Retro Titans – the Evercade podcast

This week we welcome back Andy Caomhanach and Matt Upton, guests from episodes 12 and 17 respectively. Recruited for their expertise in technology and collecting, and a passion for Evercade, we got together to discuss three questions:

• What kind of collector are you?
• Would you recommend Evercade to a fellow gamer?
• Is the bricked cart issue finally over?

We also had time for a quick round of 'Hit, Miss or Maybe'. Buckle up, this is an epic episode. 

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

James Pond 2: Codename Robocod, by Richard Joseph

One of the best thing about Evercade is meeting interesting people who make you think differently about retro gaming and computing generally, not just on the platform - and this week's guest is no different. Shane Powell - aka Kenjara - works in the IT industry and discovered Evercade in the early days and has since become part of the scene, helping to test games, assist with the development of the Duke Nukem Collection 1 remasters, and even publishing his own 'hidden game'. This interview covers all this and more, including his Desert Island Carts. Make sure you stay to the end to hear Shane's fabulous playout music. 

🔗 Links:

Discord - @Evercade-Official (search for Kenjara)

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

VVVVVV, by Souleye

Ollie Houston Blunn - aka Blunners - is one of the team behind the Retro Gaming Revival YouTube channel and a regular presenter on the Total Evercade livestream. He shares his love of Evercade, his strange affection for Foxyland, and what Blaze needs to do next to keep the fanbase happy and ensure it continues to grow.

As a grassroots football club chairman, we talk about the absence of decent football games on Evercade, Sensible Soccer aside, and what he'd like to see brought to the platform. Blunners is also a big Nintendo fan and talks about his collection, including his museum piece Virtual Boy, which he claims was ahead of its time. 

🔗 Links:

YouTube  - Retro Gaming Revival

Instagram - @RetroGamingRevivial1

Facebook - Retro Gaming Revival

X / Twitter - @RetroGamingRev1

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

War Has Never Been So Much Fun, by Richard Joseph and Jon Hare

Boulder Dash was released in 1984 - yes, that means it's 40 years old - and to celebrate we caught up with the game's designer and developer, Peter Liepa. Boulder Dash was included on the Evercade C64 Collection 3 release this year and, despite its age, still plays like a dream. Peter explains the origins of the game, what it was like making games in the 80s and the creative process he went through to bring this classic to our computer screens. This is a must-listen for fans of the toe-tapping cave digger, Rockford. 

🔗 Links:

Peter's website - brainjam.ca 

Boulder Dash website - boulder-dash.com

X / Twitter - @peterliepa

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Boulder Dash music, by Peter Liepa

Goodboy Galaxy is widely regarded as one of the best games on Evercade, so having the chance to speak to one half of the development team, Rik Nicol, was a too good an opportunity to pass up on. In this episode we find out how Goodboy Galaxy was conceived, why it was developed on Game Boy Advance, the biggest challenges in making the game, and what it was like working with Blaze Entertainment on launch. 

Rik also tells us about his Desert Island Carts and which piece of gaming music he would like to take with him to a desert island. 

If you enjoyed Goodboy Galaxy, you'll love this deepdive into the game. And if you haven't played it before, you'll be wanting to buy the cart after listening to Rik!

🔗 Links:

Website - goodboygalaxy.com

X / Twitter - @hot_pengu

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Gods: Into the Wonderful (1991) main theme arranged for Amiga by Richard Joseph. Original by Nation XII.

Remember Sky TV's Games World from the 90s? In this episode, we meet one of the early finalists and the youngest competitive video gamer of the era, Dean Kennedy - aka Mean Machine Dean. A relative newcomer to Evercade, Dean talks through his early experiences on the platform and what attracted him to it in the first place. 

As well as his love of Street Fighter, Dean has a passion for all fighting games and would love to see Tekken brought to Evercade - "never say never". Dean also talks about his Twitch channel, inspirations in the world of gaming and his new side-hustle making custom shells for classic gaming consoles. 

🔗 Links:

Website - meanmachinedean.com

Twitch - @meanmachinedean

X / Twitter - @meanmachinedean10

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Chaos Engine soundtrack, by Richard Joseph

Earlier this month, Retro Titans was invited to a special media day for journalists, influencers and creators, to get a rare opportunity to meet the people who run Blaze Entertainment and try out the new devices and games.

We were under embargo until the end of the month, so this interview recorded with Crazy Burger reveals the highlights of the day and our revised take on new launches, like the Alpha, Tomb Raider and Bitmap Brothers 2. 

Crazy Burger also gives us his take on all the releases and announcements so far in 2024, playing a game of 'Hit, Miss or Maybe'. 

🔗 Links:

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@CrazyBurger

Facebook facebook.com/Crazy-Burger-119134488910841

Instagram instagram.com/crazy_burger_youtube

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

BBC Live & Kicking show theme, by David Arnold Music

Tomb Raider 1 - Main Theme, by Nathan McCree

In case you hadn't noticed, there's another Evercade podcast out there: Total Evercade, which airs every other Monday evening at 8pm UK time. Here we catch up with one of the regular presenters, Oliver Barnett, to explain what it's all about and they have doubled down on the livestream experience for Evercade fans. 

We also hear about Olly's love of Xeno Crisis, why he plays Sensible Soccer every Christmas (even though he's not a football fan) and get his reaction to upcoming releases from Blaze Entertainment. Phil also pitches a couple of marketing ideas to Olly, because apparently Blaze bigwigs listen ;-) 

There's also a few references to Olly's collaborator, and head admin for the Evercade Hangout, Ryan Andrews - who appears on episode 5 of Retro Titans, if you want to check that out before or after listening to Olly. 

🔗 Links:

YouTube - Retro Gaming Revival 

Facebook - The Evercade Hangout

X / Twitter - @RetroGaming Rev1

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Xeno Crisis 'Area 1, Perimeter', by Daniel Bärlin (Savaged Regime) for the Sega Mega Drive. Mastered by Lee Mintram (Featurecast).

Talk to any Evercade fan and it won't be long before Duke Nukem 1 & 2 Remastered comes up in conversation. And for good reason: it's an example of a classic game, made better for the Evercade platform, without tinkering with it too much. So, this episode goes into the background of how and why the games got (re)made, trying to uncover what makes them so special. 

Out guest, Nikolai Wuttke-Hohendorf - aka Lethal Guitar - was the lead developer of the Duke Nukem remasters, and he explains exactly how they brought the Duke back from the dead and the lengths they went to to preserve all the iconic features, whilst also making a number of gameplay improvements. 

🔗 Links

Twitter / X - @Lethal_Guitar

Blog - lethalguitar.wordpress.com

🎵 Music 

Duke Nukem Title Screen, by James Paddock

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Axis, by Danimal Cannon 

Whether you’re a veteran Evercade collector or new to the world of collecting retro gaming carts, you’ll enjoy this interview with Matt Upton. We discuss what it means to be an Evercade collector, whether you need to collect the full set, and hacks for acquiring hard-to-get Legacy carts. 

Matt is a keen collector himself and was game enough to play our Evercade 'Price Is Right' game - can you beat him guessing the correct price for popular Evercade classics? 

As always, we have our Desert Island Carts feature, where Matt shares his choices of carts and device to take to a desert island. 

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Streets of Rage 2 'Good Ending', by Yuzo Koshiro

We caught up with Sean Cleaver, Blaze Entertainment's spokesperson and head of marketing, to find out more about Evercade's plans for the future and answer questions about the upcoming Alpha mini arcade and what's been going on in the world of Evercade.

We cover the Alpha launch in detail, including how the Evercade mini arcade came about, as questions about specification, game line-up and whether we'll see more mini arcades in future. Sean also answers listener questions, including dealing with bricked carts and whether we'll ever see a Spectrum carts. We also pose the idea of a real-life Evercade event (EverCon?) 

As always, we have Sean's Desert Island Carts and find out the games and device one of the heads of Blaze Entertaintment would take, if stranded on a desert island. 

🔗 Links:

X / Twitter - @cleaverslips

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

OutRun 'Spash Wave', by Hiroshi Kawaguchi

In the second of our ALPHA reaction episodes, we catch up with previous Retro Titans guests Crazy Burger, Vaughan Anscombe and Nik Tyrrell to find out what they think about Blaze's first mini arcade cabinet launch.

As well as finding out whether Evercade have got a hit on their hands and if they will be buying one, we also discuss the future of Blaze Entertainment and what they are most excited about for the rest of 2024. 

🔗 Links:

Crazy Burger on YouTube - @crazyburger

Nik Tyrell on YouTube - @NikTyrrell 

Evercade Evolution on X / Twitter - @EvercadeMag

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Manic Miner, by Matthew Smith. Published in 1983 by Bug-Byte

In this first of two reaction minisodes to the launch of Evercade ALPHA, the new mini arcade bar top machine from Blaze Entertainment, we catch up with journalist and gaming streamer Andi Hamilton. Here we get Andi's initial take and his thoughts on where this fits into the Evercade ecosystem, following the big reveal on Thursday 30th May.

🔗 Links:

X / Twitter - @andihero

YouTube - @andihamilton

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Mega Man 3 Rock Medley, produced and performed by Daniel Araujo and friends, composed by Yasuaki Fujita and Harumi Fujita

If you're serious about retro gaming and can recall all your devices from days gone by, you'll love this episode with retro gaming journalist and author, Mike Diver. Publisher of three books on retro gaming, with another in the works, Mike has an encyclopedic knowledge of arcades, consoles and computer games. Here we delve into his latest book and talk about why retro gaming holds such a fascination for many of us. 

As always we get our guest's take on what's happening at Blaze Entertainment and in the Evercade universe, plus our regular Desert Island Carts feature. Turns out Mike is also a big music fan, so we cover that too. 

🔗 Links:

X / Twitter - @mikediver

Muck Rack - Mike Diver

Amazon - Mike's retro gaming books 

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Xenon 2 - Megablast (Amiga Music), by Bomb the Bass and Dave Whittaker

In a packed episode, we talk to IT lecturer and media commentator Andy Caomhanach about his love of retro gaming, which goes back to his Commodore 64 days and the Light Fantastic Pack. He describes how is love of computing and gaming led to the discovery of the Evercade platform and what makes it so special. 

We also tackle the thorny issue of cart failures, which has come up on various groups and forums, in an attempt to get to the bottom of why they might be happening, whether we should be worried and what gamers can do about it. 

Finally, as always, we have the Desert Island Carts feature and Andy explains his love of retro gaming music, especially from Richard Joseph. 

🔗 Links:

X / Twitter - @andycaomhanach

LinkedIn - @andycaomhanach

University of Galway - www.universityofgalway.ie

Andy on RTE - www.rte.ie

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

The Chaos Engine (1993) World 2 music ('The Workshops') by Richard Joseph

Witch n' Wiz is one of my all-time favourite games on Evercade, so I've been chomping at the bit to speak to the game's developer Matt Hughson. It was everything I hoped and more. We discussed how he came up with the idea for Witch n' Wiz and developed it into the game we all love. He explained his process for devising the levels and gets the difficulty level just right, before moving on to tell the story of his involvement with Evercade. 

Matt, who is based in Vancouver and works as a developer in his day job too, is also a fierce supporter of the homebrew developer scene and he explains why the community is so supportive, and tells us about some of his own favourite games. 

As always, we covered his top choices of a device and carts to take away for the Desert Island Carts feature. 

If you enjoyed Witch n' Wiz or have any interest in how games actually get made, this episode is for you. 

🔗 Links:

Linktr.ee - @matthughson

X / Twitter - @matthughson

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Nebs 'n Debs, by kulor (thanks to Chris Cacciatore)

The Evercade Facebook groups have been lit up in the past few weeks discussing collecting and selling carts. As a non-collector myself, I am intrigued by the desire to own the whole collection and equally curious about the prices some of these carts can command. So, to understand more about the art of collecting on Evercade, I spoke to reviewer, collector and all-round retro gaming fan Connor (aka Connor The Braixen) from Seafoam Gaming. 

We also have time to discuss licensing, why some carts go legacy and which ones could be up for deletion next. Connor has an extensive knowledge of Evercade and retro gaming in general, and his enthusiasm is infectious. 

As always, we have time to discuss Connor's desert island carts and play out with one of his favourite retro gaming tunes. 

🔗 Links:

Website - seafoamgaming.com

Blue Sky - @seafoamgaming.bsky.social

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Valis III - Nizetti, by Hisao Inoue, Jun Hasebe & Shingo Murakami

The Mega Cat Studios Collections (I & II) are firm fan favourites amongst the Evercade community, so having the opportunity to talk to the company’s founder James Deighan and cinematic director Andrew Marsh was a real treat.

This episode covers a lot of ground, from the origin story of Mega Cat Studios and how they started working with Blaze Entertainment, through to the business of making indie games and defining success in a hit-led industry.

If you have any interest in developing your own game or you’d like to peep behind the curtain of a successful game studio, this episode is for you!

It also happens to have a banging tune to play out at the end.

🔗 Links:

X / Twitter - @megacatstudios

Instagram - @megacatstudios

Facebook - @megacatstudios

Discord - @megacat

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Coffee Crisis theme tune, by Mega Cat Studios

Fresh from a mid-season break, we talk to gaming journalist and YouTuber Andi Hamilton and get his take on the latest Evarcade news, the growth of retro gaming and his love for Duke Nukem, Street Fighter and Sensible Soccer. 

As usual we have the Desert Island Carts feature, where Andi tells us his choice of device, carts and music to take away on a desert Island. 

Do make sure you subscribe to Retro Titans to never miss an episode and give us a review, if you have a moment to spare. 

🔗 Links:

X / Twitter - @andihero

YouTube - @andihamilton

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

Splatterhouse 2 Genesis Music - Bellache Boss Battle, by Eiko Kaneda

We catch up with Nik Tyrrell, a retro gaming YouTuber, Evercade collector and fan of the 8-bit era. As well as providing his thoughts on all things Evercade, Nik gives us his perspectives on the golden era of gaming, what the appeal of collecting cartridges is and his hidden gems in the Evercade library, amongst other things. 

We also play an Evercade game, 'Evercade Family Fortunes', which you're welcome to join in at home or on the move. All you need is a pen and paper before you start listening. 

Do make sure you subscribe to Retro Titans to never miss an episode and give us a review, if you have a moment to spare. 

🔗 Links:

YouTube - @NikTyrell

Facebook Group - Nik Tyrell on YouTube

🎵 Music 

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra

New Zealand Story - arcade in-game music