Homebrew Extra Retro Gamer 284

andrewrfisher
3 minutes ago
13 min read

We’ve spent a lot of time this month playing the brilliant Roguecraft DX from Badger Punch Software. Digital versions are available for Amiga, MEGA65 by Retro Cogs, and a clever top-down version for Game Boy Color by Shane McCafferty. Check it out at thalamus.link/roguegb-gbc, thalamus.link/roguedx-mega65, and thalamus.link/roguedx-amiga, with physical boxed copies to follow from publisher Thalamus Digital. And check out our features for the Next, NES, and Mega Drive, plus our usual reviews.

[Mega Drive] Riding your motorbike through a tunnel in Driftin' Rage. — [Mega Drive] Riding your motorbike through a tunnel in *Driftin' Rage*.

QUICK LINKS

A SHEDFUL OF SOFTWARE

NEWS BYTES

CHAMPION CODER - MAURO XAVIER

A SHEDFUL OF SOFTWARE

Interview with Richard Faulkner of Technoshed:

What got you interested in the Spectrum Next?

I went to an event at the NVA in Nottingham hosted by the Oliver twins. Lyndon (sadly missed) was there showing the beginnings of Pogie on a bare Next board. Of course, I went straight home and signed up for KS2. As an aside, when he passed away, I had been creating music for Pogie, which is still in the works. It's not a dead project. It’s being finished in his memory.

How did you start Technoshed?

Patricia Curtis had initially tried to launch TX-1696 directly through her Lucky Red Fish label/website. Unfortunately, things went a bit awry with PayPal withholding funds and causing issues, so it was an aborted start. Patricia was very keen that one of us should release it, and having contributed some code and all the music, it fell to me. We're into a rhythm now, so where early on we had a lot to learn, it's a fairly good system we have now.

How do you create music for Next games?

There are 2-3 ways of doing it.

1) The first way is creating PT3 tracker music - this is usually done on PC or Mac, and uses a program like Vortex Tracker, which can produce files for 1,2 or 3 AY chips. It has all the strengths and all the limitations of a tracker.

1.5) You can use Nextdaw on the Next. This is more powerful in some ways, and has a different set of limitations too, and is great fun to use on the Next. Its layout is more similar to a DAW (or as we used to call them, MIDI sequencers :) ).

2) I'll often make music for games on the Atari ST on Cubase, running lots of synths, and mix the output down and stream it from the SD card. All three ways are great fun, present different challenges, and suit different games IMHO

What is involved in creating the boxed versions of a finished game?

I'm always wanting to do whatever each individual developer wants. Some want big manuals, or postcards, or a bonus CD, or vinyl. As long as it's financially viable, then we do it their way; after all, it's done to do something cool and be creative before all else.

How do you choose what to publish, and can creators approach you to publish their work?

We'll publish any title a dev wants to publish, and there is a genuine market for it. We help with audio, graphics, playtesting, and coding advice where it's helpful/wanted. Not every game will be a 95% smash, but most games have a genuine market. For some people, it's about them just seeing their work out in the wild. I'm always interested in hearing from anybody who wants to publish a game - genuinely just love chatting about possibilities and helping people get there - open to help even if they want to publish with somebody else or give it away on itch.

What have been your favourite games to publish so far?

Different ones for different reasons:

Bikers was the first title I was involved in with the music and the accompanying CD.

TX-1696 was obviously the birth of Technoshed Software, and it taught lots of valuable lessons. I spent about 3 years of evenings and weekends on the soundtrack LP and did the SD loading code as one of the initial prototypes that Patricia took as an example. Patricia has an ethos that it must be of the standard of the Bitmap Brothers or Team 17. Excellence in presentation and execution, and it's something we're upholding going forward.

Xeno Brigade Extinction I'm also really fond of because it was something that was developed within Technoshed's team, with Zingot and myself contributing art and music to Leslie Greenhalgh's Julian Gollop-style engine and gameplay.

We're also privileged that people who are self-contained creators trust us to make their vision come true. With titles from great developers like Rusty Pixels and WASP.

(Talking of WASP, Pogie will be finished as a tribute to Lyndon RIP, and I've got a soundtrack for it - Lyndon was very particular about what he wanted!)

[Next] Fighting a boss in TX-1696 — [Next] Fighting a boss in *TX-1696*

What games do you have in production right now?

The games we have in development that I can talk about are:

Currently available games: TX-1696 and its vinyl soundtrack. There is also an Amiga soundtrack for a possible future Amiga version of the CD.

Xeno Brigade Extinction. There is also a CD of a possible Amiga soundtrack for a possible future Amiga version.

Bikers

Magnum Cleanshot

Tengu

Crowley World Tour 2

Baggers in Space

Baggers in Space Detour

Captain Square Jaw

The Way of the Exploding Fist

The Next War

How did you get the great cover art for Next Point?

The illustrator for the game is Alfonso Azpiri's daughter. Her late father was the famous illustrator behind many Spanish titles. The Spanish have a strong sense of Sinclair gaming history, just like we do in the UK.

[Next] Next Point features different playing surfaces. — [Next] *Next Point* features different playing surfaces.

Rei Gun is designed for Accelerated Next machines. What makes it stand out, and do you think there is a market for accelerated games?

One area the Next can sometimes come to the edge of its capability is when it has to do lots of calculations involving division or trigonometry.

What did you think of Go With The Flow when you first saw it?

It was just how pretty it looks and moves - then I played it, and it might be more than a little addictive - it really is a joyous game.

What inspired Go With The Flow, and how long has it taken to be made?

Go With The Flow! was an original game design that originated back in 2020, but never got past the earliest of code prototypes. In early 2025, we saw some Copper demos produced by Rescape Arcade and immediately thought the Copper could be used to full effect in this game idea! We revisited the original design and worked it up from there, with new tech, new levels, and new enemies!

Would you be interested in publishing on other formats?

Absolutely - we're publishing at least one Amiga title, although not quite ready for release yet, and will possibly be doing another. I think it's all about feel-good, and if it feels right, we'll do it. This is a part-time hobby after all, and it's all about what brings joy to developers and me. I'm also interested in GBA, Dreamcast, Mega Drive and Commodore Plus/4, and the devs all have their own favourite platforms too!

What Next titles and developers have impressed you?

Rescape Arcade's Copper-heavy Meteor X and Frenetik game demos were superb, Captain Square Jaw is superb, and O is a great piece of work. Atic Atac is an incredible feat.

TERRIFIC TITLES - Technoshed titles in development

Richard introduces the games in progress.

Spinball - a fast-paced, against-the-clock game where you navigate mazes - Rich (A Man in his Technoshed - i.e. me :) ) code and music, with Zingot pixelling. ETA October 2026

Rei Gun - Cavern's impressive pi-accelerated bullet hell - you may have seen this tech demo back at Crash live '25

Q4 26. Music will be a mix of musicians (Myself and Jamie) - Graphics TBD

An unnamed pseudo3d driving game - from myself on code & music, demo graphics shown below, with art coming soon from both our resident artists, Scott Ruiz and Zingot

Late spring/early Summer 26

Next Point - The award-winning Tennis game from Victor Morilla

ETA - KS3 Release [September 2026]

Necromancers of Avalon - shown here with temporary graphics, by Greenman Soft, with graphics by Zingot, and music by Jamie Mallender

Q4 26

Go With the Flow! - By Rescape Arcade, Scott Ruiz and music from Jamie Mallender

Platypus Peril - 2D platformer in the style of Zool/Super Frog Spectre TBC

Vaccine - Unique puzzle game where you must fight off viruses! By SpecTre TBC

Also in development:

Untitled Top-down racer inspired by Micro Machines

Cop Crusader - Vertical racing game in the style of Spy Hunter

Bandits - aircraft-based shooter

Visit https://technoshedsoftware.com/

NEWS BYTES

Atari 8-bit: The unreleased conversion of the C64 game Trap has been dumped and is fully playable. bit.ly/trap-atari

C64: Kornel Kolma released his Poker-based Rogue-like Bal8tro. bit.ly/bal8tro-c64

Commander X-16: Hazard: Let Us Out is a brilliant NES puzzle platformer that has been converted, with $12 giving you the download for both systems. bit.ly/hazard-x16nes

Dreamcast: The DreamDisc ’25 game jam organised by Orc Face Games proved popular, with all the entries available via bit.ly/dreamdisc25

Game Boy: You can now play Dangerous Demolition by Dr Ludos on Game Boy/Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy. Homebrew Factory are running a preorder campaign for physical cartridges. Digital download is $4.99, including Game Gear and Master System ROMs. bit.ly/demolition-gb

Master System: The demo version of Castlevania is a must-play. bit.ly/castlevania-smsdemo

Next: Wing Warriors by Fran Matsusaka is a great vertically-scrolling shmup for just $1. bit.ly/wingwarriors-next

Plus/4: Check out The Pit, converted from the classic 1980s coin-op. bit.ly/thepit-plus4

QL: Jim McKay has converted Old Tower by RetroSouls from the ZX Spectrum. bit.ly/oldtower-ql

Steam: Azzy Battles The Darkness from Celtic Dragon is inspired by classic 3D platformers and is also heading to Kickstarter. bit.ly/azzy-demo

Vic-20: New website Lemon20 has been launched by the team behind Lemon64. www.lemon20.com/

ZX Spectrum: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Game Competition is underway for 2026, organised by zxkerl. csscgc2026.itch.io/

[Commander X-16] With the action framed as a flashback, Hazard: Let Us Out has you freeing scientists from rogue robots. — [Commander X-16] With the action framed as a flashback, *Hazard: Let Us Out* has you freeing scientists from rogue robots.

CHAMPION CODER - MAURO XAVIER

From: Brazil

Website: mxretrodev.itch.io / www.patreon.com/cw/mauroxavier

Format: Mega Drive

Working on: Final Fight MD, Driftin’ Rage

With Final Fight MD nearly complete, Mauro’s next project is a 3D racing game.

What got you started in making Mega Drive games?

I always wanted to create games for retro consoles and ended up choosing the Mega Drive because of the SGDK, which is a development kit that makes creating games in the C language much more practical and faster.

What inspired you to do a conversion of Final Fight?

I did a demo on a platform called Colour Maximite 2; Master Linkuei saw it and encouraged me to create a version for the Mega Drive. I initially saw it as a challenge, without imagining the scale the project would reach.

How difficult was it to get three players simultaneously?

Actually, from the beginning of the game, I had already designed everything, thinking about 3 players, but I kept quiet since I didn't have much hope that the console would be able to run it. However, after years of optimisation, along with significant improvements to the SGDK, it was possible to enable the feature with acceptable quality within the console's standards.

Who else is involved in Final Fight MD?

Edmo Caldas is the talented musician who rewrote the music for YM2612, and Master Linkuei (Paulo Ferreira) initially helped me with the graphics, SEGA CD, and arcade rips, colours, and other adjustments. After gaining experience in that area, I handled the rest of the project, mainly from rounds 3 and 4 onwards.

What is left to do on the game?

I'd like to achieve more accurate enemy behaviour compared to the arcade version, and even knowing I won't be able to achieve a 1:1 reproduction, if I get relatively close, I'll be satisfied. I also need to complete the high score, fix some bugs, and bring back the famous continue screen.

[Mega Drive] Final Fight MD includes the bonus round where you beat up a car! — [Mega Drive] *Final Fight MD* includes the bonus round where you beat up a car!

What tools do you use to develop Mega Drive games?

For programming, I use Visual Studio, the C language, and SGDK. For graphics, I use GIMP, and for sound effects, I use Audacity and Goldwave.

What games inspired Driftin’ Rage?

When I think of retro games, initially the titles that inspired me were Top Gear, Lotus, and Outrunners, but I can also say there's a bit of Road Blasters and Out Run. When I talk about more modern titles, I think of Burnout 3 and Motorstorm Apocalypse, as I want to bring some chaos to Driftin' Rage in the future.

How difficult was it to write a 3D racing engine?

In the current result, I considered the difficulty moderate; however, I consider demo 0.01 to be just a brief preview, as I'm not satisfied with the curves and other details of the game, so I believe development will become more difficult in the next stages of the project.

What else are you adding to the game?

Earthquake, hurricane, abyss, mountains, objects flying towards the player (rocks, trees, etc.), weapons, and power-ups.

When are you hoping to release Driftin’ Rage?

I'd like to release it sometime in 2026, but it will all depend on the financial incentive I can raise.

Will you do physical versions of these games?

Aside from Final Fight MD or any future fangame ports, the games that are original creations should receive complete physical versions.

What other projects are you working on?

Into The Darkness, Mazes of Chaos, The Legend of Drakonnus, and Bullet Rhythm.

Is there someone in the homebrew scene you want to work with?

I'm already very satisfied with the work of composers Edmo Caldas and the band Cyberdeous, but I'd also like to do some work with composers Diggo and Vector Obitex. For development, although I like working alone, I can't deny that it would be an extremely enriching experience to work with Shannon Birt, who has an amazing talent. For graphics, besides Master Linkuei, I believe it would be very interesting to work directly with Rheo, Pyron, and Chev.

What would be your dream game to develop for the Mega Drive?

I can't think of just one, but if I had official authorisation (I wouldn't want it to be a fangame), I would really like to create the games: The Need For Speed (the first one), SEGA Rally, and Super Contra.

[Mega Drive] Racing in Russia during Driftin' Rage — [Mega Drive] Racing in Russia during *Driftin' Rage*

DATABURST - REVIEWS

Full Spectrum Defence

Format: ZX Spectrum (128K only)

Credits: Sausageware Games

Price: digital download £1.99 / physical cassette £9.99 plus shipping

Web: sausagewaregames.itch.io/ / www.bitmapsoft.co.uk

Tower defence is unusual on 8-bit, so this game set inside a computer being attacked by viruses is welcome. This excellent take on the genre has varied enemies and great background levels, emphasising the setting. Good music and sounds add to the atmosphere, with later levels becoming frantic. This should prove challenging for Spectrum fans.

[Score] 88%

Super Fanger

Format: SNES

Credits: Mega Cat Studios / Beakful Bits

Price: £38 cartridge only / £45 boxed cartridge with manual plus shipping

Web: bit.ly/superfanger

Set in a haunted house, this is a twist on the game of Tag. The production values are high, with excellent sprites and moody, atmospheric backgrounds. It takes a few games to get into and feels a little lacking in depth, particularly for the solo player. Catch it if you can.

[Score] 77%

Nebulus

Format: Game Boy Advance

Credits: The Retro Room / Rebellion

Price: £8 digital download / £18 cartridge only / £36 boxed cartridge plus shipping

Web: bit.ly/nebulus-gba

The classic John Phillips game (aka Tower Toppler/Castelian) of climbing and destroying the rotating towers has been converted from the Atari ST. This polished adaptation features great graphics and sound, an alternating two-player mode, plus the tougher second mission (giving sixteen towers in total).

[Score] 85%

[Game Boy Advance] Pogo arrives by submarine at the first tower.

PROCESSING - PREVIEW OF CHICKEN PANIC (NES)

Christian Fast talks about his puzzle platformer featuring chickens...

Hi Andrew!

I am very honoured that you’d like to cover Chicken Panic in Retro Gamer. I’ll give you a bit of the background and the state of the project right now. I’m Swedish, by the way.

I’m no developer by trade; I don’t even work with tech, but I have an avid interest in videogames, particularly from the late 80s. I had this dormant idea from childhood to understand how games are made, but I never engaged in actually making something. However, during COVID - even though we didn’t have the kind of hard lockdowns you had in the UK - I started reading more about development for the NES, stumbled across the “Nerdy Nights” guide, and painfully slowly began to build a game.

I had a couple of ideas, but together with my son (he was around 8 at the time) we brainstormed around the idea of a game with four chickens with different abilities. The first year or so was filled with trial and error, learning programming logic and structures, how to encode data, simple RLE compression, state machines and so on.

I started writing the game in Notepad ++ and used an assembler called NESASM, but quite early I switched to ASM6, which is the assembler I still use. My creative process has been very organic. When I learnt new approaches and ways to implement game mechanics, we played around with those, and my son asked, “But can’t we add x and y?” I did all I could to implement it.

Piece by piece, we managed to get a few screens of terrain, but for a very long time, the game totally lacked sound. I made some early attempts at making a sound engine, but gave up. In my opinion, the sound engine and scrolling engine (and data layout for scrolling maps) are pretty complicated, so the exception from everything written by hand by myself is the sound engine, which is based on FamiStudio. Sound was first implemented in 2023.

Oh, and another goal my son and I had early on was to showcase the game at a retro game expo. We achieved that last spring at Retrospelsmässan in Gothenburg. It was a great event that made me rethink and redesign a lot of game mechanics and spurred me to redesign the whole game world. Up till then, the game world was mostly a proof of concept, but now the aim is the full game.

Oh, I forgot to mention the physical release. Our main goal is to get a real physical release of the game. The feeling of opening the box, browsing through the manual and popping the cart in the NES. I hope to gather enough interest to be able to finance 100 carts or so.

(Later email:)

I’ve spent my spare time optimising the RLE encoding of my map data. The lesson is that there are always some bytes to save. The savings make my life much easier, because now I can add a few more extra sounds and tunes. Uncompressed, the game could probably only hold like 16 screens, but with some tricks it’s possible to make a lot more. It's amazing what you can fit in 40 kB! With a few more bytes saved, I could probably reinstate my password system.