean you've never heard of it? It's Tsukomo-san's magnum opus, and its legacy is entwined with Sega's own destiny. Before we skip ahead though, lets start at the beginning - the very beginning.

Attack Of The Clones

Clone systems are nothing new and they're not going away any time soon either. If you don't know what a clone system is, let me enlighten you. A clone is a console usually manufactured and sold in countries where laws are lax and cheap electronic manufacturing processes are a way of life. Using the (nefariously reproduced) innards of older 8-bit systems such as an Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System or Sega Master System, a clone invariably comes with roms pre-installed, a controller that is a piece of shit and a shell that looks like the bastard lovechild of Sloth from The Goonies and the morbidly obese red car from that old Milky Way advert.

The Chameleon refuses to die.

In truth, most clone consoles are utter crap, but in some places they're the only way to play games simply because owning a PS4 or any other genuine gaming machine just isn't financially possible. Please be assured that I'm not mocking the societal hardships of fellow gamers in less developed nations, but that's just how it is. Saying that, calling the UK a 'developed nation' is pushing it - I saw a human turd in the street the other day.

Now, the reason I bring up clones is that it's become apparent that there are a couple that borrow heavily from the shell designs of legit systems...and some of them even mimic the hallowed Dreamcast. There aren't that many (not as many as ape the PlayStation, for example) but I thought it'd be interesting to have a look at the ones I could find. And by 'find,' I mean copy from a Google image search. Cough.

Dorikyasu Game Corner

This contraption is basically a NES in the shape of a Dreamcast. According to the almost impenetrable description from the website it is listed on (after being translated by Google, natch), the Game Corner features a cartridge slot under the lid and a handy eject button. The bundled controllers are N64 rip-offs and it also comes with a knock-off Namco GunCon for some reason. Could be handy for Duck Hunt I guess. Sadly, the Game Corner is no longer available, but I think it's safe to say no-one will be losing any sleep over it. Interestingly, the same site also lists handheld Dreamcasts that are built to order, but those are no longer for sale either.

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

I thought I was more or less done with Dreamcast game collecting. With over 400-500 games in my possession (depending on how you count regional duplicates, demo discs, etc.), I felt that I had pretty much royally overdone it and owned far more than was ever going to be necessary. It would be almost impossible to find the time to play them all in the remaining weekends and evenings I have left before the sun sets on my miserable pile of secrets, but that sobering thought never slowed me down. I even went the extra mile, acquiring many of the games originally destined for Dreamcast but ended up on competitor's consoles when Sega lost their marbles and went third party. I invested in arcade hardware like NAOMI and Atomiswave in order to get all the Dreamcast games that were never ported into the home. I had traveled not just one extra mile but all of the extra miles and reached every dead end. I was done.

And then this happened:

Damn you Mike Phelan!

It turns out I was not done, I was in fact far from done. There were all these tiny little dark and twisted narrow detours and blind alleys that my Dreamcast searchlight had originally failed to reveal. Games I never knew existed. Little known games by developers I loved. Games whose impenetrable Japanese seemed less frightening with the helping hand of Mike's accessibility guide. My collection now seems woefully incomplete and my interest was reborn. I think I might just get a few more games, maybe a couple of dozen, no more than two score tops. I don't need all of them, I can totally stop anytime I want. Seriously.

Dreamcast Partners Club Welcome Pack (With English Translation)

The Dreamcast Partners Club was a Japan-only membership club that Sega offered to subscribers, and gave Dreamcast owners access to exclusive content. This content was mainly delivered in the form of the Dreamcast Express demo discs, but also allowed members to collect Dream Point Bank credits that could be exchanged for swirl-branded trinkets, peripherals and the teeth of long-dead warrior kings. Here in Europe, we never got the option to join the Partners Club (and neither did US gamers), so it remains something of an unknown chapter in Dreamcast folklore to many.

This bank is more trustworthy than most.

Thanks to a reader called James though, we can now show you what you would have received in the post as a welcome to the Dreamcast Partners Club had you taken the plunge and signed up. It's mainly the usual stuff you'd expect - membership cards and welcome letters and the like, but there's also a copy of that bizarre Yukawa puzzle game and an intriguing VHS tape. James has promised to get the tape digitised and uploaded to YouTube asap so that we can share it here, but in the meantime cast your peepers over the rest of this intriguing letterbox spam Dreamcast paraphernalia...

Developer Interview: Retro Sumus' Carlos Oliveros

Spanish indie developer Retro Sumus came to the fore in late 2014 when new Dreamcast-bound visual novel AMEBA was announced. Since then, work has been progressing steadily behind the scenes and we decided it was about time that we uncovered just what Retro Sumus is all about. In this exclusive interview with lead writer Carlos Oliveros, we find out a little more about the team, AMEBA and discover that there's another extremely promising (and previously unannounced) Dreamcast game on the horizon...

DCJY: Could you tell us a little bit about Retro Sumus? Who makes up the team and what are your roles?

Carlos Oliveros: Retro Sumus is both our name and our tag line, so to speak. It's Latin for "we are back," or "we are retro" which in my humble opinion makes for a nice Twitter hashtag, don't you think?

#Yes

Right now, the team is made up of four fine gentlemen: Daniel aka Chui, Abel, Juanjo and yours truly. Chui is like Cypher from the X-men and understands any computer language you throw at him, or like Cypher from the Matrix now that I think of it, as he seems to see the world in code. Abel is our 3D designer and the owner of the brain behind Project Q (we'll get to that). Juanjo is in charge of the sound department, and I'm the main writer/translator and the communication guy.

For our first announced project AMEBA, we're recruiting a 2D artist and two more screenwriters to help us put everything together, as it's quite a big story for such a small team.

The original AMEBA teaser artwork

But you have known and/or worked with each other for a while now, haven't you?

In short, yes. I was one of the translators for Watermelon's Pier Solar and, after the Mega Drive release and the fans asking for a PC and a Dreamcast conversion, I introduced Chui to Tulio from Watermelon, as they were looking for a capable programmer to port the original Mega Drive code to more modern platforms. Being the awesome fella that he is, and the creator (or co-creator) of so many emulators and tools for the Dreamcast and other machines, he jumped at the chance and has become Tulio's right hand since, as far as I know. I only knew Chui for his emulators and had talked to him a few times before that, but we began working closer and chatting every other day from then on, as he worked on porting the game and I translated all the new content.

I think Chui brought Abel with him to Pier Solar. There was a Mode7 level in the original game which had to be remade from scratch for the conversion, so he did the 3D for that stage. That initial work was in fact the germ for Project Q.

Juanjo had never worked on any videogame related project. He's a piano teacher and producer, and the current keyboardist for spanish bands Efecto Mariposa and Los Aslándticos. When I told him about my ideas for AMEBA, he didn't even let me finish and said he wanted in. I was honoured, as he knew I couldn't possibly pay him (for now anyway) and didn't care at all. He immediately improvised a beautiful piano tune that will become one of the main themes for the game.

Developer Interview: Elysian Shadows' Falco Girgis

Elysian Shadows Team hit the gaming headlines in the summer of 2014 when their eponymous indie RPG Elysian Shadows made it's Kickstarter goal in a matter of weeks. Since then, Elysian Shadows Team have been a constant fixture in the gaming press due to the open and entertaining nature in which lead programmer Falco Girgis and his colleagues have kept us involved in the development process via blogs and the popular YouTube series Adventures in Game Development. Often outspoken yet never dull, Falco very kindly agreed to speak openly to The Dreamcast Junkyard and tell us a little bit more about the rest of the development team, the history of his project, his impression of other upcoming indie games, and just how Elysian Shadows has quickly become one of the Dreamcast's most eagerly awaited games...

DCJY: Could you give a little bit of background on the Elysian Shadows team – who you are and what your roles are in developing Elysian Shadows?

Falco Girgis: Right now we’re just four dudes from different countries who work together every day in our underwear via Skype, haha! Falco Girgis and Tyler Rogers are the resident rednecks, from Alabama. Falco is the one behind the fancy tech like the lights and physics. He’s the engine and toolkit developer and the resident graphics guru. Tyler Rogers marries Falco’s tech with the pixel art and audio to achieve the creative vision we’re aiming for through his Lua scripting. He’s focused more on the gameplay experience while Falco is focusing more on the technology powering the game. Patrick Kowalik and Daniel Tindall are our pixel artist and our level designer respectively. Patrick lives in Poland and Dan lives in Britain. We met both of them through our YouTube series, “Adventures in Game Development.” They both messaged us looking to join our cause.

Guest Article: Why I Hate The Dreamcast

The Dreamcast Junkyard is, as the name suggests, all about the Dreamcast. While we do tend to focus on some fairly obscure and largely forgotten aspects of the console's criminally brief lifespan, one thing it'd be fair to say is that we tend to be - on the whole - quite positive about the system. Rose-tinted spectacles may or may not be involved in some respects, but the fact remains that the Dreamcast was a commercial failure and it's legacy as an almost universally acclaimed and unfairly shunned platform is something of a recent trend. With this - and the notion of freedom of expression - in mind, occasional freelance games journalist Martin Hinson offers an alternative perspective on the Dreamcast and it's current status as an almost mythical machine.

Martin, you have the floor...

I was asked by the lovely (ahem) man that runs this place to write an opinion piece on the Dreamcast. Why? Well, I've spent the majority of the last 13 years hating the system...or have I?

My journey started in November 1998. My local import shop, The Joypad, received their first batch of Japanese launch consoles, in which I initially had no interest. Three of the games were pretty poor in my opinion - probably the worst launch of all major systems - but when I saw VF3tb running, I decided I had to have one and subsequently shelled out a hefty £400+ for the pleasure.  

The system got off to a rocky start, however. Not only was the buggy Virtua Fighter 3tb the only decent game on launch, the system shipped with no RGB cables at all. Now, for those of you that don’t know, RGB was the best available connection to the vast majority of TVs during the standard definition era; and gave an arcade-quality image as opposed to the very muddy image from the standard cables. This irked me greatly as I already had an RGB-enabled PS1 system and a modified Nintendo 64 which output the same high quality signal. 

Mighty Morphin' Power Boards

Last weekend was amazing. Really, really amazing. For several reasons. The first - and most important - was that it was Revival Events' self-titled Revival 2014, a massive retro-gaming event held at Dunstall Park racecourse in Wolverhampton. I was there as part of the RetroCollect team, running loads of gaming challenges and just generally chatting to gamers and acting the fool. Another reason it was amazing was that I got to meet, chat with and actually touch the flowing hair of John Romero:

The photographer wasn't happy with the focus

In case you're unfamiliar with what the genius behind Doom looks like, that's him on the right. Not the grinning fool on the left - that's me. To be fair I was grinning like that because Mr Romero had just whispered the secret to his flowing mane into my ear, and as you can see this was greatly received as my hairline is receding faster than the Norfolk coastline. He also signed my boxed copy of Doom for the Atari Jaguar, so there was that too. But let's get back to the reason you're here: I also bought a Dreamcast. Yes, another Dreamcast. but unlike all of the others I now have clogging the entrance to my bathroom, this one is different. It came in a box...with an orange swirl:

Yes, I bought my first NTSC-J system for the bargain price of £50 from a trader called Sore Thumb Retro Games. And to say its in great condition is an understatement. The console has no signs of yellowing at all, and has all of the documentation including the Dream Passport (sealed) and manuals. Naturally, being a Japanese system the plug adapter ends with two prongs and simply will not fit in a UK power socket. And even if it could, the power coming out of the wall would likely travel down the wire, into the console and instantly transform the immaculate white box of fun into a large ball of flame, simultaneously causing untold collateral damage to any curtains, throw cushions and random empty beer tins in the vicinity. And in my gaff, there's always a high probability that empty beer tins could also be hidden inside the throw cushions, so the damage bill - in this hypothetical situation - could easily be triple that caused inside your average residential shit-hole. In order to prevent the aforementioned cataclysm, I employed the services of one of these things in order to play on my newly purchased NTSC-J machine:

That's a converter thingy. You put the foreign plug in one side and the UK three-pronged side into the wall socket, and by some kind of magical process no doubt involving a tiny wizard living inside the device, the horrid nasty UK electricity transforms into Japanese Dreamcast-friendly power! See - magic! So anyway, I played the DC for a bit, mucked around with the menu and changed the language to English and marvelled at Sega Rally 2 running a bit quicker...and then I went to do some other menial task that life dictated I must do. It was probably the washing up or something...to be honest I've totally forgotten. Actually, it could have been folding some towels up. Or was it some ironing? Fuck it - I can't remember.

Anyway, I totally forgot (there's a theme here) that I'd left the Dreamcast plugged in to the step-down transformer. It wasn't until a few days later that I went to turn on the Dreamcast again that I discovered it would not turn on. I was pretty stumped until I deduced that leaving the transformer plugged into the mains must have damaged it in some way - indeed, the smell of burning wizard flesh coming from the vents on the side of the thing added weight to my hypothesis. So there I was, left with a Japanese Dreamcast and a dead step-down transformer. I looked on eBay for another one, but being a bit strapped for cash having spent all my money buying the secret ingredients to concoct John Romero's Magical Hair Serum™, I decided that I would investigate an alternative remedy to getting my NTSC system up and running again. I took to Twitter and asked the question - is it possible to put a UK power board inside a Japanese or US Dreamcast in order to use a standard UK plug with it, thus negating the need for a converter. Amongst others, The Gagaman himself answered my call - the answer was a resounding "yes!"

Knowing I had a load of spare PAL Dreamcast bits knocking about, I decided to give it a go - putting a UK power board into an NTSC Dreamcast. Here's how I got on:

And there it is! An NTSC-J Dreamcast happily humming away with a UK plug adapter attached to it, with nary a step-down converter in sight. It's a really easy operation to carry out providing you have the parts handy, and I've also kept the original board and plug in the box just in case I ever move to Japan and feel the need to take a native console back there with me.

I'm off to apply some of my hair serum now. If I end up looking like a Cacodemon, I'll be writing a strongly-worded email to my old pal John.