Toy Racer Multiplayer Back Online Through Dial-Up

Remember Toy Racer? Of course you do - we only mentioned it a few days ago in this post about the work of two highly talented individuals working to get our trusty old Dreamcasts back online. There's a chance you've just clicked on this because someone's retweeted it or shared it on Facebook though, so I'll explain. Toy Racer was a PAL-only spin-off from Toy Commander that featured toy cars being raced around various tracks that were constructed from bits of Scalextric and broken stickle bricks. It was intended as a budget multiplayer racer to demonstrate the Dreamcast's online capabilities and for the most part it fulfilled its role amicably...until Sega's European servers were smashed to bits and thrown into a landfill. And then pissed on by several tramps.

The good news is that Toy Racer is now back online. And while we've told you this before, this time you don't need any other additional bits and bobs to experience it. All you need is a Dreamcast and a phone line. And Toy Racer, obvs. Plug it in with the standard modem cable and point your DNS at 46.101.91.123. Viola! Toy Racer is back online via dial up...right now!

Get A Free Copy Of The Dreamcast Collectors Guide

Seeing as we're no longer allowed to sell The DCJY Ultimate Collectors Guide, we're now giving it away for free at Sega Europe's request. All we ask is that you pay for the postage/shipping costs via the donate button below. There are limited numbers of these things so as soon as they're all gone, the donate button will be removed.

If you'd like to know more about the outlawing of this totally heinous publication, have a look at the previous articles here and here. Also, massive thanks to Junkyard reader Simon who randomly donated yesterday to help with purchasing of envelopes to send these things out - what a legend. Give him a follow on Twitter if you get a moment (@Stellaking_Si).

Recommended shipping costs depending on your location are as follows:

UK: £3
Europe: £7
USA: £9
Anywhere else: £10

If you'd like to donate more to help us with the DreamPod hosting or Mumble server costs, please feel free - as it is, I pay for it all out of my own pocket (although there's no obligation, naturally). Hit the button below, enter your address details as a message and the book will be shipped. Please allow a few days for me to send it out as I'm in the middle of moving house!

Thanks all, and keep dreaming!

Update
That's it - they're all gone! Done. Finito. Thanks to everyone who donated, your book will be sent out in the next few days. Keep it safe - it's part of a limited run and a piece of history!

If you didn't manage to get a physical version, don't worry as the latest PDF version is also available to download here.

Dreamarena Authentication Cracked, Quake III Arena & Toy Racer To Be Playable Online Via Dial-Up

 

If you're a European Dreamcast owner and had a system back in the day, you'll no doubt be familiar with Dreamarena. For those who don't know, Dreamarena was the online portal that PAL Dreamcasts would connect to when you wanted to go online; and many games used the service to authenticate your details when you wanted to play multiplayer games via the 33k modem attached like a disgusting carbuncle to the European system. I have fond memories of Dreamarena as it was the first thing I saw whenever I wanted to go online and browse the internet looking for cheats and...erm...the latest news from the international stock markets. Yeah, stock markets. Um.

Was it the Bismarck? Couldn't help myself, sorry.

One thing I don't have fond memories of is that horrendous 'disconnected' sound that used to play as soon as the connection dropped out. That, and the ominous noise of my mother booming up the stairs to see if I was online without permission again. Anyway, that's all irrelevant - this post is about the awesome news that many people (including me) never thought they'd hear: Dreamarena authentication has been cracked and will allow you to once again hook your Dreamcast up to your phone line and, using nothing more than the bundled dial-up modem, play both Quake III Arena and Toy Racer with other people. This isn't an April Fools.

The DCJY Ultimate Guide Fiasco Continues...

You may recall in late 2015 we launched the physical version of The Dreamcast Junkyard Ultimate Collectors Guide. It was really well received by members of the Dreamcast community around the world and was seen as a valuable resource for collectors and those who wanted to explore the Japanese library a little further (it has a handy accessibility guide for non-Japanese speakers). Sadly, Sega Europe's legal team requested that we remove the resource from sale because it wasn't an officially licensed product, and naturally we complied.

Since then, we have redesigned the book's cover slightly to include the labels '100% unofficial,' 'fan made' and wording to the effect that it isn't endorsed by Sega in any way. We thought that would be enough to allow us to distribute this book online once again, but apparently not. In the name of transparency, here's the most recent communication from Sega Europe's legal department:

Four SD Reader Indie Gems

Dreamshell and its uses are well documented on various sites around the internet, and for me it represents one of the most interesting facets of the Dreamcast. If you aren't familiar, Dreamshell lets you boot the console into a PC-like Unix GUI and allows for the loading of various applications. Dreamshell can be burnt to a CD-R (or installed into the BIOS of the Dreamcast if you really want to) and then used alongside an SD reader to access all manner of fantastic homebrew and indie software. I did have a look at Dreamshell in the recent past, but with this post I just wanted to give some exposure to games that have been kicking around for a while but that you may have missed.

None of these games are particularly new, but if you're a recent adopter of a Dreamcast or have only recently decided to dip your toe into the world of homebrew games for Sega's final system, this article may be of interest to you. Possibly even more so if you also happen to own an SD card reader, as these games are all readily availible in ISO format and can be played simply by dropping the files onto the SD card and then executed through the Dreamshell loader interface. The internet is a fast-moving place and people join the Dreamcast community all the time, learning of the many uses for the console that Sega never intended. With this post, I really just wanted to give a mention to the games that are out there, but that rarely get a mention when people discuss this awesome machine.

DreamPod - Episode 29

iTunes
Stitcher
Buzzsprout
UK Podcast Directory

The Asahi tweet discussed on the podcast.

Interlude music in DreamPod 29 is from Cosmic Smash. You can find info on the VMU version of Flappy Bird here, the Greedy Goblin Con charity event article is here, and the Stone Age Gamer story here. Also, you can find the [TERMINAL] story here; and the exposé on the brand new Dreamcast shooter (as yet unnamed) is here. As ever - if you like what you hear, please consider leaving us a review on iTunes.

A Quick Look At Railroad Tycoon II

For the past month I've been working in a town some 35 miles from where I live. It's not a massive distance by any means, and I really didn't think that commuting from one major conurbation on the south coast of England to another would be an issue when I took up the offer of employment. A quick car journey every day - easy right? Well no, actually.

Because the road network in this part of England is an absolute joke and roadworks on the Roman routes that make up the main arteries are an almost constant fixture (and last for months/years at a time), I have been forced to use rail travel for the past five weeks. I initially thought it would be quite good to get the train to and from work because it would give me time I would have otherwise spent stuck in a traffic jam to do other stuff - read a book, play on my Vita or listen to/edit podcasts.

The original Reservoir Dogs.

For the most part this has actually been the case, but on many, many occasions the trains have either been late, too crowded to find a seat on, or have been totally cancelled with no explanation. Naturally, this has lead to me grumbling on social media about how pathetic our train services are, but it got me thinking: how hard is it to run a train network and keep everything going smoothly? Thanks to the awesome power of the Dreamcast, I have the very tools at my disposal to find out in a measured and scientific manner. Ladies and gents, the train now approaching platform 3 is Railroad Tycoon II...

Dreamcast 2: Arcade Version - Expanding the Dreamcast Collection: Part 3 - Naomi 2

The Dreamcast Junkyard is finally breaking its silence on the topic of the Dreamcast 2… well, sort of. The Naomi is often described as the arcade version of the Dreamcast, and the true successor to the Naomi was of course the Naomi 2, thereby making the Naomi 2 the arcade version of the Dreamcast 2! Yes? Get it...? Am I right? AM I RIGHT? Well, OK, that was pretty shameless click bait, but you're here now anyway, so why not let us tell you a bit more about the third system in the Dreamcast arcade family.

In part 3, we’ll be covering one of the other systems in the Dreamcast family, the Naomi 2. Much of the information from part 1 (such as how to play Naomi games) applies, so if you haven’t already, then I suggest reading that before making a start here. In part 2 we took a look at the Hikaru system, and while not essential to understanding this article, feel free to take a look back for a complete perspective of the family.

Part 1 – The Naomi Connection
Part 2 – The Hikaru 7

1. Naomi 2 Overview
2. Some Naomi 2 Exclusives
3. Naomi 2 Home Ports
4. The Dreamcast's Virtua Fighter 4 Passport VF.NET and History/VF4 Disks
5. Naomi 2 Games List

OK, back now? Great let’s get started.

Naomi 2 Overview
It’s often incorrectly stated that the Naomi 2 was released in the year 2000, but this seems to be another mistake brought around by poor translations of Japanese. According to Famitsu magazine, the Naomi 2 was first unveiled at the 38th JAMMA trade show towards the end of September 2000 along with Virtua Fighter 4 (then known as VF-X), Wild Riders, Club Karts, Virtua Striker 3 and the new Naomi/ Naomi 2 GD-ROM drive add-on.

First Screens Of New Dreamcast Shooter Released

Hold on to your hats folks - it looks like there's another new Dreamcast game on the horizon. Not only do we have SLaVE, Elysian Shadows, Alice Dreams Tournament, Redux 2 and Hypertension to look forward to - there's an as yet unnamed shooter coming as well...and it looks pretty amazing.

This news comes from the DCEmulation forums (and I was notified of this by long-time supporter of the Dreamcast scene Pcwzrd13), but it appears that a talented two-man team has been working on a spectacular-looking new shooter that employs a game engine built specifically with the Dreamcast in mind. In the forum thread (you can read it here), lead developer PH3NOM explains that he can't give too much away due to an NDA signed with Goat Store but I think you'll agree that these shots (and video below) are very impressive.

Greedy Goblin Con '16 Recap

On Easter Sunday we attended the very first film, TV and gaming con to be held in the town of Dorchester, UK. Dorchester is a small, picturesque town located in the rolling hills of Dorset and is more commonly associated with the writings of famous author Thomas Hardy, but this past weekend it was taken over by storm troopers and cosplayers in aid of Neuroblastoma charity Smile with Siddy.

The Greedy Goblin Con event was held at Dorset County Museum and we, along with the guys from Noah's Arcade brought a touch of retro-gaming awesomeness to proceedings with a line up of Dreamcasts and other systems from yesteryear for members of the public to experience. While the event was nowhere near the scale of things like Play Expo or Revival, it was all in the name of charity and Rob and I really enjoyed chatting to people about the Dreamcast and being beaten by four year olds on Capcom Vs SNK. Ultimately, the convention raised over £3000 for Smile with Siddy and hopefully these proceeds will help in the fight against this horrible disease.

Below you'll find some images from the event - enjoy!

Flappy Bird Now Available For Dreamcast VMU

Remember a few weeks ago we took a little look at the new VMU games and demos from awesomely-named Instagram user guacasaurus_mex? Well, he's been working away behind the scenes and has just released Flappy Bird for the humble VMU! You read that right - the game that made a million iPhone users suddenly think their device was worth a thousand pounds is now available for our little battery-sucking pal.

You'll need Dreamshell and an SD reader to get this onto your memory unit, and the VMU Tool files can be found here. Guacasaurus explains further:

"If anyone is interested I just finished making a Flappy Bird clone for the VMU. Just put the file on an SD card, load with Dreamshell and once Speud's VMU Tool has loaded navigate to 'Open CD' and copy FLPPYBRD.vmi to the VMU.

Like most VMU games this doesn't work properly in the emulator so please use on an actual VMU!

Also, for anyone giving this a go, you hold A rather than tap like in the iOS and Android versions. Tap functionality didn't work so well with only 32 vertical pixels!"

There you go - another new game for the Dreamcast! If you have a VMU with some batteries in, let us know how you get on with it!

Stone Age Gamer Drops USB-GDROM Controller

Online retailer Stone Age Gamer has announced that it will no longer be distributing the USB-GDROM Controller made by hardware modder MNEMO. The custom made device hit the headlines a few years ago as a viable alternative to the GDEMU because it allows you to run Dreamcast games from a USB stick and completely do away with the GD-Rom drive.

Personally, I've never actually used the device as contrary to popular belief, writing this guff isn't my full-time job (it's just a hobby) and I can't afford to blow hundreds of pounds on a PCB. Paying the rent, running a shitty diesel car and buying the odd pair of jeans are far higher on my agenda than emulating a GD-Rom drive. That said, from what I can gather it is a cool device and the reliance on USB sticks rather than SD cards makes it the superior option if you're looking to negate the need to own physical disc versions of games.

Until recently the only place you could buy a USB-GDROM Controller was Stone Age Gamer, but it appears they've had enough of the unpredictable behaviour of the device's creator MNEMO and released the following statement (be warned - it's quite lengthy):

"Dear Stone Age Gamer Customers,

Unfortunately, we must announce that we will no longer be carrying any product created by the developer known as Mnemo.

After over a year of dealing with Mnemo we have found him to be impossible to do business with. We normally would not attempt to cause any drama, but in this case we feel without explaining our reasons because it may be hard for our customers to understand why we would stop selling a product that seemed to be in such high demand.

New Dreamcast Multiplayer Shooter [TERMINAL] In Development

Before you scroll down and view the images in this post, let me assure you that this is a look at an extremely early work in progress being created by a single programmer. Now that discalimer is out of the way, allow me to introduce [TERMINAL], the latest homebrew title to be added to the list of upcoming titles for our favourite wheezing cuboid. [TERMINAL] is the work of Rico Tyrell and is an online multiplayer shooter played from a third person perspective. At present the visuals are very basic, but Rico assures us that the reason for releasing this information is to garner some interest in the fledgling project:

"Currently the game is in pre-production. This is an open source game written using SEGA's Katana SDK rather than KallistiOS, which I am assuming will annoy a lot of people who are homebrew toolchain purists.

As of this writing, the server backend for multiplayer sessions is being written with the short-term goal of getting players connected and moving around on one server by the beginning of April 2016."

 - Rico Tyrell

That thing in the middle is you.

The Mystery Of The EB Special Edition Dreamcast

I love a good mystery, and internet-based mysteries are among my favourite types. Of course Moth Man, the Mary Celeste and the tale of Springheel Jack are cool things to read up on, but the ubiquitous nature of the internet means we can all be cyber sleuths without ever leaving our living rooms. And just to compound what I'm yapping about, stuff that was actually spawned by the internet itself (such as Cicada 3301, Unfavourable Semicircle and Webdriver Torso) is every bit as fascinating to me as 'real world' mysteries are.

Fuck...I was only trying to play Doom.

That's not to say the more mundane aspects of the online world are any less wondrous - the very nature of the internet means that stuff written long ago can still be found online and still be read today, either because the hosting service still exists or the Way Back Machine allows us to glimpse into the past and recover the information contained on those garish (and often embarrassing) GeoCities/MySpace pages of yore.

As a person with an unhealthy obsession with all things Dreamcast-related, It probably won't surprise you to learn that I do spend an inordinate amount of time perusing these ghost sites in the hunt for obscure references to cool stuff that never saw the light of day; and the good old Way Back Machine has helped me verify a story more times than I care to remember.

DreamPod - Episode 28: Bonus Features - 'Ghost Host' Textual Commentary

Bear with me while I draw a long bow...

You know how DVDs and Blu-rays often come with audio commentary that you can listen to while you're watching the film? You can get further insight into what's happening on screen or interesting behind the scenes anecdotes. Well, what if I could do an audio commentary for a podcast? That would be silly wouldn't it? You can't listen to both at once, unless you spliced more then one audio source together into an extended podcast (Tom from the Future says Hi!), but that's not really the same, is it? So how about a textual commentary? Wouldn't that be cool? It's like we've dropped two levels from a second order derivative back to the original equation (Video > Audio > Screenplay, or TV > Radio Play > Book). See? It totally makes sense.

Ooooh, a maths analogy, this must be a classy blog

The Dreamcast Epitech Collection

Just a short post this, and I can't really take any credit for the high quality video content that's about to assault your senses. No, the spoils for the aforementioned must go to our good friend and prolific YouTuber Pcwzrd13, who has come up with the goods yet again! If I didn't know better, I'd be inclined to wager that Mr Wzrd is actually a transcendent AI, trawling the interwebs for the most obscure Dreamcast stuff there is and neatly packaging it up as digestible, well-made videos. Luckily, I'm here to re-blog his stuff and artificially generate more hits for the Junkyard like a damned leech, so everyone's a winner.

But I digress. The Epitech Collection is a compendium of rough homebrew games created by a class of students at Epitech in 2002. If you don't know, Epitech is a colossal information technology and computing college in Paris, France and these unfinished (but still quite impressive) titles are the result of some coding sessions involving Dreamcast and Gameboy Advance development tools.

You can actually download these games and try them yourself, so let us know how you get on if you decide to give them a whirl. As always, be sure to subscribe to Pcwzrd's Dreamcastic Channel for even more cool videos like this one.

New Xenocider Footage Released

The Dreamcast homebrew and indie scenes are exploding right now and Spanish developer Retro Sumus is at the forefront of this wave, working on some very promising titles for our beloved box of tricks. AMEBA is a self-styled 'westernised' visual novel following the investigations of a Madrid-based detective and features some quite brilliant artwork. The other game from Retro Sumus is Xenocider and it is shaping up to be one of the most eagerly anticipated new Dreamcast games.

A clear homage to Sega's epic sci-fi arcade blaster Space Harrier, Xenocider sees you take control of a lone crusader battling all manner of monsters across various alien worlds. Retro Sumus has now released some early footage of its bespoke 3D engine running on genuine Dreamcast hardware and we have the exclusive footage right here.

The game is still very early and doesn't show any enemies or other mechanics, but as a glimpse at what is coming it really is very impressive from a technical standpoint. Fogging is already written in, and other effects will likely be added. Perhaps the important things to take away from this, is that Xenocider is running on genuine Dreamcast hardware, boasts a totally new engine and is running at a stable 60fps. On the basis of this alone, Xenocider looks like a title to keep an eye on.

Thanks to Carlos Oliveros from Retro Sumus for permission to post the video. You can read our interview with Carlos here, or listen to our Retro Sumus special episode of DreamPod here.