Ep-1: Learning Your Life — A Practical Journey Into Energy, Awareness & Human Potential | Invitation and Introduction

Coming up on episode 178 of Pixel of GuyDem. I review the new Mega Cat Collection 3 card. Tim tells us about another road trip. A gimmicky side scrolling shoot-em-up battle. Have you ever tried restoring cardboard? We discuss some retro computer handhelds. Lots of new specky games. A new more affordable upscaler. A great board game released on the Amiga. And we sit on another Mexican logger. All right, all right, welcome to Pixel of GuyDem. It is not April. It is May now. And yeah, this is episode one of two in the month of May 2026. My name is Cody Hoffman. I am Eric Nelson. I am tired from celebrating World Donkey Day. I was literally getting ready to tell you a happy, belated, national Donkey Day. National Donkey Day, yep. And I did recognize it by reaching out to you to say hi to your donkey. How did you celebrate National Donkey Day, Eric? By reaching out to you. OK, I thought every hour on the hour you went outside to do a good he-ha. No, no, no. You're the only one I know that owns a donkey. And so I just figured I'm going to reach out and talk to you. More officially known as a "Bray." A "Bray," yes. A "Bray," a "Donky Braze," and mine are quite saucy, especially when they haven't been fed yet. Yeah. When is a national IT worker day? That's what I want to know. Never. I'm sure there is one. In fact, I'm going to look it up right in a second because that's what we do here in Pixel of GuyDem. We are factual and punctual. Let me see. National IT worker. Look at, there it is. National IT workers day. Let's see what Google has to say. The third Tuesday of September to honor the unsung heroes who keep technology running from network engineers to support staff this year, September 15th, Eric. Oh, I'll be waiting. I'll be waiting for that to happen. And that's a release day for Pixel of GuyDem. So, wow. Right. It's going to be awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be a big deal, especially because for whatever reason, retro gamers, I would say not joking, literally 30 to 40% of our community that we are in is probably IT workers. Probably. Yeah. I would think so. 66.66% of our show members, me being the one exclusion, working IT. Yeah. I can't wait to be done. I am so ready to be done with IT. I would love to just go be like a Volkswagen repair guy or something, something, anything else. I'm going to go dig, I'm going to dig trenches. I'm too old for that. I don't want to do that. I literally have, I'm just going to say I literally have a, a, a, not immediate, but a, a, a family member, as well as a new acquaintance that are both, um, uh, grave diggers. No. I know multiple people in the bearing bodies, uh, line of work. So, you know, between IT workers and, uh, I don't know, how and the why I brought that up specifically, I just recently found another one. I'm like, how many, how many people I guess there's got to be plenty of people out there bearing in bodies? Yeah. I, uh, I, I used to see them doing it, but it, it's a little different now than it was in days of your like they got like machinery to do it. It's more of a, yeah, it's more of a excavator. Yeah. Um, nonetheless, uh, I was going to, well, we're a quick, we'll run down what we got coming up on the show here. And then I've got a few more little, uh, pre-show things that to cover. Um, but this episode, uh, episode 178 of Pixel Guide in, we are going to hop into some quick questions, uh, think our patron listeners with, uh, terribly sung song, T time with Tim. We'll be joining us on a pre-recorded segment in which he talks about his road trip with Gary, um, and it's, it's talked about Hoffman, not, this not Cody Hoffman, not me, but Hoffman with a capital O at retro collective, which is very cool. Um, we've got the news and then Eric, we've got a battle of the systems, which you lined up a few months ago, but we finally got an knock it down this month. I did. So the battle of the systems this month is going to be two arcade, um, two arcade games that in my mind, I labeled as arcade games with gimmicks. Okay. Um, and so one is Boogie Wings or also called, what is it? The Greg, the Greg, the Greg, time show or something like that. Yep. Um, and also, um, mystic writers. Absolutely to, um, side scrolling, both side scrolling arcade schmups. Yep. And we'll get to that. And then if you're looking forward, like we all are, two episode 179, which will come out on May 30th, uh, we are going to have quick questions. You get to hear our patrons on again. Eric's take, you're going to be talking about some first impressions of what now first impressions of another piece of hardware, but I'm going to reveal that later during catching up. So, um, but people probably hear the first impressions first, but for us listening live in the studio, uh, it's going to be catching up. So it'll be a surprise to me, not our listeners. Perfect. Yeah. Did you hear me doing the fireworks thing? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It added ambiance. Hmm, uh, after that next episode, uh, Tim, will join us live in studio and by live in studio, I mean, distant across the world, but, uh, catching up and we have six good games. And this is one I'm excited to talk about because Tim threw it out there like it's a known quantity, but America didn't have really budget titles. If they did, definitely not to the extent England then. No, they did not. I mean, I was heavily into buying C64 games and there wasn't really such a thing as budget games. I mean, yeah, they'd go on sale like anything else, but they weren't like a whole thing like they were over there. Yeah. So Tim, uh, a little insight, he wanted to pick six good budget games, uh, you know, commerce 64, uh, that expectum. I'm sure we could have snuck some Amstrad CPC stuff in there, but basically cassette tapes you would go and buy brand new games for like a buck 99, uh, or, or sorry, I should say, uh, three quid, two quid, three quid. Exactly. And you could just walk 99. You could just walk into a supermarket and pick up budget titles. That, that to me blows my mind. That's amazing. On cassette, which literally before I met you, Eric, and you were telling me about tap dance, er, app for your phone, which you could load tape files on a Commodore 64. I didn't know a, what a Commodore 64 was. I did not know B that you could put data or games on a cassette tape. Blue my mind. Yeah. That was an adult, uh, aha moment for me is what that was. So that would be coming up next episode. Uh, Eric, we don't get political on the show. No, we do not. We don't talk politics. No, no. Um, uh, feel free to guess our politics. You can have fun doing that if you will. But I'm going to say, I am going to say one thing. Uh, yeah, don't, don't guess on discord though. We're not bring, we're not, we're not starting that up. No. Um, but I will say it is California in California. It is time for the governor election. That's right. And so I'm, I'm not going to get political. But I am going to talk politics because in California, it's something very unique to California. Pretty much if you want to run for governor, you can run for governor. Yep. So we got our ballots in the mail. And I just want to point out a few names because there's always some characters from this happen. I remember the first year that this became a lot kind of like whoever wants to run can run. And we had like, uh, people that ran trailer parks. We had like porn stars trying to become governor. We had, uh, I can't remember all the funky things going on. But to this day, we, we still get like 40, 50 applicants for governor. Yeah, that's right. And California is weird and maybe stupid in the sense that it's just the top two people. It doesn't matter what part of your in. So it could be two Democrats, two Republicans, two independents. Whoever is the top two, make it to the ballot. Uh, is that, is that, I mean, I think you can, I mean, I'm looking at this, this list right now. I'm going to highlight a few people and there's multiple Democrats, multiple Republicans, multiple independents, a lot more than two. Yeah. And we've got a lot more than two Republicans on the ballot. So, no, I mean, when, when we cast our, when, when the primary happens, the top two percent, percentage go to the final ballot. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Uh, so anyways, I've got my little, um, my little primary election guide here. Yeah. And there's two people I want to point out. Okay. Um, in particular, because I always do this. I always look through all the names. And there's a lot of people that are looking for the names, and they're looking for the names. always something to laugh about and I love it. So one of the people running for a governor in California is official name is Barack Obama. It is not the Barack Obama you think enough, but you can tell this guy straight up said, I am going to change my name to Barack Obama or even better his parents. Maybe he's 18. I don't know. There's no information about him in the packet. Yeah. And he was actually just named after the president. But yeah, you can vote for, I guess this full name is Barack Obama Shaw. He's trying to pull those votes of ignorant people who are like, oh my goodness, it's Barack Obama. I don't know. He might be the right guy for the job. I have no idea. And then this one, if you haven't checked, this is my favorite. Now I've got it. I got it a for effort here. Okay. I myself being a Christian love the idea here, but a little, a little, we'll just say pretty out of, out of right field left, whatever field. Yeah. His official name is living for God and country to Mott. Oh, his first name is living for God. That is official name all, all one word living for God. Yeah. Middle name and country. Yeah. Last name to Mott. And I don't know if you could see this guy, but he looks exactly how you'd expect him to. Yes. Like a budget dime store Santa Claus. And anyways, I love reading these things. Yeah. They're blurbs and stuff. I won't get into it anymore. But that's a missed opportunity. I should change my name to Red Bull Nelson and like go to Red Bull and say, hey, well, you sponsor me, like, like get some money. That's free advertising for them right in every ballot. And they'll say, absolutely, we just need you to strap yourself to this rocket bike and shoot yourself off a canyon. Yeah. And then sure, life's a negotiation, man, life's a negotiation. Perfect. Perfect. All right. We're done with politics. I know we got a little deep there. Hopefully you didn't offend anybody. Exactly. Yeah. Let's, let's hop into the, into the show here. We got some quick questions. Oh, you have the first one, Mr. Cody Hoffman. I do have the first one. And it is written by me for you, Eric. Sweet. And really it's just something I want to follow up on. But yeah, I've been into buying the kind of read new games released for the classic Atari's, they, the 2600 and the 7800 official Atari releases that have been on Amazon, things like that. I know you picked up countermeasure to for the 7800. And last you talked, you said, yeah, I turned it on. I see it works, but I haven't dug into it yet. Yeah. That's right. Have you dug into it? I have. Yeah. I played it. Got it. You know, it might have been right after I came home from, you know, our Atari jam when I came over to your house, we played a bunch of Atari games. I think I booted up my 7800 and popped that in there. I played it probably a good hour, which is way more than, than you need to not that it's bad. It's just not, it's the type of game you can just kind of pick up and play. It's good. It has a lot of little things that I really love, like little tiny sprites, like little, you're a little tiny character tank driving around on the screen. Yeah. And you're really just going like horizontally across the screen. And it's almost like a gauntlet, like there's a lot of like weapons and things like that shooting at you, whether they're gun in placements or they'll be these other tanks or whatever. And your goal is to get to the other end. And when you do, you get a code like the first part of a code. And your goal is to just keep going through these gauntlets until you get the code and you put it in the computer or whatever. And you disarmed the weapon or whatever. I didn't get far enough to really read what the game's about or whatever. But it's basically a drive around and avoid getting killed and shooting things and get to the other end so you can get a piece of code. And meanwhile, you can go over specific types of terrains like with your tank. You can drive over houses and stuff, but you slow down quite a bit. So if there's like a gun in placement, you'll get hit by it. Stuff like that. It's a great, it's a good game. It's not like, I mean, it sounds all complicated and complex, but it really isn't. It's kind of just to drive around and shoot it stuff. Top down tank game. This is actually the first video I've ever seen of it because I was kind of saving it because I wanted to get it. Yeah. And at the higher levels, like intermediate and advanced, it is these guys, the computer stuff will get angles on you. So you kind of have to go into their line of fire. They fire you back away. And then you go forward so that now you can get a shot off before they get the second shot off. It's kind of stuff like that. That's something, usually something I don't like about classic games is the whole you have to like hop in line to fire, shoot and run away thing. It does have that. So if you don't like that, you might not like this. But I do like that. I have no problem that. And you don't just die right away. You have kind of like shields or armor, I think health of some sort. Yeah. So and by the way, you have a time limit. So there is a time limit because the launch, you can see the little screen we're seeing launch in 38 minutes. So you have to get that done. So it's a 30, 39 minute game. Exactly. Or 40 minute game probably if I scroll back here. And there were little power ups that can like add to the time stuff like that. So I mean, it's a very good game. It's it's, you know, I wouldn't say it's a great game. It's a good game. Yeah. Yeah. This is not actually not again. I've been putting off looking at it because I was expecting to be able to buy it. Not that I couldn't have bought it. But sometimes these games were going on super sale for like 15 bucks. So I was hoping it would show up for 15 bucks. I'd buy it. It'd be like open a brand new game back in the day. Yeah. And and not knowing what to expect. But I was expecting it to be some sort of like a strategy, you know, resource management type of game just by the look of it. But that is not what it is. That's what I thought it would be too when I first got excited and play countermeasures like the first one. So I thought it was just going to be when I took a little look at the screenshots. I thought it was going to be exactly what you said. Like kind of resource management or more strategic. Like, well, now you now I get some money and I can buy more tanks or me, you know, stuff like that. It's not that at all. Okay. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be a very slow arcade game. It's like, yeah, I guess it's a tank game. I don't know what else to compare to. It does look like kind of its own thing. Yeah. Again, I mean, I'm saying a lot about it. It's not a bad game. It's fun. I had my fun with it. Am I going to keep going back to it a lot? No. I mean, it's, I think it's worth $15 for the cartridge and the box of the manual, which is what I have. Yeah. I think right now they're 35 on Amazon. That's the standard price. Okay. I got it in a kit like a, I'm not a kit, but a bundle bundle. Yeah. I'm off at tary.com, right? That's right. On itari.com. And I was like amazed at the deal I got. I mean, I got like three car or five, five or six cartridges. Yeah. It was a good deal. In fact, that's a good idea. Maybe I'll hop on Atari and buy a bunch of them for one because I'm interested in buying more of these games. Just to have brand new Atari games and open them in the whole experience. And I already bought a few on Amazon. Yeah. But that bundle might be good idea. Let me see if I can, I think you can pick and choose on some of those bundles too. You can. In fact, when I did it, I countermeasures too. And there was another one that wasn't readily available. But the cool thing Atari did is they split my shipping. So I got four, like three cartridges or four cartridges that were in stock. And then I got countermeasure too. And gosh, what was that other one? Tiger, helly. That's right. Okay. I got Tiger Helly and countermeasures too later on, but they they covered the shipping. So Atari won in my in my estimation. The other thing that they have on Atari.com, which I haven't been able to find anywhere since I was expecting the Intellivision Sprint to be like overordered and eventually go on sale. It has not. From what I get, it's pretty popular. It was actually out on Amazon for a few months here and going for more than it started at like 200, 300 bucks. But on the Tari.com, they do have them for 150. I'm still trying to find. I want to find. Atari 20 games. Here we go. Here we go. With the Sprint, people are just modding them up the wazoo, like I did. And having the whole Intellivision collection, including released games and homebrew and all sort of demos and everything all in one image. It's pretty awesome for that. Yeah. Here we go. You can get 25% off nine games or six games or 20% off. Here we go. By four, get one free mix and match. That's the one I did. Yeah, because I got five. That's right. It's been a watch, which there is for for 131 now. 96 Man, I don't know if there's five I don't have that I want though. Yeah You and I really enjoyed playing asteroids the lux together we both really dislike crystal quests Bentley bears. I didn't like it now Bounty Bob's right back that is excellent. I need to get that I need this version because so I've talked about a bit of middle-wow I'll mention again, so if you like Minor 2049er Bounty ball strikes back of course is the second version of that game But this particular 1700 version of it has an option that you can open that allows you to Rather than doing that perfect arc jump that you have to like pixel perfect calculate and you screw up and it's really frustrating It allows you to jump and press back and forth and control yourself in mid-air like any kind of modern platformer would Oh, that's nice. It makes the game amazing Yeah, I already liked those games regardless, but I highly recommend that Here's counter measure two. I don't have dig dug yet. I don't have I don't have caverns of Mars. I Have that that's an excellent game. Okay. That's that one's worth worth owning I highly recommend frenzy, which is berserk to I'm just kind of running through these see most of these I have I don't have the ZVS. I'm not a huge DBS fan or the new Pac-Man double features. Yeah, I could probably find I could find you You didn't get tiger heli though. Did you oh? Yeah? I do. Oh, you do okay? Okay? Tiger heli is excellent. Yeah, I yeah, I really enjoy that one And for some reason that one's only 3299 when all the other games are 3499 for the 1700s So yeah, I don't know why it's worth the extra two dollars, but hey, right? All right Eric tell us about our show sponsor Our show sponsor is the future was a bit calm calm calm calm. Actually, it's TF w 8b.com Correct technically Technically So the future was a bit calm is our sponsor and I have purchased over the years Many many things from them including my div MMC future Which is an amazing device if you have a ZX Spectrum or you import one here if you live in the US which I highly recommend that you do um It you basically can put an SD card with all sorts of ZX Spectrum games in it plug it in boom you're done Boom you know also it also gives you a cartridge or a controller port which the spectrum doesn't have So if you were like me and I'm and guessing like Eric although you were further along that I was And you were like hey, I'd love to try one of these These spectrum things From across the pond But I don't know how to get into it. Guess what by a spectrum by the div MMC future Bob is your uncle you've got everything you need to play the majority of stuff Correct correct and then another thing I've now and I own two of these because I got the um The pen ultimate two and now I have the three Is the ultimate cartridge for the Commodore VIC-20 if you want to play games It's got just about everything you need but if you're If it doesn't have a game that you want to play on it This device now has the ability to Connect with an SD card and then there's a cable it comes out plugs right into the back of your VIC-20 so that you can load up Um Any game that you want now so it's kind of like getting to a tofer Um a cartridge that has a ton of games on it not to mention memory Upgrades so there is memory The VIC-20 for people that don't know came with like I mean it was 5k of RAM 4k 5k yes and like that and then but there was only 3.5 usable or something like that Which you know will only play the most rudimentary games but You can just they the VIC was very popular to just get memory upgrades They were just cartridges that would increase your memory so much um I Did not have one of those not only think about it as a kid. I my VIC was just native Um, but when you got a cartridge game it it did have its own RAM on it so Games like Omega-Race and things like that worked really well But this one solves all that you you you basically can do any kind of memory configuration with this thing SD-2 IEC which is the SD card reader is built right into this device If you have a VIC this is what you need this is pretty much all you need to load whatever game you want to play And that's just two of the amazing peripherals at the future was 8bit TF w8b.com In addition to all their other accessories games chips things you can buy go check it out. It's absolutely awesome stuff um Even if you have amstrad uh things there's there's amstrad stuff for you there too So go there fill up your shopping cart with at least 20 British pounds pounds sterling worth of things and use code pixel guide in five all one word pixel guide in five for five percent off Your entire order All right, we've got another quick question and this one Is from pijaco 6502 which by the way 6502 is also sold at the future's 8bit. That's right So his quick question is have you folks ever tried restoring repairing old game boxes And if so what techniques did you try Anything this extreme and then he has a link to he sent us a link to youtube which is in our discord um And I already know it's going to be extra I haven't washed it yet I know it's going to be extreme because it's a link to something with completely Um, I'm not sure which language but an asian It's very asian writing so yeah, that means it's going to be something extreme typically uh I'm very curious to see what they're doing here Um, I see them pouring some sort of liquid and they're wiping this playstation box off with uh with the rag um I've seen people do stuff and maybe they're getting to it here Yeah, he's gluing edges back on to strengthen them. I think I've seen people flatten them with um Different types of paper and an iron Oh, he's using like a calligraphy pen to darken the some of the writing again that looks a little gray Wow, that's pretty crazy I mean, I get it if this box is worth a ton of money then hey Yeah, I don't fault anyone for this it is amazing to me I would never take cardboard and dunk it into any kind of liquid solution, but that's what they did Uh, and they're cleaning it and drying it out and Enhancing it and all sorts of stuff. It's pretty amazing. Do you look at the before and after Yeah, here's here's the before Yeah, everything's squished it looked like all this stuff at one point was was left under a pile of books Yeah boxes and then now they are Sharp and white and uh the ink on them is very dark impressive So here's what I've done here's the extent of what I've done with cardboard yes uh So if it's something of value to me or it's something that I think can be saved pretty easily I have Done simple things like flattened it out and put books on it to try to get it to kind of hold a hard shape again Right I have done You know when flaps are flopping open I've I've have my little um I've glued things or I have the uh the little one of these things where you have the sticky dots in a roll and you kind of rub this across the top and close boxes so they stay shut right um And I've done very minor glue slash tape work on the inside of a box where there's tears and things Uh, but for the most part what I've found is uh By getting what some of these like for my vectric games which are very beat up the boxes For getting these hard plastic cases and just shoving the box in the hard plastic case Ultimately gives me more or less the same visual effect as a really nice box even if the box inside is not as nice That's right. And so I just cheat and do that now Yeah How about you? You have a lot more boxes than I do Uh, cuz I can look in it Behind you right now you have boxes just lined up on your top shelf That top shelf is known as my wazoo Exactly so these are boxes are up the wazoo. That's right Um, I have not I don't think I've ever done any kind of repair or Anything about boxes in fact until just recently I tend to just talk to box don't say no Yep, I know everyone's gonna everyone's gonna box tosser Everyone's gonna chastise me for that and I deserve it But recently I have been trying to make space out in my garage and keep boxes Um for things that I really want I don't have room in my house like in my game room I just don't have room anymore um Now I have room for game boxes and stuff so I have some of that but like boxes I have like three commoner 64 boxes out in my garage for some reason Never gonna use them. They just sit there Um, I've a Vic 20 box right here. I'm looking at a commoner plus four um, I have like a genesis box. I got I got boxes and they're not in great shape And I can't bring myself to throw them away because as I threw so many away in the past. - Well, if you need me to take a couple of these boxes off your hands, Eric, I will help you feel less guilty about it. - Okay, okay, I'll keep that in mind. - I'm just saying, I don't think I have a commerce 64. - Oh man, I got bog, I got, I got, I got you covered there. - Oh, I do, I do have one. - Do you have a Vic 21? - I do not have a Vic 20. - I'm looking right now in my game room and there's two Vic 20 boxes right here in front of me. - I'm not, I'm not trying to mooch, but if it legitimately frees up room in your room for you and what otherwise go in the trash, I will absolutely, I know it won't go because you wouldn't do that, but I will take it from you absolutely. - In fact, I will pick the best Vic 20 box I got and give it to you because the quality doesn't matter as much to me as some of the nostalgia. So. - Yep, yeah, I'm not you. - So anyway, no, I'm not, I don't consider myself a box restore in any mode. I'm just barely now a box saver. So. (laughs) - Yeah, that's new to me kind of when I moved more or less when I moved to this house five years ago because I have this big room downstairs area of this house that I'm actually gonna add some more shelves are up around the top by the ceiling 'cause it's just fun to put out, just line up all the boxes. I mean, it's easy. Yeah, I've been blessed to have this space to do what I want with away from the main house and the wife and all the things that she wants to keep pristine and beautiful and farm-housing. So I get to put up nerdy posters and boxes and shelves and stupid things anywhere I want in here. So. - That's great. - I become a non-active collector of boxes but a box guy. - Good. Well, the next time we see each other a Vic 20 box is coming your way, I guarantee it. - Awesome. Awesome, awesome. - And my newer stuff like my ZX Spectrum next and stuff like that, I can't bring myself to the boxes away anymore. Like maybe even like 10 years ago, I would have just tossed it. Like I just don't have the room, but now I can't and they're piling up. Like in television sprint box right there is that X Spectrum next. The new stuff I can't bring myself to throw them away, but my wife's gonna kill me. She's gonna walk in one day and go, "Oh man, what are all these empty boxes laying around for?" - Are you collecting trash now? What is going on? - That is exactly how it's a good impersonation. - That's exactly what you would say. (laughing) - And then what's gonna happen? (laughing) - Yep. That's my high knee, right there. - Should we do one more? We're gonna save this. We've got three more altogether. What do you feel? - Yeah, let's save it. Let's save for next episode. - All right, sounds good, sounds good. Well then before we go to our patron song, Eric, it's time for us to crack open a fresh, cold, you say it. (upbeat music) - When you wanna be, and it's a hot summer day, reaching to your cooler, cool out one. - Man, I just can't even, I can't even come up with a rhyme. (laughing) - I am the worst. - It is a proper improvisation. - I know, I know a rhyme was coming to your head, but you're like, "Nope, don't say that." - Yeah, you know what, you're right. You're right. - You're gonna say happy, because that's exactly what I was. - Yes, I was like, "What rhymes with day?" - Yeah, I was like, "Don't say it, don't say it." - Hey, if it was the 1900s, you could say people were happy and gay, that wouldn't be it. - That's right. - Hey, so we've got ourselves another farmer's brewing company, Beer. - There we go. - There we go, the nice skull on it. - How would you say that? It is a Mexican logger. - It is. - And I have, obviously everyone in California has had some education in Spanish, no language, the Spanish. - Yep, for some reason I can't remember, is this Valle, so how they pronounce that? - Sure, that sounds right. - I don't know. I took four years of Spanish and I don't remember anything. - It's amazing, the more I take, the more I forget. - Exactly. - It's V-A-L-L-E, I know it means valley, it's how we would say it in English, and it's a double L, so it should be Valle, but it's the valley beer. It's a Mexican logger, 5.5% alcohol by volume. Again, farmer's brewing company, Princeton, California, which is, as we just had to look up, 'cause Princeton's not like a big town or something, it is just south of Chico and just to the west of Orville. - Yeah. - In Northern California and the tagline right on the top says, "Put your lips on a farmer." - Teach us on. - Maybe I should have said that word. - I mean, I consider myself a hobbyist farmer to does that count. - Well, I won't be putting my lips on you, my friend. - On my donkeys? - No, no lips are going anywhere right now. - All right, we'll keep them right where they are. - Eric, cheers, my friend. - Cheers. (engine revving) - I know I've had this beer before. - Yeah. - And I didn't have any memory of it necessarily. I know I've had it, but I couldn't tell you much about it. - Yeah. - And I just took my first sip. And I really like a lot of stuff farmers makes, but I would say this fits with my memory of it, which is I don't remember it. - So I've had this before too. And I will say it is better with a lime wedge in it. - It is very light and flavor. - So, but it compliments a lime wedge really well. I'll say that. - So there's a glass of water. - There are some beers like the dosakis, the darker dosakis. - Negro Medelo. - Oh, no. Amber, yeah, dosakis, right? - Dosakis amber, and then there's the Modelo. - Negro Medelo, yeah. - Negro Medelo. - Those, man, you drop a lime in there and the flavor of the beer really enhances it. They're great for me. This does help with the lime wedge. Otherwise, you're right. It's not super flavorful. So. - Man, it's, yeah. - It's refreshing though. - I mean, yeah, it is. It's refreshing. I like it. - I must feel like when you have a beer, that's this light. - I'm gonna do that. - Again, so farmers had some good stuff. They also have, they're hitting myths. How about, I'll say that. - They are, yep. - And not saying this is a misprosy, but I'm saying when you pay the extra money to buy a micro brew, a farmer's beer like this, rather than a Budweiser. - Yeah. - I mean, this could be a Budweiser. If it said Budweiser on the front, I'd be like, yeah, that's a Budweiser. (laughing) - Am I being too harsh on it or? - No, but I will occasionally, we'll grab some of these and drink them and enjoy them. They're, so let's look at it like this. In the world of Mexican loggers, I will, there are many, many, better, more complex Mexican loggers. - Mexican loggers usually have some flavor going on. - They do. - Sometimes like, they're full flavored beers, even though they're longer. - Especially the darker Mexican loggers are fantastic. - To me. - Yeah. But I will say the lighter ones like the regular dosakis and coronas and the like, they're not really that flavorful. - Well, so this is gonna sound stupid, but when you get like a Pacifico or a corona, it doesn't list itself as a Mexican style logger. I feel almost like that's a different type, a different style of beer. Maybe I'm being dumb and they're both loggers, but Mexican goes a certain way, I don't know. - Yeah. - Nonetheless, let me go ahead and open our beer chart here. - Our beer spreadsheet 'cause we're nerds. 'Cause we're beer nerds. - Hey, this is a retro podcast. People on this are a certain type of person, and they will appreciate our charts and graphs. So the big question on everyone's lips, Eric, is what are we gonna do for our rating system for May, 2026? - Yeah, we need to think about what is going on in May, is there something with May and numbers, if you will. - Eric, and it's a Mexican style beer, so I think we make this pretty simple. - Okay. - Out of Cinco de Mayo. - Yep. - So out of, what are there, 30 days in May? - Yeah. - 31, 31 May. - Oh. - All right, I'm always bad at that. - So am I. Which would be, was it, 20 Uno? - Oh, look at you. - I'm trying to do the accident and everything. My wife would cringe right now, she hates when I try to, when I try to sound authentico. Out of, 20 Uno de Mayo. (laughs) - Exactly. - How many de Mayo is this beer? So out of 31, I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give it a 20. - 20 de Mayo. - 20 de Mayo. - All right, all right. - So Eric, boom, boom. Again, this is me, riveting radio, I'm filling out the de Mayo. (laughs) - And if 31, Eric is going 20, Um, we supposed this at the end of the year, like in our discord, that would be great. Like so people can look at our, our spreadsheet, our number. Well, the spreadsheet and theory, I tried to go back as far as I was willing to. It goes back to episode really 147. You can see I tried to go back to episode 122 and 123 and I stopped. It was too much effort. Yeah. Um, I'm going to give it, I'm not going to quite go that I'm going to go with 18 to my eyes. Okay. I really don't, I mean, again, beers, all beer is good. Yeah. Well, almost all beers good. We have. Oh, yeah, we got to be careful. We have some they don't physically sick. Less than I have fingers on my hand beers that we are like, I will not drink that. Um, you know, out of my goodness, Eric, 178 episodes times roughly four beers each. Out of, what's it called? Probably around 700 beers we've had on the show. Wow. Wow though. Um, we've had a lot of. As far as me to be better though, I'm going to really start focusing on my lyrics for the beer song. So when we go to episode 170, what? 78, nine, what? 179, 180, okay. 180. I'm going to start like really putting some effort into it. I really, really not doing well with it. When you're having a great day, reach for a, actually know you should remember the old satinate live sketch where they where they're all drinking beers by the pool. It's reach for a schlitzgay. Wow. You don't remember that? No. Well, it's a, it's a funny classic 90s, a satinate live, a skit. So for anybody who wants to look that up. So yeah, I gave it 18 demios and again, it's, it's beer. So therefore it is good outside of those five we talked about. But I give an 1831. This is an all day drinking beer, but realistically, I would rather save the dollars and spend 18 dollars on a 30 pack of. Of American domestic whatever. So there we go. Yeah. All right, all we're hoppin' right into our patron song here. When we get back, you will have also listened to Tea Time with Tim and Cody's Corner and Eric and I are gonna go and hit up the news. So we'll see you on the flip side. If you'd like to get a hold of the show or any of the host, Cody, Eric or Tim, please go ahead and check our show notes. Our contact information will be listed there. We also have a patron account and we would love it if you'd support the show financially. For those that do so at a $3 or more level, you get access to our Pixel Guide and Discord where we have all kinds of chat as a community. Here on Pixel Guide and we'd like to announce every patron subscriber that subscribes at a $3 or more level by using our random adjunctive generator and a little bit of song. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey guys, how about we take a little break and check with our friend over the pond? That's right, it's Tea Time with Tim. [Music] Hello and welcome to Tea Time with Tim. Coming up this month, it's another road trip this time with Gary and it's a Hoffman special. The one thing I love most about having great friends is when they just randomly message you when they think that there's something that might interest you. Be it a game, something you see while you're out and about. This always happens between myself and my good friends Gary and Vicki. This time it was Gary who called me about another event happening at the retro collective cave. This event Gary was calling about was not just another visit to the cave but it was to go to a talk that was being given by Ian Hoffman, Ford, on how not to get into game development which was a fun play on basically how the way he fell into actually being a game developer. Now if you don't know who or what a Hoffman is, I'll explain a little before I jump into the details of the talk. Quite simply Ian or as we know him Hoffman is an extremely talented Amiga tracker musician who loves to play DJ sets either in person or streaming on Twitch from Amiga's on the music that he creates. Not only that, the tracker music that has been created has been used in many Amiga demos and most notably the music from the stunning demos, Ian by the Black Lotus and just recently released at the revision 2026 party was second nature. If you've not seen either of these demos I would say they are a part of your essential retro watching even if you just check them out on YouTube rather than getting them up and running on the real Amigas. But just so you don't completely miss out, here's some music from the two demos. First up will be Ian and then second nature. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Okay, so that's about Hoffman. What about the Retro Collective Cave? Well, we're going to visit today. If you don't know what the Retro Collective Cave is, it's a place nestled in the Kotzworld town of Stroud near Gloucestershire. The Retro Collective is based in a converted mill, made up of several buildings. The main destination for this is the cave. This is a museum full of retro gaming and computing exhibits and hands-on with those exhibits as well, not just behind all glass cases. Whilst visiting, you can play on systems like the Humble, Sinclair Range, and Commodore computers, Sega and Nintendo consoles. All the way up to Extreme Exotica, like the Shuhub-X68000, the Sega TerraDrive, and more. If you ever find yourself in the UK and want a good retro fix, you can book a weekend visit for yourself to the cave and check it all out for yourself. Also, just a quick thanks to Neil and Richard and the rest of the folks at the Retro Collective for hosting another enjoyable day. So on to the talk. Just to say beforehand that this is all done from my dodgy memory and it was just over a week ago now when I'm recording this. Some bits I may not remember, but I'm sure if you're interested to know more about the talk, I would recommend popping over to the Retro Collective YouTube page and there will be a video about the talk up on there at some stage. The talk Hoffman was presenting was not about the demo scene and music creation. It was about how we kind of stumbled into porting some classics of over to the Amiga, Mega Drive and impressively the Neo Geo. First up Hoffman was talking about how getting into game development happened. This was mostly due to the lockdown of 2020 when we all found ourselves with time on our hands and nowhere else to go, especially with Hoffman that there was a lack of demo parties and meetups like revision and nova that was not happening. So without those events, there was like the creative outlet wasn't there. So we decided to look at games. Now Hoffman is a big fan of the MSX and some of his memories growing up was of his friends having an MSX going over and playing the games. One of those games was the original Metal Gear on the MSX 2. Not the NES version. So what did he decide for the target for the conversion? Well of course it was going to be the Amiga. Given the limitations of the MSX 2 compared to the Amiga, well it should be easy right? All of this was done using the original ROM and following the code in a disassembler, converting the code to 68000, writing new routines for the scrolling and working with a chap called Tony Galvez who was enhancing the graphics tile set up to Amiga standard. Not only was this a faithful port but some quality of life enhancements were made adding in a translation of the original MSX 2 Japanese version alongside the English European and also added a special Spanish translation. Also included was an enhanced control options for using the CD32 pad and of course a fully enhanced soundtrack. So what was next for Hoffman? Well I believe talking with Tony who had they had just worked together on Metal Gear, it was decided to port another Kenomi classic Nightmare. It was considered a little easier as it was an MSX game, not an MSX 2 game with just a 32k ROM. So no banks switching this time. The idea with this one was to smooth out the gameplay and bring it up to Amiga levels like they did with Metal Gear and some quality of life enhancements. The code again was fully disassembled from Z80 imported to the 68000, a new soundtrack for the game was also created along with some new features, a new title screen and loading screen, a new high score table that was even saved out to disk, enhanced graphics again by Tony Galvez and as mentioned the new soundtrack that took a fair amount of time to create. So by this time Hoffman was starting to get into this whole game development thing. Starting out with time and curiosity and a level of understanding of coding from his experience in the demo scene. But now after two completed ports it was time to move on to something else. Well what would be next? Well the answer to that is Hoffman would now port a steam game over to the Amiga. And that game being sequenoid. If you don't know this game is a flick screen single screen twin shooter while it looks very simple of its monochrome pixelated art style the challenges for Hoffman were the physics effects in the game. It was also not just porting the sequenoid game. It also has a bonus arcade game called Ujitron. 50 levels of robotron style twin stick arena based action that had to be ported as part of the agreement. Now Hoffman went into a lot of detail about porting over a sequenoid. I've not really got time to go in depth into that but suffice to say it was all done along with a lot of challenges. Hoffman also added some Easter eggs hidden in through the game including an unlockable where you get a recreated cassette deck. And if you hook the sound output from the Amiga to the ZX Spectrum you can actually load a version of sequenoid in from tape. So there's a little tape room that's in the menu system of the game and in there you will eventually get those unlockables that you can go in and start the tape player, the virtual tape player and load those particular sections from the Amiga directly into your spectrum. There's a music disc that's also on there which is like a recreation of some of the tunes for the spectrum to load up as well as the sequenoid game. As I said there's so much to unpack on the development of sequenoid. I just don't have the time to cover it here. I would recommend not only watching the video of the talk when that comes out but popping over to Hoffman's blog page. He's produced a whole development log for sequenoid and shows some of the Easter egg parts. The blog can be found at Hoffman.home.blog. I've not played sequenoid yet but this is one I'm definitely going to pick up and cover for the show. Just before I finish on sequenoid there was one really cool thing that I just wanted to mention just before we move on. While at the cave Neil presented Hoffman with what is thought to be the first ever Amiga cartridge game and this was a version of sequenoid specially adapted for the cartridge as very cool to see. The next two ports were one that really grabbed my attention at the time. I've been following Hoffman's work on the Amiga on and off for a while but when he announced that he was working on porting our K-gain over to the Neo Geo this was a big thing for me. The Neo Geo as we know holds a special place in the heart of all three of us on the pixel garden podcast and to see Hoffman porting arcade version of games over to the Neo Geo that was something special for sure. The first game that was ported is Shinobi. This was taken directly from the system 16 arcade ROM and disassembled via main. Because the systems were both 68,000 based the main game logic was going to run on the 68,000 on the Neo Geo without too many problems. The challenge was porting the graphics and other parts of the game like the title screen and high score table etc. But like always Hoffman managed to work his magic and get this ported and it's pretty much arcade perfect. Not only that he also made sure that the ROM will work on all the SD solutions out there for the Neo Geo so like the Neo SD and the Darksoft carts. Also he did a version for the Neo Geo CD. Following on from the success of porting Shinobi the next one was another popular system 16 game none other than golden axe. Getting a similar service to Shinobi but this time as the case with Hoffman ports he went that extra mile and created an enhanced soundtrack for the Neo Geo CD version. I've just really summed up what happened for the talk. I would again recommend watching the actual talk itself once it comes through on the retro collective YouTube page. I really did enjoy the talk. There was a lot of detail in the talks. Most of it went over my head. I have to admit but a lot of it was understandable at least and it was really well presented. We had a great day and thanks again to Hoffman for the talk. So what's the moral of the story here? Well, I think it's more how curiosity can spark not only a journey into how games are made by disassembling them, but it's also that has been a route into actually and in most cases improving those games, which is really interesting. What's next for Hoffman? Well, he could not talk about too much about it officially, but because of his porting work on the Neo Geo, he's been very heavily involved with the Neo Geo Plus. So this fills me with confidence that if he is involved with the project, then there's going to be some amazing things coming up for that system. He did also mention that he's got an original game in the process of development, but I think with time constraints and everything else that's going on at the moment that's on the back burner. Well, that's going to wrap things up for this month. Please do check out the video when it comes available on the retro collective YouTube site. And of course, go over to Hoffman's Itch.io site to check out the MSX ports and the Neo Geo ports. You can get Seek and Oid over at the Thalamus Digital website. That's Thalamus.shop and of course on there itch.io page for a download. One last thing, thanks to Gary for mentioning this and another fun trip together. And just as we were about to leave for the day, I bumped into a friend of the show and Patreon, Pajako 6502. It was so cool to meet up with you in person and have a chat. Shame it was at the end, but I'm sure we'll bump into each other at another event soon. Thanks to Lukash for the music at the start and the end of the recording that I use. You can go to find his music at lookhash.bankamp.com. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next one. [Music] Hello, one and all. Welcome to Cody's Corner. My name is Cody and this is my corner. Hence, the name of the segment. So this month, I wanted to cover a newer lease for an item I just received a week or two ago in the mail and that is the Mega Cat collection 3. This is a brand new cartridge for the Evercade system. Real quick, the Evercade is a modern physical hardware that plays its own custom cartridges. So you can have games, physical, even in 2026, which is very exciting. On little cartridges, there's a ton of different ways to play them on different hardware, the Evercade hardware, handheld versus console, which is the way I prefer to play them. But nonetheless, for those who have listened to the show, you know that I particularly enjoy the Evercade because they release new indie games, typically games released for older systems, like the NES, the Genesis, Amiga, Suburintendo, someone and so forth, but they release them for this new physical hardware on physical cartridges and the cartridges theoretically are now, they're up to $2,999 a cart, so pretty affordable for a box, and a manual and a cartridge. So, Mega Cat Studios is a indie publisher. They produce a lot of physical versions for a lot of primarily NES and Genesis. I would say they're two most prolific platforms. They release physical new software for, new hardware software. I guess you still call it software, but carts. And you know, every year or so, every two years I guess, or more or less, they release a few games, in this case 10, from their backlog, from their collection that have been out for a while and people already bought the physical media for their old hardware and they will put it on a cartridge as a collection on the Evercade. This is similar to what the indie heroes collection for the Evercade does, but is specific to the publisher, Mega Cat Studios. I will be blunt. I love the indie heroes collection. They have four now with the fifth one coming. Unfortunately, we have to wait until 2027, apparently for that one. The Mega Cat Studios collections, the games are very hit and miss in my opinion for a lot of the Mega Cat stuff. Again, they're grabbing from a lot of different indie developers. Now, this is very much, I would say, a number of their games range from, of course, very high production values down to high-end homebrew, if you want to call it that, maybe mid-tier homebrew to a point. So they're kind of all over the map. So the question is, how did the games look on this collection? Three, are there any gems in here? Are there any stinkers? So this is just like a quick, I won't call the full review as I didn't play through every game by any means, but I definitely gave at least a little time to every game and some of them got more than others. So second impressions will call it. So yeah, Mega Cat Studios collection three. The games included on this. Of course, you've got your nice manual on here, which gives a page or two to each game, which I always love about these collections. It comes with 10 games. The games very in different styles and platforms, although kind of per usual. They are heavily NES based, I would say. But let's just kick it off here. We'll just go in order for how they are listed here. Flat Pappy is the first game. This is clearly a NES game from what I just looking at it and playing it. And it is, imagine a flappy bird type of a game where you are a small bird. Now, very small. A lot of the modern games they released for the NES, different people have released for the NES, definitely kind of focused on these small sprites. It allows you to get more stuff on the screen. So definitely affects the gameplay, typically in good ways. But the games kind of have a modern feel to them because of that. I think micro mages are games like that. So flat Pappy is a one-screen game where you've got a bird and you have to keep tapping your button to kind of make it flap around the screen. I think joust and your goal is to get through these, I guess, it's a side on single-screen game where you're trying to avoid hitting any ceilings or floors or random blocks throughout the screen. And there's these kind of flame ones spinning around all the Super Mario Brothers. And you're supposed to land on these platforms as they light up. And once you land on enough of them, you can complete the level. There's some fruit that flies through the level as well, then get you some points. But kind of a bare bones concept feels like a modern implementation of maybe like a black box NES game to me. It's okay. It's an okay game as far as gameplay is concerned. If you do love this dialogue game, I'm sure you can have some fun with it. But I would just say that's kind of a one thumb up from me if we're going to use the Cisco and Ebert scale. Next one I see listed here on, and again I'm using their website to kind of go through these games. It's a game called Gunt Ner. Gunt Ner. It is a shoot them up. And this is a very wacky screen filled, kind of manic shmup again NES based. Looks very much NES. However, it does one thing which there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, except for the fact that I think most people might self-include just get turned off by it because of our own mental incapability of understanding it. It goes right to left instead of left to right. So you are a spaceship I guess, although you look like an airplane. And there is just tons of stuff flying at you from one side of the screen. It's fast, it's frantic. One unique thing about it is as you shoot stuff, power up fly out of it and go to the top of the screen. As they do that, it builds up your speed bar and your goal really is to get that bar spilt up. To go as fast as you can through the game, when you hit your speed bar drops. And you, I guess the other interesting thing is stuff that goes off of one side of the screen whether it's going left to right or right to left, will wrap back around to the other side of the screen. So although you you're only looking at one part of one screen really stuff is passing you by and showing up on the other side power up when you shoot the amount of things might end up going back the other direction and come behind you and you can collect them that way. There's some interesting things here again the amount of sprites on the screen is impressive. You're shooting starfish, smiley faces, but it's kind of a the again very small sprites on screen not terribly visually impressive outside of the number of things going on and my first playthrough I think I lost one life and completed the game but I think that's how it's more less designed because it just said hey here's your time completing the game it was like 11 and a half minutes and it's like you can do faster you can do better so a game I guess you're really trying to see how quickly you can beat it is really what you're getting at there. Again it's fun I'm glad it's on here one thumb up again just kind of like flap happy I'm not sure if I would ever go back to it but if it's something that really stuck with you you know I definitely kind of zoned out after about seven eight minutes and was about ready to shut it off when I apparently beat the game at 11 and a half minutes or so. So next one and these first three are all very similar in the in the kind of the vibe before me this is called machine cave I think this is one I could get into more so than the first two it is another NES game it is another game where you are dealing with very small sprites however this is kind of a flip screen game so you are a small triangle really spaceship and if you've ever played games like thrust or space taxi this has kind of that vibe right you have gravity pulling down and you are trying to thrust your spaceship up the screen and over and in kind of using very light touch thrust your way around the map there's walls and kind of a labyrinth you're working your way through what I do like about this game is you're not trying to void every wall you can bounce off of some walls and be fine there are spikes though so so you have to keep that in mind there is moving enemies and you're not just trying to drop people off all a space taxi you are you are looking to collect certain things in certain orders and as you get through different parts of this the screens you must have to draw yourself a map on graph paper because maybe you go left in this screen and you get to a screen where you can go up or down then you have to find your way there and see where that takes you so this is definitely game I think you can sink your teeth into drawing little maps what I like about it as well is you don't just die when you get hit you lose a health point I think you have five health points and so many lives although you can get more lives as you play and then you have ammo which is unique I didn't play enough this game to know the full scope of maybe with the ammo and the quote unquote weapon can do I think you can get different weapons and use them but you start with a very simple I guess you it's not a weapon but they that uses ammo and basically it stops your momentum right where you're at so you can be working through a really difficult patch and you're like oh man I'm almost through but I'm moving too fast you can hit the fire button your your ship just stops and then slowly gravity starts taking over again so you can use that to your to your benefit I think this is one that that you can sink your teeth into and of the first three games I've mentioned I could see this one being one that people wouldn't would the right person would enjoy I would give this a this game at least one thumb up maybe again two for somebody who really enjoys like a space taxi but wants a bigger experience right a longer experience maybe likes to pull out graph paper and work through a game that way the next game on the list is called pliak pliak pliak this is another game from old towers it's old towers right which has made a number of these both and you usually make an NES and a Genesis version of these games they're easy these kind of puzzle platformer but more puzzly games and this one is no different you are this little character has a special ability that he can duplicate himself but really what you're doing when you you are a very boxy square character kind of in these levels that that are side on I think about single screen platformer if you will although I think there are levels that are more than one screen they do scroll a little bit but they are one level and your goal is to get all the keys on the level unlock a door go through that door escape the level but you only have the ability to duplicate yourself I think it is 12 times and when you duplicate yourself what you do is you leave your old self behind it's blue and you appear on top of it so naturally you end up creating these ladders right if you duplicate duplicate yourself four times you're going to be five blocks high in the air and that might get you to the next platform where you need to grab a key or two so you're strategically trying to figure out how you navigate the level dropping where you need to build yourself back up where you need to find indoors that take you certain places when you need to and there's another fun twist where if you die on spikes and this comes in handy a lot in this game you need it to solve some of these puzzles if you fall on spikes you leave your dead body there it also turns blue but it does not use any of your duplication ability you don't lose anything so you can fall on spikes die respond back to the level and use that block you left behind to build upon now this one is this is good one if you like puzzle games you are going to like this game it is really well done I'm actually not a puzzle fan and I played through this one again kind of like the other old towers games this game I was able to beat it pretty quickly I want to say I beat this one and if I had to guess 30 minutes I'm sorry I've been saying old towers this whole time because that is one of their other games this is by retro souls so I apologize for going down that rabbit hole but yes this is by retro souls now if you've ever played any other other games you will definitely recognize this one as a game of their ilk this game apparently was also released on the spectrum which is cool the ZX spectrum and the out here it is sure enough old towers NES Famicom release released Ringo also on the spectrum tiny dungeons termaligned there's there's they are pretty prolific yazzy is another good one so if you like those types of games you will like this one as well out of the was it far for I've mentioned so far this is kind of a highlight of the bunch I would say this is one of the better games on this cart although again only 30 minutes or so the next game I want to cover on here is a game called Superfinger it is a 16 bit game although I am going to be honest with you I'm gonna pause right now and do some research so yeah after doing a quick google search there I did confirm this is an out I was gonna say felt like to me a super Nintendo game somehow Genesis games definitely feel different to me than a super Nintendo game I wasn't able to get too far on this one or play it too much I will be honest I had to watch a video to kind of see some gameplay without digging into it too much and giving it much time I found this would be extremely hard I could not even beat a level but ultimately it is like a top-down game of chase on a on I guess different kind of landscapes the first level for example definitely looks like a creepy garden at night and you're being chased by these two I don't know what they are little fuzzy purple things and it kind of the game describes itself as game of chase so you're running around trying to work your way through these different maps with obstacles and things in the way but ultimately you just don't want to get tagged by these two little blue things you're trying to collect all the bubbles on the map and you can be one of three characters and octopus a kind of creepy death-looking character or a blue duck and I think each one of those characters has kind of one ability right so it's more or less a one button game I believe I found to be very difficult although it looks really good and it definitely gives me gameplay is completely different but the top-down view and just kind of overall look of it feels very zombies ate my neighbors so your mileage may vary to me real quick again this is another one one thumbs up I guess as opposed to to two I might try to go back to this one see if I can get into it more now I know a little bit more about the game that'll probably help me but that's kind of where I landed on super finger going back the other direction here we've got gumball in trick-or-treat land this is an RPG it is definitely a Game Boy color game you can tell just by the chunky thick graphics but it is in color. And I actually did try to place one a little bit. It's kind of a super simple rough round the edges. Super wacky where nothing makes sense. RPG you are around, I guess, gumball with legs. And you have these kind of turn-based final fantasy-esque battles with candy corns and things. I think this is definitely just a game somebody created around the Halloween time and made a little RPG out of it. I noticed that almost every time you had a battle it's kind of worth going back and saving. It's kind of I would say it's kind of tedious. Again, whoever made it is probably a one person build and obviously they put some time and effort in love into this one. But it's kind of a ho-hum kind of mix. It's funky. It's definitely kind of funky and fun. And I think you can do a lot worse things with your time. But all in all, it's kind of a fun little one to have on the cart but definitely not one I would recommend necessarily to anybody. Next on the list, this is actually the game that they, you know, whenever they do a cartridge, they may ever cade and mega-cat as well as indie heroes. They kind of put the most prominent game, they put that character on the front of the cart as big as possible. In this game the big picture is this panda with these sunglasses on referencing this game which is Rocket Panda. So obviously when I got to this one, I'm like, all right, this is the one, right? indie heroes 4 has a red donut dodo which I absolutely love that game. Definitely worthy of being the front box character. You know, indie heroes 2 has the the tapeworm from that game. So this one's got Rocket Panda. This is a Genesis game. Again, as soon as you start playing, it just feels like a Genesis game. It feels chunky and pretty smooth. And it's got those that Genesis FM synth soundtrack going here. Definitely succeeds on being a pretty polished game. And it's interesting because this one is also another play on the, on the whole flappy bird slash, you know, space taxi vibe, right? It is a side-on view where you are a Rocket Panda, a panda with a rocket tide to his back. And you are traversing these multi-screen levels, essentially trying to collect a number of different things. There's these little roundout and if they're bagels or donuts or something that you can, apparently they're biscuit side-on. Collecting these things, you can collect cups of coffee up to three cups of coffee. They're going to allow you to do a quick charge which you might need to defeat some enemies that pop up. There's spikes on walls. There's fans that can blow you around. There's walls that you need to break through. And so you have to make sure you have enough coffee collected to break through the walls. Coffee does reappear if needed. This is a fun one. This is a good one. I can see why it's their kind of marquee game for this collection. A lot of pink and blue in this one. So just very happy colors, very vibrant. You can also collect all of these little baby pandas. So there's definitely a cute mascot element to it. Is it as good as I was hoping it was considering kind of the highlight of this game on this package? I will say no. I was little, I'm not going to say let down. But it was not the super high bar I was hoping as far as like all this game's awesome. I really want to play it. I think I will go back to this one. But while I was playing these games in kind of like over two days, I didn't feel the need to stick around with this one this time. But I think I will go back and see if I can't complete Rocket Panda just on a one day with a couple of beers and sit with it for a while. I think it is worth coming back on. I will give it the two thumbs up. But it's not a nine out of ten or a ten out of ten. Maybe a seven or eight is where I would give this game. So I know I'm leaving my Cisco and Ebert scale. A thumb and a half up, I guess, something to that effect. Next one that pops up here is a game called the Metin and that's M-E-A-T-I-N-G Super unique concept here. You are a Minator and I guess your name is Constantinus. And right in the opening credit scenes, it's an NES game by the way. It has a very you know the look to it is very Ninja Gaiden. It's kind of these dark blacks and reds. But you're a Minator that before you even start playing, there's these really cool cutscenes in the story where you get catfish. You get set up on a date. It turns out it's a butcher who apparently a butcher with a cleaver can defeat a Minator. And you are hacked up into different parts. And each level is you trying to get a part of your body back. So what I love about it is the style of the game. The way it looks. Your map as you play through the game. You see a side-on picture of a bovine, a cow with all the different cuts of meat. And so you start the first level is called the head. And you are literally just ahead bouncing around. And as you beat each level, you get a part of your body back. You slowly build. So it's really funky. But it is a puzzle platformer. Ultimately it is what it is. I was hoping it would be a full-on action game. There's some action elements to it. But you are going to fail forward in this game. And just like some of the other games list, you're going to hit that start button a lot to reset the level to try it again. So it is ultimately a puzzle platformer disguised as a really cool gorgeous looking action game. So again, for me, I was excited because I love action games, platformers. I am not a huge fan of puzzle platformers, typically. And this turned out to be one. So for the right person, I think this is going to be a great game. I think for some of the people who grew up with the puzzle collection games on the spectrum or the old commoner 64, this might be right up your alley for someone like me who feels like an Nintendo game means Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden or Mega Man. It looks so good. It looks like it's going to be about that, but it's not that. So just expect that. Again, for the right person, maybe you recommend for me a one thumb up game as well. Although you've got the theme about it and the music and everything about it is really well done. So I would say a very highly polished game for the right person. All right, eight down two to go. This next one is called Kuzu Kuzu Kuzu. This game is listed as an action game on the website. I did not give this one its fair due to to be blunt. You start is very much an RPG, at least to start. I probably put 15 minutes in this game. It is a Game Boy game. So it's got that the the black and greens. And I will say this is a very polished game. When I saw a name, excuse me, a name like Kuzu, I thought it might just be a thrown together, you know, kind of lower end home, lower end home bro game. I can just tell the graphics the way they put things together, music. There's a lot of screens just in the 15 minutes I played a lot of NPCs to talk to. I didn't get past that. It does list this game as a story driven action adventure. So if that sounds good to you, this game might be more than I'm explaining it to be. But after 15 minutes without seeing any action just talking to people, I did give up on it. I'll be blunt with you. I know Eric and I both kind of struggle with story driven games. I like story games, but when you're spending all your time talking to people on reading before you can get to the gameplay, I don't I ain't got time for that. Now that being said, I just hopped on YouTube to watch kind of videos or other reviews of this full game as a gameboy release. The video further on looks excellent. It does look like it would be what I would consider an action RPG kind of Zelda-esque. And again, the fit and finish of this game is really well done. So unofficial review because I did not actually play it. I played that portion of it. I just felt the quality of it and then saw future gameplay of the action. I think this is going to be a really good one honestly. And I'm going to go back and play this one. I'm going to get past the the introductory introductory RPG portion of it and hop into this action portion. So I think this could be another highlight from this particular collection if I gave it the chance. Alright, one last game here and this game is a good I'm gonna say it looks like a Genesis game it feels like a Genesis game It is a game called grab the bots and in fact why I talk to you here I am going to do a quick Google search on that to see if I can confirm my suspicions Yes, it is a Sega Mega Drive and Genesis game and of course it is also by retro souls so the second retro souls game on this collection and I will be blunt with you right now I did save this one for last because It is a puzzle game a puzzle platformer kind of a really platformer puzzle game But I played all the way through I really enjoyed my time with this game the visuals are excellent the music is excellent It is not a long game. I want to say I beat this one in under an hour But I again just like every retro souls game. I have played their They're they're short, but it is very good. It was I had a great time with it. It's hard to explain but you are a Character in kind of this I can only describe it as these levels that almost look like you're inside of a machine And there's pipes going everywhere and there's blocks and Basically the blocks When enemies are walking around the blocks will shoot the enemy and And have them flip gravity so if they're in one section one room and they touch a block They will if they were on the floor now they're gonna flip upside down jump up to the ceiling stick to the ceiling and You are able to do the same thing but whenever you want you can flip your own Gravity you will learn that there's certain characters that will just walk on a loop and just kind of you know exactly where they're gonna go There's other enemies like like the yellow ones where when you flip cap gravity. They're gonna flip as well You kind of get to the feel of the game, but the goal is to Get all those enemies to find their way into spikes and Eliminate all the enemies without of course getting eliminated yourself and you do so by flipping gravity and you can move Certain blocks of certain colors It does a really good job of Starting you simple and teaching you the game as you play I think outside of telling you what the two buttons do it doesn't need to tell you anything else You just learn it which is the best way to do it my opinion and for me this was the highlight of the collection grababots So that's all 10 games on the mega cat studios collection three. I was able to play through all of the ones see one grababots Gunter Pliyuck 1 2 3 I guess just the three games that I was able to play all the way through already and got a good chunk of these other ones With some time in them and I did so in about two days. So not a huge lengthy collection Although I could see Kudzu taking up some time and rocket panda being when I go back to as well so That is kind of my overview of mega cat studios collection three if it sounds good to you pick it up give it a shot and Or if you really like some of these games you can always go to mega cat website and buy the official cartridges for the the systems that they were originally made for That means that next time one of these collections comes out I will make sure to cover it here on Cody's corner because I do love me some physical indie collections on the evercade Right Eric and I are gonna bring you the hard hitting up to date current events Going on the world of retro gaming starting with a game that has come out for the Amiga Now there's a lot of games that come out for the Amiga I typically don't mention them unless they are out I believe this one is actually out you can buy it now I'm confirming that By going on the itch.io page Game created by copper bite games and it is called iron rails I have not given it a shot myself But the reason I wanted to cover this one Eric is it is a board game that has been adapted for the Amiga And it is the I can tell what game it is yeah without saying it specifically it is ticket to ride which is a great It kind of intro to Modern Euro style board games for a lot of people yeah, we used to play it a lot. We don't play it as much anymore But man we used to play it a lot Yeah, it's a fun one so it's gonna kind of watching it and I love the It looks great. They've got some great splash greens looks like a pretty easy interface music sounds pretty good a lot of text at least kind of explaining the game If you don't know ticket to ride I don't know how easy it is to learn the instructions this way But as far as the actual gameplay it looks great Mm-hmm in fact I was watching the video on Indie Retro news and unfortunately just watching the gameplay that's on here by Saberman You can tell Saberman had not played it before and was kind of learning on the fly here But it's a great card game a board game about On your turn you can either draw cards or you can Play cards and build routes that you're trying to get across the United States or from different cities within the United States and and build towards Points for completing routes, but you also have overall trips in your hand that you're trying to complete without the other player knowing what that trip is so it's you versus one two three other players and I just looks it looks great. So I Want to give this one a shot? Yeah It looks great. I am a big fan of ticket to ride and I'm also More appropriately here. I'm a fan of like board games on computers. I actually have had very good luck with Like board game translations onto computers and just having a blast with them. So yeah, I'm looking forward to trying it Absolutely unfortunately Mm-hmm. I believe it is pal only in that if I remember correctly is the reason I have not played with it yet although The the Amiga the Amiga mini and hopefully the new one that should be coming out here not too much longer is getting close to the new full-size Amiga that's being released Will of course be able to do both pal games and NTSC so That'll make it that much easier, but it is a free download. I'm pretty sure if you hit download you can donate But they're obviously not allowed to ask for money because it's not an officially licensed product Right, but there we go. I have breaking news. Oh, oh, and news is broken breaking news And this wasn't in our news. So I'm gonna tell you now So you're not disappointed because it's based on what you just said. Okay, the Amiga 1200 maxi oh no is been delayed till December I'm surprised that isn't in our news. I looked through here and I was like oh no because I heard it on it two other podcasts and I've read about it So it's confirmed They their excuse was the operating system isn't ready yet That doesn't make sense Well, because it's you would think it would be based on the mini right like that It's gonna be so similar to the mini that they would just use that but They are I think making an effort to Have workbench bootable. So it's actually a usable You know Amiga because it has a full-size keyboard and everything they want to get that workbench working right That's what they said so anyway, but it is delayed until December so Eric you just Did I break your heart you just uh, yeah, you stole my mojo You harshed my Malo Flattened your tire. Oh man. Sorry man That's like the one thing that's coming out soon. I'm like yes I have a list right up here on my whiteboard right next to me and it's like list of things coming out like the vectrax And I have the Amiga right there and like yeah, it's the Amiga was right at the top of my list I'm like, well, at the bottom of your list now It's at the bottom now and you the ones that are most offered like my superstation one which I love cross that off Yeah Although the superstations you crossed off because you got it because I got it. That's right. I got dessert that deserves a Yeah Well, there we go iron rails for the Amiga. Yeah I'm up next bar I'm not typically into upscalers and I know that uh Our our boy Timmy boy is uh much more into upscalers and things like that But this is something that is alluring to me because it is in the realm of purchase ability if that is a word Because the it's only like about 200 bucks um build to extract the best possible image from your consoles pixel fx announces the 200 dollar Morph 2k upscaler Eventually all of our CRTs are gonna die and don't don't do that. I know - You know, I didn't go there. - Exactly. And even my purchase of the Super Station One, which was solely to use on a CRT, I dread the day that my sweet Toshiba flat panel right there, that one, flat two, wait, I can't even move my arm in the right way. - I see, I get the gist. - That tube TV is my favorite CRT of all time. It is the same model, not the same exact one, but the same model that I had in my first apartment. I love that thing. The only downside to it is its NTSC only. - Well, most CRTs are either just. - Yeah, almost CRTs can buy here. Yeah, my little PVM over here is, we'll basically take anything, PAL, NTSC, it is a matter. But eventually all those will die, and I do want to find something that is basically like a Swiss Army knife of ways to connect it to a modern TV. That everything looks good on it. This thing looks like it's gonna be part of that answer at least because they're putting a lot of thought and effort into this device. By the way, this is on time extension, the link will be in our show notes. It's a slick look in box. It's got a kind of a 3D printed case on it, so it's not just some bare circuit board. It'll take just about, think about whatever inputs you want, and then the output goes to an HDMI, and this thing will do it. And whatever, it just takes it and handles it. I think this is a really cool thing. I mean, it'll take a scar. It'll take a scar. - It's unique for us in America, so. - Yep. - What I don't see is I don't see, I don't see composite on here. I see component, I don't see composite. - I think composite is part of it. - Yeah, it might kind of share those ports. I've seen a view that where it shares the ports with the component. - Says, "Support Composite." Yep, S-Video, "Scarlet Component" and VGA. So yeah, maybe it does share them, interesting. - Yep. - Cool. - So I don't know. I haven't invested heavily in things like upscores. I have a RetroTink, which is great. But it's a very small, it's one of the, like lower end models of the RetroTinks. - I have a RetroTink and the only reason I have is for the very few videos that I wanted to do some capture with. - Yeah. - Yep. Cool for those that like it. Again, not, not, harsh in your Mallow or anybody else's Mallow, but this is just upscaling is the least interesting thing to me. I have no interest in it whatsoever. Outer, outer, outer, outer. And my concern don't always be, and I'm sure this will do a great job of it, is always just inducing any lag whatsoever. I don't want it. That's why I love SCART. - I love SCART. - I love CRTs. So I could care less if the image was fuzzy or imperfect as long as the gameplay is intact, I'm happy. So it does say this will go up to 2K, unlike some of the higher end boxes that cost a lot more to your point that can do 4K. So if you can really tell the difference between upscaled 2K and 4K from your old 480. - And I can't remember. - 320 by 240 video coming out of that. - See that first line item, ultra low latency with both frame lock and buffered modes. So they are trying their best to make a great device so that you can play your old consoles on modern thing. Honestly, to me, like I would love this for something like Saturn, Dreamcast, PlayStation, stuff like that. I'm happy with my NES, SNES, those kind of things on my CRTs. - I can see that. - Even though my PS2 looks fantastic on CRTs. So I don't know, this isn't something I think this wouldn't be classified in something that I need. It's just something that someday I could see being an important thing to want. And when things like this come out, it forces the price on it. Because I've seen these things go for $600. - Yeah. - And I'm not buying one for that. But I think Tim has one that's somewhere in the middle. - Yeah. - Yeah, anyway, people listening that, yeah, are all about this thing. So. - I thought this news would be great for just game players in general, especially people who don't want to collect CRTs. - It does look good, which a lot of these things don't. So that's cool. I want to get it three printed orange and black, Eric. Me too. Me too. - Draw me read this from Tim. Since you got the next one. - Sure. - Zippy race Amiga port has been completed by Demetris Gianakis. I nailed it. - Yes, sir. - Nailed it. Or better known as YouTuber, modern vintage gamer, MVG. He has been vlogging the development of the port across to the Amiga on his channel. And it is now complete for us to play over honoursitch.io site. And Tim has included the link, which will be in our show notes. - There's Zippy race. - Yeah, there's Zippy race. Looks like a big chunky spy hunter style game. - Well, sure. - I'm motorcycle. - Yeah, there's like a motorcycle, which looks more like, what is that? Were you punching and stuff? - Roadrash. - Roadrash, yeah. So this has got different modes, doesn't it? - Top down and then into the screening, I guess it would be the two, yeah. Just have, yeah, it looks like you just accelerate and break. I'm not familiar with this game, but apparently this is an arcade from 1983 that is now coming, oh, by Iron, that's interesting. We'll be talking about Iron later. Yeah, very kind of bright. And I was like, garish colors. Yeah, I'm not familiar with it, but I'm sure some of our listeners sure are. - Yeah, yeah. So there it is. Looks like it's ready to go too, right? - Very cool. All right, this is probably the biggest, maybe it's some other stuff, but maybe the biggest news, confirmed news at least, we'll get to that shortly, this month. And when I saw this, it was out of nowhere. I love when things like this happen out of nowhere, but we talked about the Evercade a lot, and Evercade is made by Blaze. They have another company outside of the Evercade line of products called HyperMegatech. They came out with some, that company was created for some kind of off-shoot stuff, although in my opinion, that's really just more Evercade stuff, but this is truly something else. They have come out out of the blue with a pair of new handhelds based on classic micro computers. We have the C64 handheld and the Spectrum handheld. Now it's interesting to me, these are both called, again, we've had the C64 mini and the C64, and we've had a recreation of the Spectrum, both created by, oh, what's the company that made those air? - Yeah, RetroTech, RetroTech limited. - But they are using that name, the Spectrum and the C64 handheld. - And the logo looks the same. - Yeah, yeah, that's cool. - RetroGame's limited. This is hypermega-tec. And this one's being released by hypermega-tec. So not sure, didn't do our research to see if there is anything connected to. - Like, like, a few? - Yeah, 'cause is there like some kind of like synergy between the two companies, but even the logo, look at the logo, looks exactly the same. - Oh yeah, it's very similar. And I'm trying to run through their whole thing here to see if they're like, we are working in conjunction. Oh, here we go. The, yeah, yeah, we're very bottom. Blaze Entertainment, the C64 and the Spectrum are registered trademarks of RetroGame's limited. So yes, they are working together to release this product, which I think is cool because Evercade obviously has a years now of producing hardware in a nice distribution model, except for in America. So anyways, what are these things? They are Nintendo DS style handheld, or it's a clamshell, you flip open. The top is, of course, your screen. And the bottom has a D-pad and a four-way pad of buttons. They actually are more or less the same physical hardware for the most part with some slight tweaks, but the color combination and form changes a little bit. The, the, the spectrum is of course black, has a red D-pad, has your squishy looking dead flesh keys on top, which I really love for some of the options. And, and that it switches on on the side with a red light on the side, which is where it is on the spectrum, I believe. And then the C64 version of it is, of course, a beige with gray D-pad and buttons. Your buttons on the top say F1, F3, F5, F7. And you have your power button power light on the top of the bottom portion of the clamshell that makes sense. Both of these do include 25 built-in games and you have a micro SD card slot so you can add stuff. What do you think about this, Eric? - I think they're neat. I like that companies are doing stuff like this. That price is a little spicy. I don't know if that's that far out of the realm of possibility. I mean, things are just more expensive these days, so I'm not going to fault that. I have so many ways to play this stuff, including all my anbernicks and stuff that I can play any of these on those as well. They have it all built in. But there is something very cool about this. So I don't know, I like it, but I don't know if I can pull the trigger at that price. Honestly, if it was both of these for $129, I'd do it. Yeah, it's weird, because when I first saw this, I'm like, that is amazing. They look so cool. I love them. The price is probably realistically where it should be considering marketing everything. But I agree, because I know I'm not physically going to play them. And as cool as the other minis I've bought just literally to put on the shelf to look at, these when you fold them up are just little squares. And if I left them with the screen open, they wouldn't have any of the, you know, game is doing anything on the screen, which is half the effect of what makes these things look so cool. Yeah, I think for me, they are missed. But I think it's an awesome product. Yeah, me too. I do want one, but I'm not going to spend, you know, $260 before tax and shipping on them. Yeah. So I did see some discussion online. And that was what it was one of my first thoughts when I saw the spectrum one. It smacks of the, I don't know if you remember this, the ZX Spectrum Vega. Yep. That was right when I first learned about what the spectrum was that was on the horizon. Yeah. It really looks like a modern interpretation of the Vega, which I think that did come to market, but it didn't sell that many or maybe it didn't. I don't think it was notoriously awful. Yeah, it was notoriously awful. So it's cool that maybe they're going to come out with one that actually gets it right. But yeah, it's just kind of a miss for me to just, it man, if this was, if he's going on sale ever, I'll get one. It's a, I think they're cool, but it's too expensive for me. I think they will sell well though. I think there's a lot of people. This is going to hit the right. And to be fair, I think a lot of the stuff that hyper mega tech, this particular brand from Blaze has been putting out has really been aimed more at the casual retro gamer or, you know, I could see this on the, on the stores at what all these are trying to think of stores that are big in Europe. Yeah, all these is one of them. Yeah. Okay. As opposed to, I think it's less for the American market. So I think it's a long shot from us really being able to get one of these without paying. Mm-hmm. You know, by the time we get into our house, probably 180 bucks. So. Right. The only thing with hyper mega tech though is they do sell some stuff here in the US. I mean, I did get my Capcom from hyper mega tech like it was used, but it was here in the US. Yeah. So like I got my handheld here. So there's a good chance this one will be available here through Amazon. So I don't know what we'll have to wait and see. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Again, those hyper mega tech like the one you bought is I think very a casual gamer thing. It's a very casual. Yeah. That's why I'm surprised this came out because that's like a $60 price point. This is double that. Yeah. So. All right. So I wanted to put this one in the news because I found it intriguing. It's a little kind of juicy rumor, a little nugget, if you will. Play on, you know, has announced the Neo Geo AES Plus, which everyone's raving about and we, some of us might get that, right? Did you pre-order? Oh, we will be talking about that and catching up Eric. Okay. Let's catch it. Great product. I love it. I would love to participate if I could free up some cash. Just play on it, you know, but there was a little blurb from them that it sounds like play on has another console in the works following the Neo Geo AES Plus. They didn't say what it is, but I'm trying to find it in your link here. Where do they hint at this? Ah, right here. Yep. So this is straight from timeextension.com. If you don't mind me just reading this, then I'll let you. No, please, because it's a little small on the screen. I can't read it. So go ahead. This is talking about a guy named Joe Tega who is involved with play on and the Neo Geo. Yep. He says while he says he isn't involved with any, don't know what that means, he admits he knows play on has another machine in the works. Ooh, maybe a little slip, a little juicy slip. He says, I know there's another machine on the way. Okay, but I can't say more. I think the guys from play on are going to give us more joy. Yes. So the reason I slapped this in the news is I want us to wildly speculate. So you need to have no idea what it could be. Okay. No idea, but let's guess or hope. Let's guess or hope what it could be. Go ahead. Go. And by the way, let's think about this. Let's do this intelligently, Cody. The Neo Geo uses all off the shelf parts. So they didn't have to go make too many custom chips or anything to throw in this Neo Geo. And that's a fact. I've read it in the specs. So what other machine can you think of that could be built with a lot of off the shelf parts that would make a lot of people happy. I have a guess, but I want you to go. Okay. Well, this is where your mind's going. Okay. I'll pop the shelf thing. Yeah. Especially after the success of this, I can see where you're going with that. I'm trying to look real quick at what other items play on has developed. Okay. I'm trying to go on their website here because I don't want to miss any obvious ones. No, this is. So play on does a lot of stuff. So play on replay specifically is the retro gaming arm of play on. That's where I want to be looking. So let me take a look here real quick. Okay. So they did help produce. Yeah. The television sprint. The spectrum. We just talked about the spectrum. So they were the ones that produced that. Yeah. The Intellivision sprint for Atari. They are doing of course the Neo Geo and the a 1200, which we just said is being pushed back. Again, pour one out for from the homies. So play on is a UK company. Yes, yes. They are. They did the Intellivision. They did the Omega a 1200 off the shelf parts was not involved in those two. That's true. Yeah. The Neo Geo was and it had huge success. I'm starting to lean towards maybe an Amstrad device. Okay. It's very conservative. Okay. It's conservative. I think of anything else that would sell Atari Jaguar. I don't think it has the potential. I don't think it has the fervor behind it for a lot of people. That's where I was going more towards like that genre, but I'll tell you mine. Give me one more second here. Let's check my shelf. Yeah. Something they can make money off of. Dreamcast would be amazing. Saturn wouldn't be a good strategy for. It just wasn't big in the Western market. It was big in Japan and it had very complicated chips. Yeah. It was a complicated architecture. So I don't think there are anybody's chomping at the bit to replicate that. You know, there's no. For me, the best guest is going to be the Amstrad CPC of some sort. I think it's a good guess. I think people are chomping at the bit for Dreamcast. Okay. So you are thinking Dreamcast as well. I agree, actually, as far as demand. Yeah. I just want to take note. We got to note this episode because if we're right, I'm just going to two my own horns. I haven't heard that anywhere. I won't get any credit for it, but between. You heard me go through my shelf and mention the Dreamcast because I know that we want that people want. People have been talking about the Dreamcast, too, forever. Forever. And it has all off the part shelves, like off the shelf parts. Okay. It literally ran Windows CE. It was all just. Okay. Yeah. Pretty open architecture to the point that everyone just copied games and. Yep. And it has a library of games that are very Dreamcast-centric, very specific to Dreamcast, your jet grind radio or jet set radio, depending. Your crazy taxi, your sonic adventure. Yeah. It's got a lot of stuff locked on the Dreamcast locked now, but yeah, I could see. that being a huge one. That's the pixel guidance guess lock. If we get that right. If we come on draft Kings, we got a lock. We got a lock. Pick play on to release the Dreamcast Plus. They can make new memory cards. There's a whole market. Why is it even if they just they could bundle it with all those new VMUs that are coming out and new controllers like from retro fighter. I mean, you could. Well, they make their own stuff. I mean, they make their own. Yeah. And they make full size hardware and they make it very accurate to the original hardware. Actually, I'm just don't it don't know me. Yeah. This Neo Geo is absolutely that. But the intelligence print is that as well. It is. And the a 1200 is full size as close to me as possible. Haven't seen it yet. But that is the case. That's right. Okay. I like that. That would be amazing. And they would sell the crap out of that thing. Oh, they would. I think they would. But they have not done a CD based system. Nope. Guess we'll find out. Interesting. Cool. Good one. I like it. Food for thought, if you will. I'm going to be Tim. This is a new Atari ST platform. We don't talk about ST very much. I still do not have an ST. Oh, one system I do not have yet. And I hate to say it, Eric. It's not one I've ever been terribly pressed to get. Otherwise, I probably would have one. I think part of that too is I do want one. But there's multiple versions of it. And I don't know enough. I can't. Haven't been driven to pick the right one. I know you got like the 520 and then there's a bigger one. And then there's the ST. Yeah, 1040 ST. Yeah, I want to say this kind of like the most universal kind of like the a 1200 for Amiga's. Yep. I believe that's the one I have. I have the ST and it's fantastic. Okay. I'm not even asked you the last time you loaded it up Eric. It's been sitting in a crate over there because when I do need to pop in the Atari ST, the mister does a really good job of the Atari ST. Well, I'm potentially excited. I have not seen this yet. But Tim gave us some links. So I'm getting a video going here. It's called Miracle Boy in Dragon Land. It's by Sam soft. Apparently this was first released in 2024 and has just been updated. So not new, but new to us sure is to me. He says it looks like an ST game worth checking out. Free to download. It is 15 pounds, but you know what? In my opinion, Eric, that's a plus because the games that they are able to charge money for are usually very much worth it. Yeah, definitely. So let's take a look at Miracle Boy in Dragon Land. The video we're watching apparently is a demo for version 0.78. It starts with some good look in cutscenes here. There's a splash screen and sure enough, it is very Miracle Boy looking. It looks like on the Sega master system, the Miracle Boy games. I say Miracle Boy. Is it Miracle Boy? Yeah. Yeah. Miracle Boy. Yeah. It's very colorful like very primary colors, very bright. Yeah. It looks great. It looks like a great platformer. It looks like a master system game. Yeah. That could be a solid one. Yeah. Looks good. Something to play on the on the old ST there. The links will be in our show notes for the itch.io place. If you want to go check that out. 15 bucks is a deal. 15 pounds. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's like 22 bucks. Exactly. I don't know why you did. I'll check the itch.io. Oh, he said I'm sorry, Eric. We were both wrong, including all three of us. Tim. Okay. It said 15 pounds. It's 15 euros. Oh, well, okay. I don't even know what I mean by doing that. It's 15 euros. What is 15 euros? Like like $600? I have no idea. No, I think it's pretty close to pounds as far as the US exchange rate right now. Obviously, it changes slightly here and there. But yeah, cool. Yeah, especially if you like Miracle Boy games. I haven't been able to tell if this is a new game or if it's a it's not a port. Is it? It looks like a new game in the Miracle Boy style, but also called Miracle Boy. You can download a demo if you want to try it first, Eric. So I always love when they do that because that way you can say, all right, is it worth my 15 euros or is it not in the demo? You get the first three levels of the game of the 19 total and five bosses that you full game has. So. Gotcha. Give it a shot. Eric, you've got the spectrum titles for us. I do, but the link I know I put the link in here, but it is not it must be I think it got shuffled around in our next. I can pull it up. I I could find it. Okay. So there are two new ZX Spectrum games, which I'm always eager to take a look at. Love Spectrum games. This one is from Indie Retro news. Super hair to revenge of the wizard. And it's for the first time. Super hair goes isometric in this news that expression game from microchops. Oh. Sorry. When what you know, I know your kryptonite is timers. My kryptonite is isometric. Okay. I hear that and I go. Yeah, let me find a my super hair to actually play. I did play the first super hair. Oh, you did. Yeah. I well, somebody I've tried it. Yeah. Yeah, I blew it because I don't know what happened to my links in here. I know I put them in here. Here's super hair to revenge of the wizard. Yeah, the first one you were you're literally looks like a worm, but I guess it's a hair with eyes that just kind of walks around. Yeah. The first one was very much a spectrum platformer. Got your typical kind of spectrum platformer, which 60 to 70% of new releases are that type of game. If you love that type of game, you are in heaven right now. Yeah. But yeah, this is very much a it looks great. It is very much a isometric game in the in the style of, you know, Batman on the spectrum or head over heels or any of those kind of grid based isometric. I guess you can call the platformer. I don't know what you call that isometric. Collect them up. I can't deal with this style game. That's my issue. But got your I just put the link I put the link back in the show notes. I think it was Tim that kind of messed up my notes here, but we'll forgive him. We'll forgive him. We'll also blame him publicly on their show. Exactly. What do you like this type of game? Have you been in the club? Okay. I can. There are there are some games like this like at a attack, which I do like I enjoyed playing that. I don't think this plays like out of the attack. I think it's a different style game. I think you're right. I think this is more of the it's almost like those platformers where the enemies just move back and forth and you just have to dodge around them. But in an isometric way, whereas at a attack or just enemies that actually will seek you out, come at you. You know what I mean? There's like a difference between. So I think this is more kind of like that. Yeah. It's very head over heels and Batman again or the two that come to mind. I know there's a lot of games of this style on the spectrum. Yeah. And the cool. And the funny thing is that Tim totally screwed up my notes. The second game because I said two games. Yeah. The second one is a little further down. It's called a mouse's a mouse life to escape from science lab. Oh, there it is. Yep. Let's pull that one up. Yep. So I'll have to fix my notes here. But this one looks a little better. I think if you don't like that other style, this is definitely not an isometric. This is just kind of a little platformer that's more in the, you know, Monty Mole style kind of play playing. I don't know. It looks pretty cool. Yeah. It looks like fun little is that expected game. The colors let us hear mouth. Yeah. There's spiders collecting something over there. Not sure what it is. Mouse's life to I don't I don't remember the first one. I don't either. A lot of spectrum stuff I need to catch up on honestly. Yeah. So that's it. That's my two ZX spectrum games. Gotcha. All right. I was excited to show. I'm excited to show you this one. Okay. So I think I've mentioned it in a previous episode. Maybe not. But this is out available with the free demo now. So I would highly suggest that everyone give this a shot if they can. If you remember, Revolo, it's a vaguely. I do remember, but it vaguely. So I remember him from and I'll pull it up here in a second. I'm going to call Revolo. I don't know if it's like Revolo. I believe it is. is French. I apologize if I'm wrong on that. Oh, yeah, like the ASCII game. Yeah, I remember this. So really quick for revolver the one, if you remember that logo there, revolver snowboarding in on the MSX is one of my favorite MSX games. I played so much of that. Do you remember playing? I don't remember. I don't remember playing that now. Well, I'm going to take in the way back machine because you need to go buy this game and it's a name your price, you can pay zero, but give it a few bucks. It is into the screen snowboarding game on the MSX. It is so fun. Or you can buy it. I honestly, I might buy the physical version of this game. It's probably the MSX game I put the most time into ever. Is the physical is it a cartridge? It is. Oh man, I don't know. And it comes in MSX cartridge. And it comes in orange. Oh, what? Yeah, I'm in. We might have to put together a go on this website and do an MSX order together and brings some stuff in because anyways, we'll get there. We'll get there. And it has a white one or an orange one plus manual and box. So, man, I might need to jump in on this 30 euros. Anyways, that's not we're talking about. We're talking about as new one, which is called Battle for Askeon, which is like you said, an ASCII game. This is not for the MSX. Most of his games are. I've also played his games, Ninja saver, Ninja saver, savior. I can't say it. Other games we've played on here. I believe British Bob. Anyways, he's got some great MSX stuff. But this is a PC Windows game. And you can download the demo and play it. And it is amazing and solid. It is not built to look like an ASCII game, which is all text based graphics. It is truly built on text. So the scrolling is, you know, it can't it's kind of jerky because it's literally just moving the text forward one character at a time. But you have, it's very grottiest style with enemies and big bosses and space ships to fly through. You have to dodge laser beams and it's a full on game completely done in ASCII text. And it looks amazing. Music is amazing. And definitely worth downloading the demo and giving it a shot on your Windows machine. It looks great. And I love Aske. Or you ask your pet ski games that I think those are really innovative. I think they're a lot of fun. No, it's funny. For whatever reason, the ASCII thing does it for me and the pet ski doesn't. I don't know why. Really? I like pet ski games. I think they're pretty cool. Yep. Just interesting aside. All right. I'm going to be Tim this time. You took the last time. Okay. Because then it's going to be a lot of error. And Tim going back and forth from now on because you guys took most of the news, which is good. So this one is game called gridlocker. It's a new falling block puzzle game, which I love for the Commodore 64. It's in beta testing for all to give a try. It has a twist. Think Tetris meets pipe mania. Tim color me intrigued. I'm going to take a look here at the gameplay demo for gridlocker. And so very black background with kind of almost that expectoram like graphics, honestly. I like it though. I like the little grid. I mean, let's put it through. It is falling block puzzle game. Looks like the part pieces drop down. Two, yeah, two blocks at a time. And the blocks have kind of pipe mania type, you know, pipes going through the center of each block might go straight through or go to the center then turn left or turn right. And I don't know the full scope of what you're trying to do. But you were. It almost looks like electric circuits. I mean, how do you, but how do you clear it? That's what I don't know. This looks very up my alley. Yeah. I'm actually really excited about this. And it's for the C-commoner 64, okay? Yeah, I'm going to be picking this up. All right, let me go. Oh, he just turned everything yellow. Okay, well, I'm in. Is it available now or is it coming soon? No, it's in beta testing. So it says it's in beta. You can buy it now for $5 Canadian, which is like $3.30 American. That's my quick math. I want to see how close close I am right now with today's exchange rate. Sorry, this is fun. Fun for me and nobody else, but $5 Canadian. All right. So that's $5.00 C-A-D-2 USD. Enter. D-s-ness. Oh, look how close it was. $365. I said, you're on it. You're on it, man. I know my exchange rates. Come on now. I would have said $120. That's what I would have said. For what? Yeah. Usually if you can buy stuff in America from Canada, we get a pretty good deal right now. Yeah. I've definitely noticed that. Unless there's tariffs on it, then we're screwed. Yeah, there you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. You can download the beta3 demo. Yeah. But they do have a full purchase for the beta3 as well. So that's what that means necessarily. But there we go. I'm going to give this one a shot. Grid Locker by Studio 8502. So if I'm reading that right, and I think I am, there is a full version that you buy for the $5 Canadian and then there's a demo. You can just download for free. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I think they're both in beta3, so they will both be updated as they continue on. Okay. All right. That's my guess. Cool. Yeah, I like it. It looks very interesting. And my alley too. Just for the fun of that, I want to see what else Studio 8502 has put out. Okay. Um. Looks like a Commodore 64 game called Rowan. Do you remember that one? Rowan. 2D Action RPG. I don't remember that. Another rogue light called Delva 64 and Grid Locker. So three Commodore 64 games. Cool. 8502. It's like 6502, but two more. Deep thoughts with Cody Hoffman. All right. Eric, you got the next one here? I do. And this one is pretty interesting. As you know, I am a big bomberman online fan. I'm laughing because I just found your your mouse life 2 section that got lost. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's Tim. I think I might have messed it up, Eric, honestly. Really? All right. Not even me. So I don't want to be I don't feel free to beat me up. I apologize, Tim. I didn't mean to besmirch your name. I think I screwed that up. Okay. No big deal. Well, after 23 years, bomberman online for Dreamcast is now back online, baby. We're back to up to eight players. Some some dudes or maybe chicks chicks and dudes. I don't know. Do you have to juggle them? Maybe. I don't know. Some people, the server has been created by flying headed farkas, whoever they are. Have been working on this project for a few years after taking the reins from Shu Shuoma. They started the project but struggled to find the missing pieces to complete it. But eventually, I mean, so basically even if the fastest route means you buy a Dreamcast broadband adapter, which members of Dreamcast is one of the first ones to go online so you could play online. But now there is a way to play bomberman online on the Dreamcast up to eight players, which is pretty amazing. Even they've even created an easy connection guide offering newcomers an easy solution to get their Dreamcast and their old games back online. It says get their Dreamcast and their old games. So is this not specific to bomberman? Oh yeah, I mean, I don't know. I figured that they probably had to retrofit bomberman online to go to a specific server using the broadband adapter. So maybe they're retrofitting other online games to try to make it works. Hopefully maybe like propeller arena or something, right? I self-took it that game a shot. But if you've ever played bomberman online, I've loaded it up before. The graphics are pretty cool because they're kind of a little different than some of the other, they're a little more cartoony. But if this gets online, I might have to go looking for a Dreamcast broadband adapter. So the most bomberman I've ever played was on was bomberman 64. And I remember playing that at a buddy's house. I'd never played I played bomberman before but by myself. And I never thought of it as a party game, even though it's purely a party game. Oh, purely. Yeah. And it had for controller ports because it's until 64. And yeah, it had so much fun playing on that. And of course, this is going to give you the same more or less experience. And I loved the fact that back then that when you, even if you died, you got to throw bombs on the side of the board. Yeah. So you were still interacting with everybody. So yeah. Good time. It's an easy, yeah. I never spent a lot of time sitting there by myself playing a bomberman game because the single player games were okay, but they weren't great. I thought you like games where you have to run in, attack and run away. Pretty much the single player experience. Yeah. Playing online is madness, like in a party setting. We used to play this all the time, way back in the Super Nintendo games, but then even with the Xbox 360, we would get four controllers and just play at parties. That and Rock Band were the two big titles for parties. And man, that was a lot of fun. - I can see it, I can see it. - Cool. Love all the online stuff they're doing. - Yeah. - All right, I'm gonna be Tim again. There is a new Specky shooter. That's ZX Spectrum for you Yankees. Shadow Fields, which I did download, by the way, I have not played yet, for the 128K only spectrum, no 48K crap here. By ZX Gandalf, it is a horizontal scrolling shooter. There are more details on Indie Retro News and ZX Gandalf's Itch.io page where you can download the game. So real quick, let me go to the itch.io page first and you will see that he is offering this game. Well, he's got it here in English, if I hit download, it just downloads it. So it is free and I technically own it now. There you go. (laughing) Live on the show here, downloaded it. Actually, it's funny, I say that, but maybe I did actually, I think I did down, but already it was already part, that's why I just downloaded it again, actually. I have not played this yet. It looks from the still shots I see here. It looks very R-type. In fact, it looks like it's direct. I'm not gonna say rip off, but I'm gonna say rip off of R-type, even the ship looks like an R-type, which is by the way, the name of the ship in R-type. Cool. Yeah. It looks good. It looks, I do love to shoot 'em up, I do love R-type, so this looks like it'd be pretty good. Large, full color bosses, destructible environments, smooth scroll with colors. In fact, if you don't, let me hit the, let's see how smooth the scroll. I'll be the judge of that smooth scroll and let's take a look here. Okay, okay. Oh, that is smooth. (laughing) That's very impressive for the spectrum. Yeah. Do you see that? There's like a Renaissance going on for shoot 'em up on the ZX Spectrum. 'Cause like, remember the go-go bunny, bunny, something? I just tried to play that a few days ago and I won't get into it here, but the way I, I don't think that game, I couldn't find a way to get my controller working. What? I play it all the time, I love that game. Love it. Yeah, and I was doing it on my ZX Spectrum next. Yeah, I did too. I thought I needed to take the time to try to figure out how to get the controller going, so I'm not using the keyboard, I can't do keyboard which must be. No, no, no, no, no, I use the key, I use the, oh, look at that, there's like a wave of fire behind you to force you to move up in the screen. Wave of mutilation. Oh, that's a neat technique. Yeah, that's the timer I asked you about last episode. Yeah. And I said, wave for some reason, that doesn't bother me as much. True, true. Just for the fun of it, I'm enjoying doing this episode. Other games that Gandalf, Gandalf makes, actually, where, how, where is it? Gandalf, click on it. Show me what other games you make, Gandalf. Is that the only one he's got listed? View creator page. Yeah, he's only got that one listed right now. Okay, oh, in 2006, he made Ragnablog, that's pretty cool. 20 years ago. Yeah, that's pretty funny. So there you go. All right. Ooh, controller news, that controller news, Eric. Yep, so I did, I did a thing, I did pre-order this. Not, well, when the pre-order came out, and by the way, I didn't pre-order it, you just reserve it. So I didn't put any money down at all. Okay. This is the kind of thing where you go reserve it and then they'll send you a link saying, hey, you need to buy this within two days if you want it. But as I've said many times on the show, I do love my Steam Deck, right? Yes. I love everything about my Steam Deck. I like that it's kind of big. I like that the controls feel super good on the Steam Deck. And the two little trackpads aren't gimmicky. They actually function very well. Like if you're playing a game that requires you to move a mouse cursor around and click on things, those trackpads work super well. So when they first came out, people were saying, oh, it's just a little gimmick or whatever. I found them super useful in games. And so now you can get a controller from Steam. And these are already out, by the way. The problem is that they sold out. The first batch they released sold out like that. So people already have this in their hand. Second batch. They're doing a pre-order for the second batch. That's right. So now you can go sign up for the pre-order when they're in stock. They'll send you a message. You pay, you get it. And I did. And unfortunately, I was waiting for this and I totally got super busy at work. So like I lost track of it. And then days later I was like, oh, I need to go sign up for that. And you can still sign up, but I'm just not going to be in the forefront. I'm not going to be in front, first in line, you know what I mean. So but when it does come out, I am going to get it. This intrigues me as a Steam Deck player. I can use this with my Steam Deck, or I can use it on my PC, but it will work very well. Integrate well with Steam OS so that you hit the Steam button and your library opens up, et cetera, et cetera. It's just to clarify. I don't know if we've really covered it, but it is called the PC Gamepad. And it's just a new wireless steam controller. It looks like it's 99 bucks. Yep. And it looks like if I had to describe it, it would be like a, you know, kind of like all modern controllers are now like a switch pro controller, except it has kind of two small track pads below the dual analog sticks. Yeah. So it's kind of, she's a chunky one. But looks super comfortable in form fitting. And I'm not sure exactly how those dual track pads would work with two fingers, but I guess for, I don't know. You just use your thumbs. I mean, that's the way I use it on my Steam Deck. Do they have two pads like that? Yeah. So why do you do-- Just in case you want to use, do the exact same thing, or is there two cursors, or what is it? No, they can be programmed for different things. So like with one certain game, it's almost like controlling a mech. Like you can use both like as like a Y and Z axis. So just like the dual analog sticks would control that with more mouse-like controls dragging and lifting. That's right. Yeah. OK. Cool. Cool. All right. Our last news item. Are you going to take it? Oh, it's Tim. So this is me. All right. I had. Take it. No news of the weird this month. But this is a new Amiga AGA game called Paldron, P-A-U-L-D-R-O-N, Paldron by Xenner. This is a spellcasting action game where you play as a wizard launching various spells and enemy forces that march slowly towards you, destroy them before they reach the bottom of the screen. As we like to do here and pull up a YouTube video, as well as the itch.io page. It looks like it is a name your own price. Download. If you want to give this one a shot. See here. Transparency effects. 11 Power of Nine Enemies. Three stages, four songs. Development started for the Amiga game Jan in 2025. And Oost. Static images are done using AI. So that's worth noting. At some point we were replaced them with real pixel art. We also worth noting. So suggesting a 1200 with fast RAM. But let's take a quick look at this game. Of course we start by looking at the splash screen for a while. This note this is. Yeah, we know what this game is. Yeah, what is that? What is that game called? Ball x-Pit. Ball x-Pit. I've added inspiration for this game. I took several days and played ball x-Pit and really enjoyed it. I don't know why I haven't played recently. It was a great game. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, I did complete ball x-Pit. And this is a very much an Amiga version of that type of a game where you are a character at the bottom. Autoscrolling vertical game. Imagine a mixture between a vertical schmup and breakout kind of arcanoid kind of a thing. But you don't actually have to bounce the balls back up to the screen. You're just trying to break all the blocks while shooting at them. But this looks very cool. Oh, this looks great. Yep, I will be picking this up. Yep. Nice. Eric, that is the news, my friend. That is the news. Which means we're going to have to grab ourselves another beer. Eric? Yeah. I'm going to see you in a little while. something. Wait. [Music] You know it's beer time, you know it's time to drink some suds. We've had a lot of good ones, but only one handful of does. So put that in a studio, let's then take a sip. Eric, you know, Eric Tim doesn't drink alcohol anymore, but he's gonna deal with it this beer time. I got there eventually. Man, you got there. See? You're so much better at that than I am. I ran out of syllables there towards the end, but hey. It was still great. I was grooving. All right. I think we're both doing a retro rewind beer. That's right. That is correct. One we've had before, we don't need to rate it unless you want to. Nope. In fact, I'm gonna put my money where I'm in mouth, is Eric. I told you this valley was good because it's beer, but it's not necessarily a great beer. It is beer. Yep, it is beer. I'm having a, how do you say, bush light. Oh, excellent. I'm gonna bush light. I haven't had a bush in a long time. It's like anhyzer bushes. Like, you know that Budweiser stuff we make? Yeah. You made a light version of that. But guess what? If that's too expensive for you. Yeah. We created another brand. We call it bush. And this is the light version of that. So that's really saying something here. I don't think they even put the alcohol by volume on these things because it is so light. Man, you remember where Country Club lanes is, right? The Bullying alley. Yeah. Man, when I way, way back in the day, right? Pauliar was around 21, 22. They would have like dollar PBR nights. Yeah. Man, I would just drink so many PBRs. I think I told you that. I think I told you about this. But so when I lived in Elk Grove with you, not with you, but same city as you. Right around the corner from my house. Unfortunately, there is no sidewalks. So we couldn't just walk there, although maybe that's a good thing. Oh, dude, I'm forgetting the name of that little bar right there across from King's Gate. Yeah. I know the one you're talking about. I could picture it in my mind. But they're not even there anymore. Oh, wait. No, they are. They are. Something out. Oh, this is going to kill me. But isn't it right? Isn't it something out? Yeah. Like the blackout or something. Ooh, the bad name for a bar. Exactly. The blackout. I'll pull it up here later. I can't remember the name. Anyway, it's a little, you know, middle of the country, hole in the wall bar, except the city grew right up to it. Yeah. Hey tones. - Hangout, hangout. - Has a hangout. - Hangout. So I was bit. - So when we are living there, which again was only like five years ago, they had like three pool tables. So it was actually really fun to go in there and then they had a bar. And they had a bar, but the bar still had a glass counter to it. - Yeah. - And it had cigarettes in there. So you could buy your beers, draft beers, or cigarettes? And then you had all the pool tables, so when we were hanging out with people, I was like, "Oh, let's go to haytones," right? And I never told them the price of stuff in there, but we go in there and I'm like, and I gotta do when these ego trip things, round of the paps for everybody, right? - Yeah. - Well, yeah, even five years ago, it was still a dollar 50. - Oh wow. - For a tap. - For a paps on tap. And I dropped like a $20 bill and that included tip. (laughing) - That's pretty amazing. I didn't know that was so cheap there. - Yeah. - You know, pass blue ribbon, but-- - Well, pass blue ribbon. - That's amazing. - What are you sipping on? - So I'm again, kind of going with the theme here, I just got a good ol' Asahi. - Yep, solid dry. Your theme says dry red on it. - Super dry. See, it even says super dry. - Yeah, this is crackin' over. - This is my favorite Japanese beer though. Above Sapporo, above Kirin, it's a sahi. - All right. - I like Sapporo myself, but cheers, my friends. Cheers. (siren blaring) Refreshing. - All right, having 'em back to back. - Yeah. - I can taste the difference. The valley was more, there wasn't a lot of flavor up front and you got kind of a little bit of grain on the finish. - Mm. - Bush light is like a little bit of sweet up front with no finish. - No finish, it's like a vapor. (laughing) - But what I can tell you is, I like them equally. They're both water. (laughing) With just a hint of beer flavor, it's for crushing a 12 pack on a hot summer day. - There's a time and a place for flavorless beers. (laughing) - But then there's my point. A bush light, I can get a 30 pack for 18 bucks. - Yeah. - These farmers' valley, in my opinion, are not worth the Maker Brewery price. - Gotcha. - All right. Are we ready to hop right into our battle? - We are. (dramatic music) - Battle of the systems. (laughing) - All right, so this battle again, as Eric mentioned at the top of the show, is against a couple of horizontal scrolling schmups. We've got Mystic Writers, which was produced by Irum, going up against Data East's very own Bouguing, otherwise known as, "Yield Ragtime Show" or something to that effect, right? - Yeah, I was trying to find the name real quick. The great Ragtime Show. - The great Ragtime Show. - Yep. Which game would you like to start with today, Cody? - I say, I don't know. Mystic Writers, I got that one loaded here. - Let's start with Mystic Writers. I'm gonna launch my little website here. Let's get some dry statistics on the Mystic Writers. - Let's. - The developer was Irum, as you stated, the publisher was Irum. It was an arcade game, came out in May 1992 in Japan and in Europe it was 1992 as well. It is a horizontal scrolling shooter as both of these are. It was a single player and multiplayer. You could play like two players on the screen at one time. The arcade system board that it used was Irum M92, which would make sense, so it was 1992. - This came out on a few systems. A lot of Irum arcade hit compilations for Windows and Macintosh. - You say a lot, but I think it was just the one. I think I had a hard time finding this or was really no ports. - So 2010 Irum arcade hits compilation for Windows and Macintosh, but it also has been announced as one of the titles, including the third volume of the Irum collection for the PlayStation 4, 5, Xbox One, Series X, Nintendo Switch, and it was released on July 1st, 2025. - There you go. So what I guess what I would say is it's come out on a lot of modern systems, relatively. - Correct. - But those aren't necessarily ports. They're the arcade game played on a modern system, really, right? It's not been recoded or anything. It's just been made to play on those systems. - That's right. - So this game you are a, what would you say you are? Is there a witch? - You're a witch, that's what I thought. - There's a boy witch and which I guess would be a warlock if you wanna be specific, but it's very much the archetypal female witch, but you are, if you're blue you're a boy and I think the pink one's a girl. - Okay. - Right? You agree or is that what you came? That's what I just assumed naturally, but I could be wrong, I don't know. - Oddly enough, I didn't think about it much when I was playing it. Other than I didn't know it was kind of a witch 'cause obviously you do have a broom. So of course when I picked these games, I wanted to pick shoot 'em up with basically horizontal shoot 'em up that have a gimmick. And the gimmick in this one is of course that you have a broom that you can throw in any direction. So you have a fire, of course, you have a fire button that you fire, but then you also have a broom that you can throw in any direction and you can also swirl it around you. So if you get a lot of enemies that encroached upon you, you can spin your broom around you to kind of start swiping them away. When you kill an enemy, it drops red gems and you go and you collect those red gems and then you go up and level, like it'll say, level two, level three, level four or whatever. And the game is colorful. It's very attractive. I like the sound in this game. It also has a way that you can do it. you can like, I think charge a weapon. - Yes. - Woo! I had to sneeze there. You can charge a weapon and there's the charge bar that is in the top, as well as a score. - Depending what your current weapon is, that charge weapon will function a little differently, but typically it shoots a big shot that when it hits the first enemy, kind of blows up and creates a blast radius around the enemy where you hit. So yeah. So we approach these kind of differently. I know that you give yourself a certain amount of credits to get through the game. - I usually do three. It's kind of my general rule. - Yep. And for me, I just want to get to the end. So I will feed it as many quarters as it will take. And I will say that I, the other game, Boogie Wings took me nine credits to get through to the end. This one, I stopped counting after 20. Like, it got very difficult and it got very cramped. And I expect difficult in arcade games because they are trying to get you to put a lot of quarters in it. That's how they make their money. So I don't fault it for that. But the game did get very claustrophobic to me where in certain areas it was very hard to navigate. And it was more difficult. With that said, it was very bright, colorful. Sound was great. I enjoyed playing this one. I did want to ask you, and I want your opinion on the game. I'm going to let you take over here in a minute. But did you have control issues with the broom and throwing it? - Ooh, interesting question. I guess my ultimate answer is no. Is actually extremely tight control. It's very controllable. - Okay. But I think you have to wrap your head around the control scheme. So which I'll get to in just a second. - Yeah, go ahead. I want you just your overall opinion of this one. This one was the first game I played. So I have the, like my memories are long, long ago. So I went back and forth. I played this one then bogey wings. Then this one again, then bogey wings again. That's how I kind of, that's probably smart. Because I didn't, I played this one first. So my memories and as fresh on this one. - Gotcha. - And I do these, I try to set them both up. So they're both easy to play. - Okay. - It takes a while, I've gotten the right systems out and everything. - Yeah. - But I did play this one on the mister. It is part of that package that we downloaded an update. Bogey wings was not part of that package. - Yeah. - So just, you know, I actually played Bogey wings via maim on just on my laptop just for full disclosure. So this game, I would say, you touched on the majority of it. It is very pretty in my opinion. Big chunky graphics, all the sprites, the enemy sprites, everything, big chunky. For whatever reason, these sides growing, which games are just invogue at this time, I guess, in Japan, there's a lot of them. - You're right. - Between top and bottom. Yeah, I mean, there's literally five, maybe six. - The common games, remember the common games. Yeah, you're right, a lot of which games. What's the one on the TurboGraphics we like to play? Magical Chase. - Yeah. - So, and they're always horizontal. They don't do vertical which games. They do horizontal which games. But, so what I would say about this is, for the most part, it is not, I mean, I'm watching now it's relatively imaginative, but it's very in line with all the other horizontal which games as far as kind of the content. They're typically big sprites. A lot of the enemies are usually, I mean, they're wacky, but they're not unique to this game. You would see these enemies in other games. For the most part, like you said, there does have a tendency to get a lot of stuff on the screen. But, I think the gameplay is, I love the gameplay. I'll just throw that out there right now. And I think that's for a number of reasons. First and foremost, you've got your standard attack. I love how you don't just have to chase down pickups. You just kind of get these red gems, which are varying sizes depending on what enemies you've killed and how you killed them. You level it up when you've got some big levels going that you played the game differently and then you have a low level weapon. Also, your broom kind of is emitting flame out the back. There's blue flame. So you can actually almost our type style get in front of enemies and just put the back or your broom, the flame on them and that will damage them, which comes in great handy. I never used the flip thing you were talking about. But the broom, the way that that worked and I used the broom constantly, that was actually primarily the main weapon in my opinion in this game. Yeah. And basically it shoots in the direction you're running away from. So if you're pressing down, it shoots up. If you're pressing left, it shoots right. So as you run away from things, you shoot that broom out and it's gonna go hit it. And it does way more damage than your standard shot. Yeah. So basically you, whatever way your joystick is not pointing, it goes, that's the way it goes. It's gonna go, yep, it's gonna go the opposite. So, the opposite way, okay. That was normal for me. I thought my mapping was it, I downloaded instructions for this game and it was like, hey, whatever direction you move the joystick, press the button and it'll throw the broom in that direction. I was like, no, that's not what happens at all. That is not correct. Yeah, so, and I found instructions that actually said that. So I'm glad to hear that. I got used to it. So within volume, I loved it. I used it like you said, I used it a lot. Yep, a lot. Yeah. I think it's constant. I mean, it's almost the entire game. You should be using that to do it right. And that is, as you kind of memorize where things are, that is how you get these really tight claustrophobic sections to work for you, because it clears bullets out as well. Yeah. And it does a ton more damage than your regular shot. So, you know, you're focusing the large enemies and basing your strategy on running away from large enemies while shooting that at them while making sure you're picking off little easy enemies with your main shot. And you can also, again, back your little flame into enemies when, especially when you're doing the kind of grottiest style levels, there's a lot of the grottiest style levels where there's platforms and enemies stuck to the platforms and you're kind of strategically moving up and down and picking them off. It does some cool things like this right here where this underwater pirate ship opens up and you're fighting things inside. Those skeletons are really frustrating. There's these treasure chests all over the place, which will give you primarily gems, but a few other things, and some one-ups hidden in there. Underwater levels. So, I would say that as far as like different level types and bosses, there's nothing super new to write home about, but it's just really well done, really polished. Chunky hit detections, great, controls are great. And the unique challenge, in my opinion, of having kind of those levels based around the use of that broom, if you play this like a straightforward shooter, it's not going to, you're not going to get very far. No, I agree with that 100%. And so, I'm going to have a gimmick meter. It's the Eric gimmick meter. I like it. The gimmick meter for this game is out of 10, like nine. Like, it's a gimmick you're going to use all the time. Yeah, right? Like you would agree on that. I mean, the only thing I disagree on is calling it a gimmick. I would say it's a gameplay element. Sure, vital to the game. Yep. Nope, I understand, but I'm going to compare it to the next game we do. So we're going to have to do the gimmick meter on that one, okay? Right. Got you. Okay. So, yeah, I agree with you on everything. I thought the bosses were pretty cool. They were unique. Yeah. I really enjoyed this game. It was, it did get tough. It got tough. And I have to compare and contrast the two games, since there's a versus segment here. Yeah, I mean, I didn't find Boogie Wings as difficult as this game. I don't know if that's a plus or minus, because I mean, again, these are arcade games. So you're going to feed it quarters. You're going to, you're trying to do it as, on as few quarters as possible. So an easy arcade game isn't necessarily a better arcade game, right? So. Correct. Now, one thing I will say about it, and we're watching a playthrough right now. And I noticed this myself, because I really wasn't joining the gameplay on this game, and I wanted to see how far I can get on three coins, which after I got better, I definitely get getting better and better every time I played it. I did play a good amount. It's an auto scrolling game. So obviously, excuse me, for the most part, you're going to finish this game in the same amount of time as anybody else. Right. That amount of time is about 17 and a half minutes. Okay. That's about it. That's a very short arcade game. Yeah. That's a very short game. I don't know. That seems about right in an arcade. I mean, very rarely standing front of a machine for 17 minutes. It does allow you to play a second run through to keep your score going up. It looks like, again, I'm saying this watching this video. And in that case, Let's just check and make sure I'm on the same page. Yeah, nope, exactly double that 36 minutes. So, yeah, all in all, I will say a very pretty game, great sounding game. Love the game plan. This game creativity. Although it has some very creative things. It's not unique to this game. A lot of the games of this era have these similar kind of Japanese wacky characters. And that's kind of work and short, I will say in short. Okay, did you end up good getting to the end of this one? So I was able to get, I'm just kind of looking at my timestamps here on three coins. I was able to get about 13 and a half minutes into a 17 and a half minute game. I do think that I could beat this with three coins if I gave it more time. Yeah. And it's the kind of game. And this is what people who were like schmups, which I've always said that I'm not amazing at them. My name means love about schmups is I do. You think that if I focused on this, this is a potential one coin credit. One credit clear. Yeah, yeah. But it takes it's going to take some memorization and that would be impressive. I just saw this video, I have been fighting the last boss, which took most of my coins. So I did eventually credit feed the last boss. Yes. But I'm watching this guy play the game and it makes it very obvious there's a couple places you can kind of camp out and more or less defeat the boss without getting hit. Okay. Now that you know that now that I know that I'm like, yeah, this is this is a very much a one coin credit clear game. Yeah, I had a slightly different experience because like towards the end, I was the game became how fast can I just keep up the quarters into it? I was incrementally further and then pump more quarters and incrementally further like I was literally just feeding it quarters left. But I didn't enjoy it. Is there a game I would come back to? I think so. I would like to get better at it where I'm using fewer quarters. I didn't I don't think I could have gotten to the 13 minute point with three quarters. Now for the fun of it, I'm going to throw this out there too. Yeah. Does this game give you any other like any vibes like, does it feel like anything else you played? There's something kind of like like bouncing around my head that it reminded me for some reason. This is just going to be completely crazy. When I threw the broomstick or reminded me of a yo-yo game I played at some point like where the character had a yo-yo was that on neo geo? Probably yeah, there's a yo-yo game on the neo geo and I'm thinking of like what a character uses a yo-yo as a weapon right? Yeah, I think it's called like spin top spin or spin something something like that. It just gave me the weird vibes like that. But I don't know. I mean it seems it honestly. It seemed pretty creative to me. It's ultimately it is very creative but at the time there's how many games like this that were coming out with very similar tropes. That's true. That's why I'm saying it's spin master. Here we go. So here's spin master on the neo geo. So the reason I asked that question is which is a date of East game interestingly enough. Interesting. Wow. No reason I asked that is not because I was thinking of this game by any means. If this is the one you're talking about. I pray it is. This is the one I'm talking about. Yeah. And maybe it's the colors because the colors are pretty much the same too. I was just going to say in general it feels like a neo geo game to me. Ah, okay, the control the size of the graphics, the sound effects, the everything about it. It's those very neo geo which is high praise. I agree. Go. We're ready to give it a score out of 31 day myos. Yeah. I will pull that up and if you don't mind, I'll go first this time. Please. Out of 31 day myos. 26. Wow. That's high praise. I really like this game. Good choice Eric. Thank you. I'm going to give it a 20 because I'm in the ballpark. I'm in the ballpark with you. I'm going to give it a 24. Okay. Yeah. You're right. They're two. Yeah. I liked it. I really liked it. The difficulty was a little hard to swallow even though an arcade game is does not have a lot of things. It's designed to be difficult so I get it. That's not how I read them though. In my head it's I'm not playing it in the arcade. Yeah. I'm not rating it as if it was 1992. I'm reading it as if. Yeah. Yeah. I'm here today. Do I want to play this being a guy at my own house playing this game. You know with arcades or arcade games though. Let me see if you agree with this. In some arcade games, don't be like you'll get like maybe halfway through the game and then there'll be areas where there's a lot of things that I can't do. They're literally designed to just suck your quarters out. Absolutely. Like there's almost no way to get through it without losing your quarter. And I felt like towards the end the last half of this game there were several bottlenecks like that. We're just one and all my quarters and I and that that that's acceptable to me but it is cheap. It is cheap. I don't think that's the case. Now I was going to say there is like that first boss that snake. Yeah. I had examples and maybe there's a way to combat it that I haven't learned. There are times where it would corner you then run into you and then like there's literally no way to get away from that. I have the same thing happening. So that was cheap but that's not every time that was just like. Okay. The game's randomization did that to me twice out of like seven playthroughs. Yeah. I think this one is possible. I think again, I think it's you just have to be using that broom strategically and clearing out. It takes some time to master which it should for a 17 minute game. Yeah. Yeah, I really like this one. Alright. Moving on to game number two, which is Boogie Wings at least here in the States, right? Boogie Wings in the States known in Japan as the great ragtime show. This one's by Data East. Then publisher is Data East as well. It is an arcade game. It is was was released released also in 1992. So I guess the theme could have been shoot him up with gimmicks from 1992 since they were born from 1992. It is a scrolling shooter. It is single player and multiplayer. Also similarities. Yep. This game is set around the time of World War One. If you want to believe that. Where the player manoeuvre in it. World War One if you will. Yep. Where the player maneuvers by planes, automobiles, animals and various other unidentifiable objects to battle an army of mech wielding scientists. And that's directly from Wikipedia. Right. I don't I don't remember there being a lot of mechs and robots in World War One. No, but I wasn't there. I don't know for sure. I wasn't there. True. Just to show you an example like one of the games bosses is a giant robot Santa Claus. So that's kind of fun. So this game has a lot going on. The gimmick in this game. There's a lot of gimmicks. So I'm going to explain some of the gimmicks. The main gimmick is that your plane when you're flying in your plane. You have a big giant hook coming out your butt. On a rope. Yeah. On a rope. Outro butt is a giant hook. And you can literally hook anything in the game. Enemies, crates, boxes. It doesn't matter. You can hook it by animals, animals, yep, anything you hook it. And then it's attached to your plane and you using the momentum of the swinging rope. You can throw that thing or run it into things to damage other enemies. If you drop an object, it will explode. So like it's a great way to like clear out things on the bottom. Like if there's a bunch of enemies like army dudes on the bottom, you can just drop something on them and it will explode. And more gimmicks is that when your plane gets exploded when he when somebody kills you and you explode your dude jumps out of the plane. Then your dude is just running and he can fire. By himself and keep running, but not very long, you'll soon probably run into a vehicle you can jump in and that vehicle can be tanks. It can be giant robots. It can be Mexican. It can be a giraffe or an elephant. Yep, a giraffe or an element or an elephant. Yep. So it's interesting. Let me point out real quick here because. And I'll let you right back to it, but what's going here is that these are both sides growing. Shmups were talking about, but this game I would say is 40% run and gun because yeah, not only are there portions where once you're your plane blows up, you're running on the ground, jumping and shooting like a true running gun. There's also certain levels and portions of levels where you have to physically go inside of like large battleships and things and you have to be a human to do that and you it is a running gun at that point. So it is just kind of split genres. Not to mention it's almost again when you pointed this out and I commend you for that. I didn't Neo Geo-esque in that you can be this little dude jumping into a Met kind of like a metal slug and then you go until that Metka is damaged or whatever you're in and then you jump out of it and you're a human again. That's a lot like metal slug. So it's kind of got that kind of cool vibe to it. It's wacky. You can use your hook to just hook anything and throw it around. Now with that said, the gimmick meter for me is lower than in Mystic writers because I ended up not using the hook all that much. So it depends which means by the gimmick meter. Yeah. In this case I would say in the other game, you and I just have different mindsets. The other game is less of a gimmick, more of an integral part of the gameplay. You're right. And it's absolutely a gimmick. You can use it and it's fun to use. The physics aren't great. So it's kind of hard to use. Right. I agree. You're like, wait, if I go forward and stop, it should keep going forward. It doesn't always work that way. Yeah. If you want to call the fact that you can when you blow up, you become a running gun. It becomes a running gun, a gimmick, which is like a second gimmick. That one obviously you do use is an integral part of the gameplay. Yeah. This one is gimmicks all the way down, but are the gimmicks useful or fun to use? Well, they make you use the running gun part, but the hook you don't have to use. You don't have to. Is it fun? Absolutely. Yeah. It is absolutely funny. And one of the like, it was entertaining to me. Like I really enjoyed it. In fact, I went back and played this even after I beat it with nine credits. I went back because I was like, man, I want to hook more things and try to swing those things around. It became like a sandbox game to me where I was just trying to use the gimmicks in the game. Yeah. So it's funny because Iroom, you know, so Iroom became eventually, some of the guys split up and they became Nazca and I think SNK was involved. So this game also has, I feel like they out Iroom to Iroom in this game. Yeah. Compared to Mystic Writers, which was very much more standard. This game has so many animations going on, kind of like a metal slug. It's got so many colors, so many crazy things going on per level. The stories that they're setting up without using any storyboards or any, you know, words. They're just telling these wacky things like this level we're watching right now is an amusement park where a Ferris wheel goes out of control, spins off and starts rolling through a roller coaster track and you're just hanging on for dear life in whatever vehicle or horse or whatever. I mean, it is beyond wacky. And I feel like this game, to me, this is more entertainment than a game. Like I could, this is a game where I almost feel like playing it. I'm missing everything. If we compared the last game to being like feeling like a very neo geo game. Yeah. This game, I would say feels very much. What's that? What's that carnival game? Eric? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. Harmful park on PlayStation. On PlayStation. I love that game. That's one of my favorite games. Yeah. There is so much going on in so many wacky things. I must feel like it's as much fun if not more fun or to get the full experience of this game, you also need to watch somebody else play it so that you don't miss stuff. That's right. So much going on. There's like you said, a Christmas level where there's people dressed up in holiday costumes and things. You fight a big old robot Santa. There's this amusement park level, which finishes up with a Frankenstein battle with next to a large church. There's, um, I'm trying to remember all the ones flying out. Yeah. And it has a stage select. So you play level one, which kind of warms you up to the game. And then you have the next five levels. You get a pick in anywhere you want, which I liked in large part because I was trying to stick to my three coins rule. And I could get through three levels before running out of three coins. Yeah. But I didn't have to miss out on any game because I could always try a different level next time. Um, yeah, it's crazy. It's wacky. And I will say and it's gorgeous that it's I mean the animation and everything is amazing. If we haven't described it yet, though, I would say it's very different than Mystic writers and the fact that all of the characters in the game, that meaning you're spright and all the little, um, human enemies are teeny tiny very few pixels. Um, your vehicles and stuff are also very small, but then there's like this Frankenstein is literally 20 times the size of you. Huge set pieces, all kinds of area effects, smoke, fire. In this case, we're seeing wind in the background blowing things. I mean, there's stuff going on everywhere. A ton of destructible items as well. Um, very detailed, very cool. But I would say it's not a game that you play to really for the challenge. It's a game you play through to enjoy seeing everything. And it's yeah, I don't know if you really get better at it. I think you just go in there and have fun. Go crazy. Blow crap up. Exactly like you did coin feed to the end of the game and leave sweating and smoke a cigarette. Yeah. I mean, you can see this guy picked up like a thing and now he's just swinging it around destroying things with it. I mean, it's like, like, say, it's like a sandbox almost. Yeah. Like just go in there and try some stuff. Like, try crazy wacky things. It's a physics sandbox game before those were a thing, uh, of course, being a 2D schmup. It's a weird mashup, but it's cool. Yeah. And I'm a sucker for little sprites like, like, you know, cannon fodder on the Amiga, um, lemmings with the little dudes. I mean, I am a sucker for little tiny sprites. Um, and this one has plenty of that going on. So, um, yeah, I really enjoyed this one and I played this one last, like pretty much a few days before we actually did this recording. I finished it and, uh, I ended up playing this on my handheld and an anbernic that has maim on it. So, okay. I ended up playing it on that the whole time. Um, and really enjoyed it. I think we, we was perfect for that. The big nice vibrant screen, uh, highlighted its color and just really enjoyed it. Like, I thought it was a lot of fun. Yeah, uh, definitely less about gameplay, more about entertainment, comedy, just a showpiece. Uh, definitely one of the most creative games I've ever played. Uh, right up there with Harmful Park, honestly, it's they're both really unique in this way. Yeah, I think Harmful Park is a better game. Yes, I would say so too. Um, but and then the other thing which is cool about this if I actually play, it probably didn't make a lot of money in the arcades. I would and the reason I say that is because like you said, you put a dollar, no, $2.25 in it and beat the game on $2.25. Yeah. So if you were a kid in the arcade, you might play it again next time you're there, but you're not, you're not going to be throwing, you know, hundreds of dollars into this game. You're going to be through it and under five bucks, maybe two playthroughs already. Um, super cool. Yeah, I, I had to download the newest version of maim just onto my laptop, downloaded the ROM twice. I had to find the right package. Uh, and I played it by using the HDMI out my laptop to my TV and plugging a eight bit dough super Nintendo style controller. So that's how I played it. Uh, and it worked well, worked really well. Good. Uh, it does say though, however, and even the newest version of maim, which right now is 0.287 B, I think, uh, it still says, I mean, I didn't notice a single thing, but it still says it's, um, compatible, but not perfect in both audio and sound. So they don't, it's not a green. It's a yellow in both categories, which they kind of are ranking. Yeah. Um, but again, I didn't notice anything. So I don't know what was wrong with it. Good stuff. Oh, and then this is cool. When you finish the game, did you play with this? I did. Yeah. When you finish the game, you get the opportunity to, while there's credits are running, uh, you can like blow up your airplane and start jumping into things and try all the vehicles and stuff that you never tried during the game. If you missed any. Yeah. Um, so there you go. I, I, the name bovewings means nothing. No, it means nothing to me either, but I understand why they changed it from the great ragtime show, because that means, nothing exciting to anybody but it's very accurate. It's like the music is ragtime. (humming) Except for the Christmas level where there's Christmas songs. I just wish that when we, if we had to change the name for the American audience or the Western audience that we could change it to something exciting but appropriate, they had a hard time with that in the 80s and 90s. They did. And I can't say I can think of a better name right off the top of my head. I mean, for alternate, like an alternate World War I game and an alternate timeline with Max and Robots and I don't know, I can't think of anything. World War Chaos. (laughing) I don't know. Cool. It is time to rate my friends. Let me go here. Voguey Wings out of 31 Day Myos. What are you giving this one, Eric? - So you give Mr. Guys 24, man. It's hard. This one's a tough one because they're so different. - I have no idea where you're going with this one. - I'm gonna give this one a, man. I'm gonna give this one a 23.5. - Ooh, you surprised me, my friend. - Really? I thought you were, I thought you were going crazy on this one. - I did. I really love Voguey Wings, but you're right in that as far as a game goes, it's more of a game. So what are you giving it? - I give it a 24. - Okay. - It's finally less than the other one. - Yeah, it's funny though, 'cause if I was gonna recommend a game to somebody. - Yes. - This is a must play. Where I wouldn't say Mystic Riders is. - Yeah, which is funny, but I'm gonna give this one a lower score because you're gonna play it, laugh about it, enjoy it once or twice and that's it. Mystic Riders is a good game. - Yeah. - That I can go back to get better at, enjoy from more time. I also like the fact that Mystic Riders, especially now they know it's only 17 minutes. I think you might pop on during a lunch break or two and get a couple good runs in, you know, potentially play a whole game. - Right. - Interesting. Yeah, I thought you were gonna give this like a 27, 28. - So which one came out on top? - Oh, Mystic Riders for both of us. - Yeah, yeah, that's right. Okay. - Which is surprising. Yeah, average of about 80% for Mystic Riders and 76 for Boogie Wings. - Come. - There's a good choice though. Did you play either of these games in the past? - So I've played Boogie Wings because you did bring it up one time on a six good games. - You okay. - And that's when I tried it before and said I had a hard time getting it running. And I said a hard time, it wasn't a hard time. I just didn't have a maim set up to throw everything on. - Okay. - So I had to download everything. But yeah, no, I thoroughly enjoy both of these. Good, great choices. - Awesome. - And here's that is an episode of Pixar Good It In. - It sure is, it sure is. We're gonna have Tim on the next episode. I'm looking forward to it. - All right, he'll be calling us shortly in real time, but in 15 days in your time listeners, quick reminder, next episode, episode 178 will be coming out on the 30th day mile. Quick questions, a Patreon song. The same one you heard this month or this week. Eric's take, he'll be talking about first impressions of something of a new, of a new thing, a new retro thing. - A new retro thing. And then of course Tim will join us. We will catch up on what we've been doing in the world of retro and finishing things out with six good budget titles, specific to eight bit micros. So that is coming up and tell them, Eric, what do we say? - It's dangerous to go alone. - Thank you again for listening. You can find episode information and show notes online at pixelguiden.com. Please follow us on Twitter at pixel_guiden. And you can also follow Eric at the project, that's DUH project. You can also follow Cody on Twitter at oddball49 that's ODDBA1149. You can reach Tim Drew on Macedon at [email protected]. If you are interested in supporting the show financially, please join us at our Patreon account, that's patreon.com/pixelguiden. Please leave a review that helped get our podcast listed higher up on the show rankings. We would also love to hear from you with any comments or input. So hit us up on our e-mail at [email protected]. (upbeat music)