0:00

Coming up on this week's show, virtual

0:02

reality comes to the N64. A

0:05

huge storage boost for your PSP Go.

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And we chat low-tech games with Alistair

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Lowe. And

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And they offer services like 3D printing

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community. So get an instant quote right

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now on their website at pcbway.com. Hello

1:14

and welcome to the Retro Hour podcast,

1:16

episode number 420. Your

1:18

weekly dose of retro gaming and technology news

1:20

with me, Dan Wood. Me, Ravi Abbott. And

1:23

me, Joe Fox. And very nice

1:25

to be joining us for this week's podcast. Of

1:27

course, a show that just before the

1:30

weekend, celebrates all things in the world

1:32

of retro gaming and technology. And you

1:34

guys feeling a bit nervous? I feel

1:36

my picking on someone finger waving

1:39

around again this week. What's in it last

1:41

week? A new approach to the podcast. Who's

1:43

going to describe it? I

1:46

mean, imagine this, Ravi, I'm a new listener,

1:48

right? I'm scrolling through Spotify. This podcast sounds

1:50

interesting. The Retro Hour. Retro Hour, Retro. What's

1:52

this about? I'd say it's

1:55

kind of like Poundland, you know. The

2:00

police self not not not everybody him pounds,

2:02

not everything empowerment cause the pound I enter

2:04

the rats or our goes on a lot

2:07

longer. the something I. Wonder

2:09

where you're going to yammer on

2:11

A bit of a modest yeah

2:14

yeah it's a it's a podcast

2:16

where we discuss the latest in

2:18

old news of technology mrs of

2:20

but the kind of new adopters,

2:23

new devices, new games coming out

2:25

but also we do an interview

2:27

with it industry legend or developer.

2:30

All Artist and we've been doing it

2:32

for got over eight years now and

2:34

it's come on every single week which

2:36

is a pretty crazy. Exactly.

2:38

Setting like gonna sums it up. I sort of August

2:41

is about of course it would bring it to speed

2:43

what's been happening in restaurants because we get everyone's got

2:45

busy lives. you know not everyone can spend all day

2:47

on the on the forums, on the socials and to

2:49

see what's happening and retro so we keep an eye

2:51

of all that for you and give it a big

2:53

stories from the last week and a in terms of

2:55

you know retro stuff that we do. Not.

2:57

Only do we do the podcast as well. I'm

3:00

in you. He has a bit of us extra

3:02

curricula activities. what is it? A job as well?

3:04

rabbits and a you work for an my favorite

3:06

magazine. And make addicts. Now I'm in. As

3:09

a kid I used to buy. All. The

3:11

Amiga mags you know me to format. See.

3:13

You a meager every month get me to

3:15

shoppers wealth or my pocket money. We're.

3:17

Gonna make a magazines me geezer International media

3:19

competing I get some times as well. When

3:21

you guys launch they said new Amiga magazine.

3:24

A. Couple years ago I'm in Ot I'm hyped for

3:26

every month. When it comes through the lab box it

3:28

really feels like and I've been like eleven twelve years

3:30

old again with all the given or mention as wouldn't

3:32

mention immigrated from the book us for a while and

3:35

bookstore don't strong what you guys been working on this

3:37

month. Yeah. So it's a

3:39

C Twenty eight and I've actually done

3:41

the ab feature for hits his by

3:43

six pages so it's been quite have

3:46

to do and deaths you know is

3:48

is quite interesting because I used to

3:50

do the fetus and. To. Switch

3:52

Time at that in the podcast having. A

3:55

job you know all of this other stuff

3:57

from his. It's quite hot today by a

3:59

mob, ready. The to be back. Doing.

4:01

A feat for this issue and

4:03

that from scholar which is a

4:05

a beautiful pieces amiga software. I

4:07

kind of code it like a

4:09

glue that. Both. All the different

4:11

elements of the me get together. He

4:14

I'd years under scanner is bit lighter,

4:16

honest, like a multi media. Creation.

4:18

Sweet was an arm of the used

4:20

It For and struggle had those at

4:22

that newsletter and exhibition. I think it

4:24

was at the Am the London Transport

4:27

Museum back in the nineties. Remember reading

4:29

that they have a suitably purpose to

4:31

mega City Thirty Two so running scarless

4:33

like interactive kiosks. Yes, I

4:35

used in Forever Finance least it to

4:37

her advertise Windows as well it wasn't

4:39

actually and as Microsoft for years and

4:41

as is really cool piece of powerful

4:43

software and in the magazine I got

4:45

on the kind of. Rabbit. Hole

4:48

because it was also to used on cable

4:50

Tv and then I'm They even have some

4:52

hardware themselves say I say a really interesting

4:54

read and you can pick it up in

4:56

a Wh Smith says well. Yes,

4:59

If your son of the amiga ham and

5:01

be granted magazine destiny worst that can all

5:03

available to every month as well says dummies.

5:06

hasn't read more by scholars abusing scholar actually.

5:08

Source of things like scrolling. Credit.

5:10

Some videos we make a school I bring my me to

5:12

five hundred. It's probably with a hooky tell feel that. Yeah

5:15

to specify produce had done word at at at

5:18

an office as if it's so I yeah Devaney

5:20

was looking out for that and on the podcast

5:22

of the Sweet as well. I mean one thing

5:24

that we have been focusing quite heavily on over

5:26

the last couple of months on the podcast days

5:28

of the indie scene because in some says retro

5:30

gaming an Indian of them really did a hand

5:33

in hand as we said a couple a times

5:35

maps and it really feels like at the moment

5:37

that is kind of were some of the most

5:39

exciting activities. In. The retro world is

5:41

going on of the moment and studies interviews.

5:43

Kind of a bit of a follow up.

5:45

Seats that shut. We did with John Rigs

5:47

a couple of weeks ago because he collaborated

5:49

with I guess This Weights and you met

5:51

them both of them India Boards that you

5:54

went to in Nottingham about a month ago

5:56

and this is Alice to live from. Low

5:58

Tech games. Now you might be similar. The

6:00

City cause he makes some really innovative

6:02

games particularly for the any S and

6:04

the Dream cast including again this been

6:07

a mess is it of the last

6:09

couple years so lead on the Nintendo

6:11

Entertainment System. Yeah. Is interesting

6:13

as like you note with hot

6:15

even spectrum that developers on them

6:18

stuff and their thoughts about how

6:20

these areas like these older systems

6:22

have been. The. Kind of

6:24

experimentation ground. Say. Indie

6:26

games and then they go out and they

6:29

get pull a dancer you know, the X

6:31

Box and then to the Ps Five and

6:33

and steam and stuff like that while I'm.

6:35

Alice's. Games that a really interesting

6:37

so he's he started doing stuff on

6:40

the Nes well originated mobile games for

6:42

his.on the nice and it's not really

6:44

a coda so he used their Nas

6:46

maker. That's. It, I'm like a

6:48

dead kid and isn't it will hear more about

6:50

that where the well as so obviously, but it's kind

6:53

of like Arab, especially a homebrew development kit for

6:55

the any, as isn't that. Yeah, there's a lot of

6:57

like things that enable people to to create their

6:59

own. Games and their

7:01

own kind of ideas that you know they

7:03

wouldn't have been able to his back in

7:05

the days it would have been a lot

7:07

harder to gonna create something but now using

7:10

you know modern hardware you can gonna make

7:12

a lot easier and and development design your

7:14

game and he's he's kind of how with

7:16

as wow such as a. Emulate

7:18

her. Weight. Sam was for

7:20

the Nas. And. To her

7:22

it was under dream cast and that's

7:25

got it's open source and that kind

7:27

of updated that as well. So this

7:29

the will the poor in process from

7:31

the nice to dream cost is something

7:33

that we talk about in this but

7:35

also tape worm which is another game

7:37

is created a silly to. as

7:39

well which is gonna come out on than as a nice

7:41

at sorting uno dos and Owsley Slater was net which willing

7:43

to the shown as people to get better. Yeah.

7:46

Yeah and these a proper releases you

7:48

know he can't and costs hair and

7:50

dub. As it's a masterly

7:52

banging soundtrack, this is a really nice

7:55

gonna com Sat. says. Have

7:57

in parasites. As

7:59

it's in her. Creatures Within games. That's changed

8:01

quite a bit since back in the name

8:03

of of through that you are like the

8:06

early nineties. Why Putin was like a a

8:08

cute fluffy cuddly little mascot. now seems like

8:10

yellow said parasites tape. Want to be glad

8:13

I got exactly death and and before he

8:15

doorbells he did or to to mimic Wave

8:17

Fabrics games which was John Rex as well.

8:19

but he'd have also done some really interesting

8:22

stuff on it's own. So he did a

8:24

Hope prank about Doom running on cross stitch.

8:27

With sit sit sit lieu of the night.

8:30

Yeah when he I had that in I went

8:32

into the millions with our and and then he

8:34

goes had done at a game on a pop

8:36

up a book which is kind of hard to

8:38

describe in the podcast but will have it in

8:40

the show. Nightspots is a pop up but why

8:42

you open the pages. As. A projector

8:44

and then if in kind of play

8:46

each page and inside a really nice

8:49

concepts of you know bringing physicality to

8:51

the kind of a video game Weldon

8:53

and something that parents can play with

8:55

their kids. The. S of

8:57

really interesting guy. This week's am Alice the

9:00

Low from Low Tech Games Particular if you're

9:02

into the yes I keep alternating my my

9:04

pronunciation of this the Nas the any ask

9:06

us whenever we say nas. Inevitably,

9:09

We get light in a tweet. so comments from

9:11

American. Listeners. Going on, what's that

9:13

and as big as a mess and yes and

9:15

says this has said the bones and the yamin

9:17

massive indie developer this wage bill of slates the

9:19

on him or less lead to the I was

9:22

it is waiting on kickstarter right now and all

9:24

of that covenant with Alice delights a special guest

9:26

in one house now from now as also did

9:28

say so myself in a podcast us when we

9:31

chat about the news and around civil discussion about

9:33

what's been happening, what's been going down. In.

9:35

The World of Retro from over the last

9:37

week and death. This is a headline. I.

9:40

Didn't expect to see. Virtual.

9:42

Reality. Is. Coming to

9:44

the and sixty fool. Because.

9:46

of what the heck Nazis This article

9:49

says why the heck Now this is

9:51

by Air James Lambert you may be.

9:54

Awesome! At Porto, sixty four

9:56

on projects which actually suddenly got close

9:58

down in the around. Very of this

10:00

year. We. Were covering for quite awhile.

10:02

We in her mentioned on the show he times

10:04

in the things is gotta stick with the and

10:07

Sixty Four Absolutely insane but yeah a a little

10:09

bit disheartened about that has easy continued his keep

10:11

it going on the and sixty five years gonna

10:13

keep it going overseas use and Sixty Four fan.

10:16

As go with the do seats on of. which

10:19

I really like because as even though he does time

10:21

ago and said technical side of it. Keeps

10:23

it quite simple as well. Alight the

10:25

likes of Must Have Air which I

10:27

love and the the idea behind this

10:29

was. He has a mud and sixty

10:31

four. Which. Has a us be

10:34

posted it. And also eg, say my

10:36

fourth in it from in a previous projects

10:38

such as the Most of Sixty Four process.

10:40

So. For well, why not? Hook my

10:42

option Us development kit. That

10:45

he got this is just gathering dust in his covered

10:47

cause he's a big fan of the are he mentions

10:49

in the video. And. When the actually

10:51

came out. At. The up

10:53

this one development cat he's not really

10:55

to sit in till now. I'm.

10:57

Semi only stories know get an oculus not

11:00

using a day sister feel like I've ever

11:02

had little bit like as yeah I'm probably

11:04

god dev kits discover a cc I have

11:07

often like late gotta love em but from

11:09

what I and spend. To

11:11

get this kind of running through his and

11:13

sixty four. He. Hasn't had to

11:15

do too much to it. I'm

11:18

I'm sure it's not as simple as he makes it

11:20

look. Dinner is kind of books and it works. And.

11:22

Obviously it's not like oh it just works in

11:24

of green of time or just was golden. I.

11:27

Am. He's had to reach out to a

11:29

and over developer who is known as as.

11:32

A Pyroxene. I think to say it Pyroxene.

11:34

As a mother and he was going to

11:36

he's a Fredy artist. He was going to

11:38

help him. With. The previously

11:41

cancer poll sixty four but he's developed

11:43

like hey, just like a level, like

11:45

a world. Yeah. For hims kind

11:47

of run around and. And on

11:49

this fits for reality and sixty four and

11:51

but it looks pretty good, doesn't it? Yeah.

11:54

i think in terms is this running on

11:56

a in a system this like of twenty

11:58

five odd years old now This

12:00

looks really impressive and like you said he's kind of he's

12:03

used this oculus developer kit one He

12:05

said, you know, basically he's got a very simple

12:07

tracking and interface on there as well He

12:09

takes the the output from his modern n64 Via

12:13

USB as well some interesting things that he's working on

12:15

He said there is a little bit of kind of

12:17

lag on there as well And the head movements don't

12:19

quite catch up and apparently he's planning on using a

12:22

an Arduino Maybe to help with

12:24

that, you know to send the orientation data back

12:26

to the n64 which might smooth things out a

12:28

little bit And obviously there's I

12:30

guess they're having to render Separate

12:32

vision split vision for each eye as well,

12:34

which obviously putting more strain on the system

12:37

Giving it that spirit stereoscopic 3d. I think

12:39

they call it Well, I think he's gonna

12:41

have to work of a way of hooking

12:43

up the actual control So like,

12:45

you know if you're in like Mario 64 or something

12:49

You know You'd be going up on the

12:51

controller to look up and then kind

12:54

of having that hooked up with the oculus

12:56

There needs to be like a communication layer

12:58

in there and that's probably

13:00

why he's running the the custom

13:02

software But it's quite funny at the

13:05

end. He has a power glove. Yeah

13:09

Might be an attempt Getting

13:11

a kind of control device in there,

13:13

but it does seem a bit kind

13:15

of sketchy. Yeah maybe

13:18

You know, that's why he's using that 3d 3d

13:21

pre-made environment there Wouldn't it

13:24

be amazing if the power glove turned out to

13:26

be like the ultimate VR controller? Imagine

13:28

I really don't get well Come

13:32

really in demand and that's it. It's gotta

13:35

be you know vindicated after all these years

13:37

of slagging it off So I guess in

13:39

theory then you could put I

13:41

don't know you could put anything through this VR

13:43

like if you had a custom piece of

13:46

software, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it's

13:48

just HDMI in and USB I guess you just set it

13:50

dated to it Yeah, if you

13:52

had the output of anything into HDMI,

13:54

you know But I think it's very

13:56

cool that he's done this for the the n64 and he's

13:58

saying I mean obviously this is really a work

14:00

in progress at the moment and he's

14:03

making steps to get this smoothed out. And he's

14:05

got, you know, if you watch the video he

14:07

is looking around, the accelerometer in there is working,

14:10

it can determine the headsets orientation, you know, stuff

14:12

is moving. Like we said, there is a bit

14:14

of lag that hopefully the Arduino will sort out

14:16

as well. Like you said, Ravi, obviously probably needs

14:18

some way to really get the control optimized

14:21

for VR. But I think looking at

14:23

this video, he's not planning on basically,

14:25

you know, like you said, turning

14:28

Super Mario 64 into VR. I

14:30

think they're going to be making

14:32

their own original N64 VR

14:35

game by the sounds of it

14:37

because obviously, I mean, he's got his

14:39

chops working on that that portal port

14:42

that got cancelled. So I think, you

14:44

know, having something new that he could

14:46

work on that was, you know, targeted

14:48

towards this would be very cool. Obviously,

14:50

a very niche market, because you can

14:52

do somebody who's not only got the

14:54

the Oculus, also a modern N64 and

14:56

has this game as well and is interested in

14:58

VR. I'm not sure kind of how

15:00

big that market is. Just golden IVR. Come on.

15:02

You know, golden, golden IVR. I mean, it'd be

15:04

a hell of a setup. It's like you say,

15:06

Ravi, for

15:09

it connected. I imagine Dan

15:11

would be able to. Yeah,

15:13

yeah. Have all that custom software

15:15

and then the custom N64 as well

15:18

on top of that. I think there

15:20

is actually a golden IVR Oculus kind

15:22

of tribute. But yeah, it

15:24

would be good to see. I mean, retro

15:26

VR, it always sounds a good idea in principle.

15:29

I mean, obviously, he's using a more modern

15:31

headset for this, which I think will definitely

15:33

help. So I did buy you

15:36

guys might remember, God, it must have

15:38

been about two years ago, I bought kind of

15:40

a third party virtual reality

15:42

headset from Japan that was

15:44

basically what was left of the

15:46

Atari Jaguar VR

15:49

hardware that they sold to this

15:51

third party company. It's in the other room. I

15:53

can't remember who makes it. But basically it was

15:55

it's got composite input in there and you can

15:57

output the Atari Jaguar's video

15:59

hardware. the video output into it, or

16:02

basically anything that uses the standard composite

16:04

video. But there is one game

16:06

on the Atari Jaguar Miffle Command that

16:09

was made for VR. Sadly, it

16:11

can't do the head tracking and everything, but I did try plug-in

16:13

in just to see what it looks like. Oh my God, I

16:15

thought I was going to bomb it after about 10 seconds. Even

16:18

modern VR, if I'm playing PSVR and I'm playing racing

16:21

games and stuff, it might just be me. I don't

16:23

know if you guys are the same. I did get

16:25

quite affected by motion sickness in VR. I

16:27

think the best one that I saw with the

16:29

VR stuff was, I know they had that platform

16:31

one which was like 2.5D. It

16:36

snuck out a bit and

16:38

you'd play Donkey Kong on there and stuff, but

16:40

I always enjoyed the ones where you're actually in

16:42

an arcade. You're

16:44

walking around in an arcade and then you find a

16:46

game and go into that in VR. More like

16:49

environments and stuff. Yeah. Yeah,

16:51

actual games, yeah. But that's the thing. Obviously, it's using

16:53

more recent hardware, so I imagine it'll look a lot

16:55

better than using a 90s virtual

16:58

reality headset. But yeah,

17:00

very cool to see. Like I said, very niche audience

17:02

there, but I think just having virtual

17:04

reality running on the N64 is

17:07

something very cool indeed. So we'll keep an eye on

17:09

that. I'm going to check out the video and the

17:11

work in progress so far. I will link that up

17:13

in the show notes at theretrohour.com or check your podcast

17:15

app. And of course, over the

17:17

weekend on Sunday, it was Mother's

17:20

Day here in the UK. We

17:22

weren't celebrating that, were we? Instead, it was Mario

17:24

Day. It was Mario Day. Yeah, we

17:26

did both. Yeah, don't forget you were in the bad

17:28

books with the Mrs. Joe. Yeah, they did time this

17:30

actually. Nintendo were

17:32

quite good about this because even though

17:35

it was a Mario

17:37

Day, M-A-R-10 Day, Mario Day

17:40

on Sunday, they did release the

17:42

major announcement on Saturday night

17:44

so they didn't take the shine off Mother's Day here

17:47

in the UK. But the big announcement is

17:49

there's going to be, and we kind of talk about

17:51

these quite a bit even though I don't think any

17:53

of us actually own any of them

17:56

so far, there's going to be another retro

17:58

Lego kit. You're

18:00

assuming that the Mums are

18:03

not Mario fans. Well, yeah.

18:06

Sorry to interrupt. My

18:09

mum doesn't mind a bit of Mario Kart. She

18:11

might have been excited. She might have been the

18:13

best kid. Yeah, this could be a

18:15

Mother's Day present for you next year because this is coming out

18:18

in 2025. This is a

18:20

Lego Mario Kart set. Yeah,

18:23

so all they've put is, I love how we're

18:25

like, this is the biggest announcement, other than the

18:27

fact that they've announced the next Mario film and

18:30

loads of other reasons. It's a bloke that

18:32

we do mention too and Paper Mario, but

18:34

we're going to talk about Mario Kart Lego.

18:36

Yeah, they've announced the

18:39

Mario Kart Lego for 2025 and it is

18:41

literally just Mario Kart Lego 2025.

18:43

That is all they've announced like

18:45

on the advert and you just hear

18:47

like some sound effects from Mario Kart. Now,

18:49

I'm interested to get your guys' opinion on this. Like,

18:51

do you think it is literally just going to be a

18:54

Mario Kart set like of Lego or do you think

18:56

it's going to be like a scale electrics or

18:59

do you think it's going to be like Mario Kart Home

19:01

Live Home Circuit? You know what they did a couple of

19:03

years ago where it's like an actual remote

19:05

control car and it's a game, but you have to build it

19:07

out of Lego. I would want an

19:09

entire rainbow road. I can

19:11

imagine that would be so expensive.

19:14

That would be so cool. That's

19:16

the thing. I mean, these sets are generally quite

19:19

expensive anyway. Yeah. We talked about

19:21

that when they released these Lego sets. The price of

19:23

Lego now is like nuts, but it would be cool

19:26

if you imagine like that didn't

19:28

even cross my mind that it could be an

19:30

actual playable game. I just thought it might be

19:32

like, you know, a few of the characters in the cards and stuff that you'd

19:34

kind of put on a shelf and it would look pretty. But

19:36

now I'm getting quite excited about that. Yeah, electric

19:38

style, Mario. I can't think that

19:41

you could play with mates. Wow. Well,

19:43

if they did the little cards like,

19:45

you know, just the iconic ones and

19:48

like the baby prams, you know, they had all the

19:50

different designs. And then you

19:52

got the mega blocks road for cheap.

19:57

Or you can probably make if you have enough spare

19:59

bits. of Lego you could probably make your own

20:01

rainbow road. Yeah true true. I

20:03

mean they have done a Mario

20:06

Kart scare electrics before but

20:08

it is just it's scare electrics it's nothing it's not

20:10

Lego you don't have to like obviously

20:12

you do build the track and you then

20:14

put the little plastic cars on it but I

20:17

think it might be something like that like similar to

20:19

what Rabi said I think there might be a bit

20:21

of a road that you build maybe a bit of

20:23

a rainbow road and then you will have the cars

20:25

that you build yourself but I think if

20:27

they really really wanted to go for it they could

20:29

do the Mario Kart home life thing with

20:32

it and make it like augment reality on your phone

20:34

and stuff. Yeah that's the thing I'm thinking if

20:36

it was Lego how would you like you know drop a banana

20:38

or fiver blue shells stuff because

20:40

that could be part of Mario Kart isn't it you

20:42

know you need that. I yeah I think like I

20:45

mean I'm probably over fantasizing and it probably

20:47

is just going to be a Lego set

20:49

that you put on. You're gonna be heartbroken

20:51

next to you. Yeah but I think if

20:54

I think if they really went for it they could make a

20:57

little remote control car that you build yourself out of Lego and

20:59

it's got a little motor in there and stuff and you build

21:01

on top of it like a little bit like Lego Technics

21:04

I think it was called or Lego Techno or something I

21:06

think it was called in the 90s. I think that

21:08

would be really cool but yeah I think

21:10

I'm reaching for the stars a little bit. This

21:12

conversation reminds me of the kind of conversations you'd

21:14

have with your mates in the playground when you're

21:16

a kid. You can have flying cars in it

21:18

it's gonna have all sorts of amazing. You

21:21

go around to two houses when you were kids

21:23

one house where all the Lego sets were made

21:25

nicely and they had all of them matching up

21:27

and another one where you had like flower pots

21:30

on spaceships and stuff like that. Just a big

21:32

bucket of Lego. Yeah just dive in yeah. Every

21:34

set was mixed together. Yeah

21:37

so it is very cool to see that coming out and there's

21:39

going to be more apparently more Lego sets that are coming up

21:41

in 2025 as well. There's going to be

21:43

a Kingboos haunted mansion for

21:45

Lego Luigi to explore which

21:48

looks very interesting and also there's going to

21:51

be a Bowser's Express train set as well.

21:54

Which Looks like they're doing quite a bit. I

21:56

Just can't wait to eat like a manhunt. Like

22:00

D V, I said I would be

22:03

wicket but yeah, know lots of Legos

22:05

of America. And. Then also and

22:07

couple of the classic gameboy

22:09

Mario games, Coming out this

22:11

week. It. Can do this which

22:13

is well as Dr. Mario. Mario.

22:16

Golf and Mario Tennis. Or

22:19

Gameboy games, which is pretty cool. Seen them

22:21

come out on the top of March. On

22:24

the i makes me realize some it into so

22:26

many Mario games and in a lot of those

22:28

gameboy games and I didn't have a gameboy but

22:30

in the dice I've played I've never played Mario

22:32

goals, never played Mario Tennis Applied Doctor Mario. Them

22:35

which is great great was org abdullah that one

22:37

but yes this is like is the get how

22:39

many marry a dems have come out. Yeah

22:41

and it's not like like he is not like

22:44

oh yeah we'll these games. Have

22:46

come out recently. This is my to games

22:48

every way you do. You are right like

22:50

you think of like of Mario World married

22:52

with three eccentric. With. Anything like

22:54

almost got it was so many

22:57

different gameboy game variations and. Thus,

22:59

A Game Gear games as well. That would have been weird. But

23:02

there was. It was so many of the games that I

23:05

think a lot of his forget about. You

23:07

know, even right of free while into now even

23:09

on the game cube. There. Was a

23:11

My or Tennis my golf mario

23:13

party dance makes Mario Soccer my

23:15

baseball. Is been everywhere

23:17

for like forty years. We've

23:20

been around a long time. I said

23:22

i guess what a bit Doctor Marion

23:24

system the Saturday Now I'm talking about

23:26

handouts. The. Psp Go which

23:28

is actually system. That

23:31

I saddam about cause and. This.

23:33

Was kind of us. It's in that kind of the or between the

23:36

Psp and as he has v to wasn't that. Very.

23:38

Short lived digital only. Psp.

23:42

Which you think about that I'm in.

23:44

When did this smells like? See thousands?

23:46

Two thousand and Nine. Still very early

23:48

for some people. Now that the talking

23:50

about. Digital. Only systems becoming a

23:52

thing. But. About this study we do in

23:54

this like in over a decade ago. Is.

23:56

Going crazy to think of as well. But now

23:58

the Psp Go is. The love and it turns out

24:01

the is you are you only get some games on the. The.

24:03

Not going to be yeah, well, not quite

24:06

simple why, but a homebrew way of giving

24:08

your ass you Psp job at the storage

24:10

boost. Yes, So the Psp Go!

24:12

I actually remember when he came out and fight.

24:15

Pretty isn't a for a at the time. I

24:17

didn't like it. You know, looks like a phone.

24:19

You know, like a Samsung finding a you flip

24:21

the up kind of thing. I. Am.

24:24

But now it may look quite sleek and I'm of. my

24:26

friend bought one. As. I've I've

24:28

spent so much extra money And get the

24:30

Psp. Go. He. Can't store games on

24:32

it. And he's Iowa, Kansas.

24:34

sixteen Today I am sixteen gig a hard

24:37

drive and that's what. That's what the came

24:39

with the the ship. Really the sixteen gig.

24:41

Memory. Author: Educate Memory. And

24:44

you know I remembered. Ah and the still have it

24:46

set up so quick. it isn't like that. But the

24:48

smart. Enhances. It to

24:50

one hundred and twenty eight gigabytes

24:53

doesn't it? Yeah, think they it

24:55

dislike this proprietary. Memory

24:58

stick em to yeah wed says.

25:00

Seems very expensive said. This model

25:02

is kind of. Just.

25:04

Adopting it for my quest

25:06

state. And store it's.

25:09

But. that that they are few province

25:11

of as wow like them in edge of

25:13

se day is gonna read slava is yeah

25:16

not gonna be as fast and there is

25:18

a bit fragile but i'm. You.

25:20

Know I had a Psp. I don't know what

25:22

the mornings like on the Psp. Go. The

25:25

Psp his awesome, absolutely amazing and

25:27

up I assume it's is kind

25:30

of the same. like if you

25:32

want a. A. Gray emulation

25:34

missing. Ps. Pay

25:36

over. The to is about

25:38

an they're really good way to go

25:40

to you now have a lot of yoda

25:43

systems on something portable that some a

25:45

widely available often the goes or bit

25:47

more expensive though from was seen. By

25:49

them second hand. He. Had

25:51

a pretty rare a system as an early on

25:53

the market for vaizey months when like yeah literally

25:55

every skill to has a nice twenty eleven. Purely.

25:59

they said they were shifting focus to the PS

26:01

Vita which makes sense and

26:03

I always feel the Vita was newer than

26:05

that like but no 2011 has

26:07

been and gone as well. Yeah yeah

26:10

yeah exactly but yeah this mod

26:12

I don't know it's it doesn't

26:14

look like you have to solder anything it looks

26:16

like you kind of take the PSP apart

26:18

take the shell off and you just kind of stick it

26:20

down maybe. I'm not too sure. Yeah

26:23

basically you've got to trim some plastic

26:26

support tabs inside it to fit it

26:28

in and then so you

26:30

can reinstall the back plate on it. It's

26:32

a very small adapter and when you imagine

26:34

the size of a standard SD card maybe

26:37

like two or three times the size of that it

26:39

kind of snape around at an angle. Yeah basically just

26:41

kind of plugs into the ribbon connector inside the

26:43

PSP by the looks of it. You've only got to hold it down

26:45

with some sticky tape because it can come loose

26:47

it does seem like it's a little bit fragile but

26:50

I mean for the cost of it you

26:52

know like we said it can bump your

26:54

storage to 128 gigabytes to sell it means

26:57

for $12.99. That's great and yeah it

26:59

didn't have a UMD drive did it? Well

27:02

this one does no. No the PSP

27:04

goes so that's what made it a lot thinner and

27:08

I remember the UMDs people would

27:10

do mods putting high capacity batteries

27:12

in the PSP in the

27:14

back of them and you know being

27:17

able to fit that because of the

27:19

space from the UMD drive but yeah

27:21

this requires a really thin solution

27:24

to go in and yeah that

27:26

price you're laughing really. Although

27:28

I mean if you have got a PSP you

27:30

go that is one downside it means you can't

27:32

watch Big Momma's house on UMD. Yeah it was

27:34

a beautiful film seller for me back

27:37

in the day. You know I sometimes

27:39

go into like porn

27:41

shops and charity shops and I see a

27:43

few like lonely UMD discs and it is

27:45

usually like Big Momma's house or something like

27:48

that. I thought you were a virgin I

27:50

think I've got as well. I

27:52

generally buy them off the season because I have got a

27:54

PSP I don't think I've ever watched a UMD movie on

27:56

them but you just want to buy them yeah put them

27:59

on the shelf. with my Philips CDI video CDs.

28:02

It's a cool thing to own. So if you have got a

28:04

PSP going like here, you wanna give it a new lease of

28:06

life, then these are available now, like I said, very affordable price.

28:08

So I'll link that in the show notes as well. Now

28:11

speaking of very cool things, I'm

28:13

reading this and I'm thinking, oh, what

28:16

am I getting my fishing rod out

28:18

for my Dreamcast at some point

28:20

again soon. To have a little blast on

28:22

there, Sega Bass Fishing. Although

28:24

it turns out there

28:26

was a port of it to the NES back

28:28

in the day, that is now

28:31

readily available for anyone to

28:33

download. I'd never heard of this before. I

28:35

love this. So in the

28:37

late 90s and early 2000s, there

28:40

was a Taiwanese company and

28:43

they were making games for the

28:46

family clone. So, you know,

28:48

FamilyCon Japanese, Nintendo, kind

28:51

of like unlicensed units, games

28:54

on official. Yeah,

28:57

unofficial units they would make and sell

28:59

in Taiwan. And there's

29:01

been so many different like, you

29:03

know, kind of like unofficial ports

29:05

to the NES of like Mortal Kombat. There

29:08

was one for Tekken 2. There was

29:10

one of the James Cameron 1997

29:13

Titanic game, which

29:15

was a beat them up, which was

29:17

absolutely fantastic. Let me find the name

29:20

of this company. Homology

29:22

apparently. What were they

29:24

called? These, you know, other regions where

29:27

titles come out from. Hummer Team,

29:29

yeah, Hummer Team, there we go. So all

29:31

unofficial. And as it turns out,

29:33

I didn't know about this one. In

29:35

the early 2000s, they had made

29:37

a Sega Bass Fishing one as well, which

29:41

worked with one

29:43

of these Famicom clones, which came with an

29:45

unofficial fishing rod as well

29:48

for it. Now,

29:50

reason we're talking about that is this week is

29:53

a ex user called Pirate Game

29:55

Thing has actually

29:57

dumped the game online. So

30:00

I'm assuming he's actually got one of these kits, one

30:02

of these, you know, cartridges with this game on from

30:04

Taiwan on one of these family cam clones

30:06

and they do work on the Famicom as well and you

30:08

can get him to work on the NES and stuff and

30:11

he's dumped this Sega

30:14

Bass fishing the Hummer team's version that came out

30:16

in the early 2000s for the NES. I

30:18

don't know about you guys, but I think this is wicked. I'm

30:23

looking at when you first sent this story over. Oh,

30:25

I'll tell you another god. I bet this is gonna

30:27

be dreadful. I was picturing kind of those, you know,

30:29

you go down like to Skagness in the sub you'd

30:31

buy those like off the market those kind of

30:34

cheap NES kind of clone systems and it had

30:36

some kind of homebrew games on there or ripoffs.

30:38

They're always dreadful. But yeah, I'm watching

30:40

the video of this and actually it's got like

30:43

power like scrolling It's gone. The

30:45

colour palette is amazing. The characters look

30:48

really well drawn. It's a really

30:50

good playable fishing game It's

30:53

a really playable fishing game It's

30:55

got fantastic graphics for the NES

30:58

Really good soundtrack, you

31:01

know the premise of it obviously it's fishing but you

31:03

know You can pick your lore You can pick the

31:05

stage you want to play on the

31:07

music and the feel of it

31:09

is very like JRPG Very Japanese

31:11

RPG at the time, but

31:14

it's Sega Bass fishing What

31:16

do you think of it Ravi because you're a

31:18

big fan of like the Sega sports games for

31:20

the Dreamcast aren't you? Yeah, I don't

31:22

think it looks like a fishing boat. I think

31:24

it looks like something else Yeah,

31:28

I think this is really cool

31:30

like I love

31:32

the idea with these kind of, you know

31:34

companies that just didn't care

31:36

They pumped out from another region, you

31:38

know Put it put it out there

31:40

and just lately ripped off a title

31:43

it it does look cool I'm

31:45

a fan of fishing myself for you. I used to

31:47

used to fish and I need to get back out

31:49

there But now I

31:51

can experience it at home You

31:54

don't even need to leave the house now, you can

31:56

play a king fishing on your NES

31:58

courtesy of that pirate game things

32:00

so yeah very cool to see those getting dumped

32:02

that's the thing I mean you know generally most

32:05

of the big titles for the main systems are all

32:07

kind of available to play you know the main now

32:09

kind of getting these unofficial ones like I said you

32:11

know those kind of crappy clone systems you buy it

32:13

would be nice to have those preserved that's

32:16

a new brief back memories for a lot of people so

32:18

I think that's a very worthwhile effort so you want to

32:20

get hold of that and my link that up in the

32:22

show notes as well now just one

32:24

final story and before we hop into our

32:26

chat with Alice D'Lo from Low Tech Games

32:29

and sorry guys and we'll talk about

32:31

the Commodore Plus 4 again they

32:33

seem I thought it's a plus 4 new

32:35

sneaking into the podcast but I think it's

32:37

probably because the scene is so

32:39

active at the moment actually which is crazy

32:41

because you know the plus 4 didn't get any love

32:44

for decades I remember like

32:46

you know that there was a couple of games kind of

32:48

snuck out in the early 90s for it generally

32:50

like over in there like Poland or Hungary where it

32:52

had a bit of a bigger scene but

32:55

yeah nothing over here in the UK that I can

32:57

remember but it just feel like in in the last

32:59

kind of six months already doesn't it like the plus

33:01

4 is getting so much love from

33:03

the indie scene and particularly it's kind of

33:06

one team I think who are behind most

33:08

of these and but this is a another

33:11

very impressive looking port

33:14

as a game to the Commodore Plus 4

33:16

and now I mean we had outrun recently

33:18

which looks incredible we've now got the great

33:21

now I'm gonna say it wrong again because I always

33:23

get comments on this no one can agree on it

33:25

I always say the great Gianna sisters but some people

33:27

say giana yeah I say giana

33:29

I say giana two

33:31

against one that's bad with you we

33:34

decide that's official now but someone supported

33:36

the great giana sisters which was I mean if you don't

33:38

remember that game I sure most people do it was a

33:40

bit of a controversial game back

33:42

in the day because it was a basically a rip-off of

33:44

Mario wasn't it they got yanks off

33:46

the shelves so that original version

33:48

of it's very rare isn't it and very

33:51

valuable if you've got one

33:53

of those but have you guys

33:55

played first of all have you played the original

33:57

Gianna sisters before oh of course

34:00

Of course I have, yeah, definitely. And

34:02

the music's absolutely banging. The

34:05

music's a bit lower on the Plus

34:08

Four version, but there's still

34:10

that scrolling in there and that's the whole

34:12

part of it. As

34:15

much as like Mario was a

34:17

technical demo, there was that whole thing

34:19

about Id Softner, their

34:22

first kind of product was making

34:24

a copy of Mario for MS-DOS to prove that

34:27

the PC could

34:30

do that side scrolling. And that

34:33

works really well on the Plus Four as well with

34:35

this, doesn't it? Yeah, which, if you'd have told

34:37

me that, like, in the day, they'd have been like, get

34:39

out of here, no way. But someone's actually managed it. This

34:41

is a bit of a miracle, really, because, I mean, whenever

34:43

we talk about these Plus Four ports, I

34:46

do have to remind everyone that the Commodore

34:48

Plus Four didn't have dedicated hardware,

34:51

and didn't have a dedicated sound chip. Because

34:53

obviously the Commodore 64 version of this has

34:55

got that incredible Chris Halsbeck. Drag

34:58

on there, which is legendary. Which

35:00

I think they've actually done a pretty decent job of kind

35:03

of recreating that on the Plus Four, bearing

35:05

in mind it's hardware. And again, I also

35:07

said this guy's name wrong. C.

35:10

Sabo, he's like one of the big

35:13

Commodore Plus Four musicians. He's done the music for

35:15

this. It's interesting

35:17

in music because you kind of

35:19

have a cutout of when

35:21

a sound effect happens, and

35:24

the music, it's got this kind of break. But it works,

35:26

and you get that consistent soundtrack throughout

35:29

as well. So I can see there's

35:31

a lot of trickery going on there. Yeah,

35:33

and this is Thomas Sassevari,

35:35

who's done the programming here, and

35:37

Mtrendz, who's done the artwork too.

35:40

And this is, yeah, basically it's a really

35:42

good port by the looks of it, of

35:44

great Genesises for the Commodore Plus Four.

35:46

Now looking at the intro, I mean, there is a

35:48

video that I'll link up if you haven't got your

35:50

Plus Four emulator set up at the moment. It

35:53

does really take advantage of the Plus Four

35:55

having more colours than the Commodore

35:57

64, I think. Yeah. incredible

36:00

but then the thing that made my jaw

36:02

drop is when you get about,

36:04

you check this video, you get about 1 minute

36:06

50 in, it is that scrolling because it's got that

36:08

scrolling introduction hasn't it with the title?

36:11

Yeah. It goes along. It's just really

36:13

nice. It looks incredible and then

36:15

when you get into the game, I've got a

36:17

feeling, I mean, I haven't played the original

36:20

Diana Sisters for a long time and maybe, I don't

36:22

know if you have Joe, but kind of looking at

36:24

this, it does feel a lot

36:26

slower than the original Mario for example. Well

36:29

also, I used to remember people used to

36:32

clone Mario on it, so they put Mario

36:34

skins on it and they'd be

36:36

all these pirate versions coming out, so maybe we'll

36:38

see, you know, a Mario skin on

36:40

there at some point. In terms of

36:42

playability though, it kind of feels like maybe 25% slower than Mario, what do

36:46

you say? I would say, yeah, about

36:48

25% is definitely slower

36:50

and more floaty. I

36:53

would say, I've never actually played Diana

36:55

Sisters, but Ravio always

36:57

does say it's got a banging soundtrack, so I know

36:59

about much about it, but yeah, watching this

37:02

version of it, a little bit floaty, I think

37:04

the original isn't quite as slow or floaty as

37:06

this, is it? No, I mean,

37:08

that's the thing and it's, I think the fact

37:10

that they've got this running this well on the

37:12

Commodore Plus 4 is just as much of a

37:14

skill they are and actually for me, someone who's

37:16

doing reactions, maybe not quite what they were, having

37:18

a slightly slower version, it's probably a good thing

37:20

for me. So, Dan, if you were a kid

37:22

and you received your Plus 4 and received this

37:24

as well, would you, you know, have fuel for

37:26

your playground arguments? Yeah, because

37:29

I remember, you know, all the kids at school, there was

37:31

a few of them that got Plus 4s when they were selling

37:33

them off for like 99 quid, but very quickly, most of them

37:35

changed to Commodore 64s and then Amigas and

37:37

yeah, would generally be a bit of a, you know, the

37:39

laughing stock, the kid that still had a Commodore Plus 4

37:41

in 1991. Despite Outrun, and

37:44

Diana Sisters though, had to

37:46

throw that back in those kids' faces. Yeah, exactly. I'm

37:49

going to choose about doing that tonight. Yeah. I'm

37:51

going to choose about doing that to those bloody school kids tonight. So

37:54

yeah, the Plus 4, there you go. All along, it

37:56

was a great system Because of these

37:58

great imports. The look back in

38:01

the diaper and yet he still goes from

38:03

Nevada. Bring these out for free as well

38:05

as we don't download that the as the

38:07

website see Check out his plus full world

38:09

where they have little to these for free

38:11

So I got Newport Jonah sisters and nice

38:13

to see my yes I suppose computer. Games.

38:16

Some love again so well it's have been

38:18

shown us when I checked it out but

38:20

in a special guests at Messes indie developer

38:23

low tech games Alister Lives is coming up

38:25

on the show in just a moment. This

38:27

in I first got tonight because as for

38:29

after this, who can be putting the next

38:32

episode as our patrons only podcasts? Does it

38:34

actually do Or and it's to podcast each

38:36

month. Called. A retro hour after Hours And

38:38

that was what the same six month on the

38:40

show that way. Yeah. Every month

38:42

we yeah, we do something different. Whether that's

38:44

kind of like. Recover. A

38:46

view A year in gaming will take a

38:49

step back and review. Yeah, Ninety Ninety Five

38:51

and talk about the games and systems that

38:53

came out in that yes or might just

38:55

kind of give our opinion. On

38:57

a System and Times Review. Was. Super

38:59

Nintendo! Talk about five games for your

39:01

the and sixty four. Am or

39:03

what did we do last month? We really

39:06

good one. I sink last month

39:08

would have been that me to sit my

39:10

lists. I can't believe you never played. I

39:12

can't believe you've never played that one was

39:14

rated as and so many. So many years

39:16

of forty episodes of the a few hours

39:18

now. Which. Is crazy the next one

39:21

which I'm not going to spoil. At.

39:23

Is a little bit different? It

39:25

still retro. But. Not

39:27

not retro video games little

39:29

bit number and. Little

39:31

bit different but yeah really really

39:33

really love. Doing. The yeah, the

39:35

after hours and we film is well. As.

39:38

So if you do want to watch yeah it does. Got

39:40

to the patrons and I were to in above. And

39:42

if you fancy what's in it and looking all modes as

39:44

well. And. Time does a

39:46

great job. Put some game for it in there

39:48

so far as well. Yeah, was really really good.

39:51

And so we do try to film as well

39:53

as we already saw to talk about stuff. yeah

39:55

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39:57

this weekend. Saw all tight and Dell members into

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he was a monthly patrons hundreds and say

40:16

i mean if you're invited to eldest of

40:18

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40:21

tasteless discord several as well and on it

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is else to son of right now are

40:25

on the website at the Retro our.com and

40:27

of course we do induct new members insults

40:29

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40:39

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40:41

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40:53

you and I would have a license

40:55

community side of right now at the

40:58

Retro our.com. And. Before

41:00

we hop into. This. Week's interview.

41:03

With. Alister Low. Let's take a second

41:05

to give a massive thank you to

41:07

addict supports us of the retro. Our

41:09

podcast a nice are amazing. Friends at

41:11

shopify you know the sound by now.

41:14

That's a lovely sound as

41:17

making another sale on shopify.

41:20

You. Guys do any side hustle so the moment and

41:22

he didn't get your retro gaming market since dustier. Retro.

41:25

Gaming Market I'm you see that

41:27

leads Doncaster Birmingham. And. Air

41:30

that that sound? Is. That

41:32

sounds you destiny here at the not

41:34

just the Games markets book Christmas market

41:36

at. My wife went to a Disney

41:39

market once where people who had like

41:41

you know. Made made can

41:43

of like their own businesses. You know, like Disney

41:45

t shirts, license t shirts, jumpers and stuff like

41:48

that. And. Are you now see

41:50

everywhere? is he kind of own a stall?

41:52

When a store like that you've just have

41:54

one of these and they are be portable.

41:57

Cause. machines a shopify do them as well

41:59

and there They're really really easy to use

42:01

you can just connect them to your app And

42:03

you know I was seeing these everywhere, and I was like

42:06

I need to get myself. I've seen a few Record

42:09

fares yeah record first anything yeah

42:11

wicked aren't me because no one carries cash anymore

42:13

But well particularly since the pandemic is like no

42:15

no carries money anyway So I think having these

42:17

is essentially no gone of the days where we

42:19

used to you know before play Expo Pull

42:22

up to like a service station and withdraw like

42:24

300 quid and then worry that you're gonna lose it

42:26

all day Obviously having these three

42:28

customers these are shop ready point of sale

42:30

systems essential these days and like I said

42:33

everyone's starting their own site hustle At the

42:35

moment, maybe things are becoming your own boss

42:37

shopify takes care of everything for you not

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only in person But also they offer a

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really comprehensive all-in-one commerce platform to run start

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43:46

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43:53

take your business to the next level

43:55

today and get ready to hear a

43:58

Lot of this. Right

44:02

and sides. Obviously special guest to go

44:04

inside. a world of most games with

44:06

Ouster Low as next on the Retro

44:08

puts us. Your

44:15

listen to the retro. Our podcast of

44:17

with here today with Alice the love

44:19

of low tech games, how you doing

44:21

I'm didn't get Roman ah it is.

44:24

It's great to have you on and

44:26

deaths. If you've heard the podcast before

44:28

you probably know Office Question which is

44:30

a what was your first gaming experience?

44:32

Probably something on the Nes and probably

44:35

Mario. Just Mario Brothers. one. And.

44:37

Then i did have like after that like

44:39

every game ever every game system what was

44:41

that was a nice your first their game

44:43

system the and dancing the mess was the

44:45

first and we going to the car but

44:47

really cheap with like mario and.com I can

44:49

a thing we did have a robot one

44:51

point as well they got robbed from us

44:54

get stolen and then as i realized oh

44:56

bunch of like hand me downs and stuff

44:58

as well. so like amigos and. Sex.

45:00

Or and and oh, against us just

45:02

by ever than cheap and play what

45:04

what's available. We. Will was

45:06

like a generation or two behind and

45:09

yeah probably a but I also think

45:11

I'd like to the older games bear

45:13

because the there were more that gameplay

45:15

than. But. Effects or. Story.

45:18

Done the can a puzzle sides i really

45:20

liked those to my game and landings obviously

45:23

but a built them out uma was stuck

45:25

me cause no one else remember that of

45:27

of my era. And. It was

45:29

about like to to mimic earlier a bit

45:31

more refer and edges weekend of like sarah.

45:34

Like. Contraption of have to get a thing from one

45:36

point down a point and impress Play in the just

45:38

let it play out and I'm of a plane that.

45:41

Lots. And lots of got really annoyed at the

45:43

level design who even by men assists and as

45:45

a signature game wasn't at a divide noom of

45:47

death Enclosure Air. And of I

45:49

am in Mrs though the incredible be

45:51

seen as well which was am quite

45:54

similar to that but that concept. I

45:56

got used a lot later on, in in

45:58

sales and as one another. I just

46:01

had whatever came with my Amiga and it was hard

46:03

to pick up Amiga games at the car boot. That

46:06

was before I had the internet so I couldn't download them. You

46:08

didn't find the car boot piracy store

46:11

then? No, well, I got

46:13

a bunch of people's collections that had the

46:16

names written on a marker but it

46:19

wasn't like going down the bar, there'd been a

46:21

whole bunch of like pirate DVDs. They didn't have

46:23

that for Amiga games where I was anyway. Did

46:26

you do any design work on

46:28

that then and did you start

46:30

encoding yourself? I remember spending

46:32

a lot of time just using the paint programs

46:34

and stuff on there. The

46:37

fill modes took ages to

46:39

fill the screen, remember that? And then there's that

46:41

old thing of like if you missed a pixel

46:43

space, you would just see it fill through that

46:45

pixel space and there's nothing you could do about

46:47

it. Yeah, they're very

46:50

leaky fills. Yeah. But

46:52

no, I didn't do any programming back then. I

46:55

didn't know where to start. The

46:57

interesting thing I like about your games

47:00

as well is some of them aren't

47:02

traditional games. Were

47:04

there any like interactive kind

47:06

of toys or anything that

47:08

really caught your mind? Oh,

47:11

definitely. Yeah, anything that was weird and

47:13

wonderful. I remember spending a lot of

47:15

time on the VTech as well, like

47:17

the drawing pad that had a whole bunch of

47:19

games and just lots of drawing

47:21

with an actual pen like

47:23

on the screen tablet. But

47:26

looking back, it was really, really unresponsive.

47:30

But as a kid, you don't really care, do you? Well,

47:32

how did you transition from being a games player to

47:34

designing games? And what was kind of that that path

47:36

that you went from? What

47:38

made you want to start getting into designing games? Yeah, I

47:40

think I always wanted to do it. But

47:43

I was going down the kind of movie route for

47:45

a while because I liked like the art creation side

47:47

of stuff. I was going

47:49

to do like prosthetics and video editing

47:52

and then realized that prosthetics are really, really

47:55

expensive and I didn't have the budget for

47:57

it. And then found some

47:59

cheap. or free software that let

48:01

me do stuff or some illegally

48:04

acquired some other softwares. But

48:07

the one I started in was the Games Factory.

48:09

It's like a 2D pixel art

48:11

style game. I think Clickteam Fusion is what

48:14

it is these days. It kind of evolved.

48:17

But that gave me my grounding in how

48:19

games work and making your animations

48:21

and adding the logic visually

48:24

but not code wise. Which

48:27

was probably my downfall because I've not learned

48:29

code that well because of all

48:31

these nice visual editors I used when I was a

48:33

kid. I had so many good things

48:36

and it was all kind of offline teaching. So

48:39

you gave a whole bunch of examples

48:41

that you could kind of tear apart and remake. And

48:44

then it gave there was like this quiz mode that

48:46

quizzed you on specific parts of the

48:49

software as well. And there was ways that you

48:51

could you just press play and it

48:53

simulates and then whenever anything collides or you press a button

48:55

it flashes up and says what do you want to do

48:57

with this. And I just found a really really fast way

48:59

to prototype stuff in a way that

49:01

I've never found since no other

49:04

engine has did that. And even Clickteam has removed that

49:06

as a feature. It's a bit of a pain. Well

49:08

you you ended up working with

49:11

Ninja Kiwi. How did you get involved

49:13

with those guys? I

49:15

went to Abertay University and

49:17

got quite a good mark and then applied

49:21

really close to handons and

49:24

just got the job. That's

49:26

kind of how it happened. Hard work

49:28

and good timing on that part. I'd

49:31

never even heard in Ninja Kiwi before applying

49:33

like whereas everybody else I knew had played

49:35

Bloons at school but

49:37

I hadn't found the Ninja Kiwi

49:39

website on our school

49:41

computers. Yeah Bloons is

49:43

a really weird title actually.

49:46

It's kind of like one of those flash games

49:49

from back in the days and it's

49:52

not the best looking game but you

49:54

know the gameplay is Really,

49:57

really strong with it. Could You explain the

49:59

kind of. If her concepts behind blueprints

50:01

for all the head with this weird lately

50:03

innovation was happening all the time. Butlin wasn't

50:05

that the can flash games stuff the I

50:07

wasn't really involved in at that point. I.

50:10

Like creating the games at all Their.

50:13

I I came along at the end to be to

50:15

the. For. The. Siblings

50:17

Terror Defense for. A So

50:19

that already had like. Blends, Blends

50:21

too. Hot. Air balloons, And

50:24

so many other blends games said. There

50:26

was like forty four Hopeless and Sketches

50:28

of Us have a valid i ever

50:30

all the ethic that the probably as

50:32

but that is our number sex right

50:34

now. And I did a look

50:36

through ones to see what a domains that

50:38

gop. And. The somehow had

50:40

missed Ptt eight someone else or

50:42

like. But. That before they just. As

50:45

crazy if you have a really long running

50:48

franchise and I don't think I'm in a

50:50

lot of those games. but then the other

50:52

the era of like Kinetic the original flash

50:54

games with there experimental amended he kind of

50:56

look at that want to take that concept

50:58

as/games to other systems that experimental nature of

51:01

them. Yeah I I was really

51:03

interested in watching the flash games can

51:05

make it into the mainstream in that

51:07

the consoles says an alien hominids really

51:09

had a place in my heart for

51:11

and that was the first game I

51:13

played when I got the internet and

51:15

my house and then then when it

51:17

broke ten minutes layer. And had

51:20

that have open like it's to planet

51:22

and into sports and have that kind

51:24

of transition to console and added more

51:26

features. And with a ghost recon

51:28

is he in a see a. Was.

51:31

It fancy princess, the skin that it's

51:33

really so finally on consoles and stuff.

51:35

Zombie. To different places. Yeah

51:38

I love that kind of are free flow

51:40

in nature of the of the etti at

51:42

a fast tiles and them. What? One

51:44

thing that us her words on as well.

51:46

I'm a dyslexic yourself and death I am

51:48

as well said the Sky some. aha. The.

51:52

Sex Tech as well. Could you tell us

51:54

about that and how it. Improves

51:56

the game for dyslexic is as

51:58

yep so air dislike text. And

52:01

I'm necessity and have ever seen

52:03

people do in talks about be

52:05

inaccessible for. I. Had dyslexic people and

52:07

games. And. That the only information

52:10

they were given a was use this

52:12

dyslexia thought. Was. Fun meet for

52:14

does like the people that was can at heavier at

52:16

the bottom and and language. And.

52:19

I'd seen some places that. It

52:21

doesn't work very well and in some put

52:24

people it makes it worse and the has

52:26

been studies can breathing this say it works

52:28

for some people but definitely not for all

52:30

and that was the industry advice of the

52:32

time and I thought I'm going after. Do.

52:34

Something that first I made a game

52:37

highlighting the issues, the dyslexic space. A.

52:39

Cold and similiar to fairytale dyslexic

52:41

tax base adventure, it's basically simulates

52:44

the frustration that comes with having

52:46

to read at muddled attacks and

52:48

weird with. And. Then one

52:50

and accessibility features I hadn't that game

52:53

was a speech. The

52:55

between struggling through. To

52:58

decode the text and been heavily understand

53:00

the story at signs like thanks, what's

53:02

the solution after. And and

53:04

a highly the problem and like lets

53:06

developers ad tech the speech to the

53:09

games easily. When I

53:11

leave his I could make it pay but

53:13

as you a moved on. And. It's

53:15

that a few things are can have less

53:17

compatible these days that. Than. When I

53:19

may publish their first. Well. Let's

53:21

move on to I'm a game that I'm

53:24

sure many of our listeners of likes. It's

53:26

absolutely massive Canada or four years ago now

53:28

Sleep which is a fantastic retro to the

53:30

platform. I am very interestingly also that you

53:32

really sound the unintended Well, yes, but of

53:35

course is available to play on steam as

53:37

well. So kind of sellers about the background.

53:39

A slave? What can it can be the

53:41

inspiration to correct that? What did you want

53:43

to do a game for the The any

53:46

S. Yet. I've got to

53:48

make sleep assists and and spoken

53:50

to hell of it. I always

53:52

wanted to begin finesse but said

53:54

didn't. happen until way later earth

53:56

when nest maker kinda came along the before

53:58

that i was working on stuff

54:02

in kind of university in

54:04

like 2012, 2013. I had

54:06

came up with the idea of a character that just always

54:09

jumped. This was before I

54:11

knew of Doodle Jump as a concept. But

54:13

I'd seen people playing Temple Run

54:16

and stuff. And I like

54:18

the idea of like Temple Run was

54:20

automating your movement forwards and then you controlled

54:22

your jumping. So I was like,

54:24

let's flip that on its head and

54:26

then make it so you scroll the background underneath

54:28

the character while he jumps. And

54:30

that I did release a demo of that Mac in the

54:32

day. It's still up on itch, but you need

54:34

an old phone to be able to play it because it's different version

54:38

Android. And that concept finally turned

54:40

into Flea Jump many, many years later,

54:43

which is a fun infinite jumper game.

54:46

But the reason it came

54:48

to the NES was definitely just because I

54:51

was playing around with NES maker, changed

54:53

it to always jump and thought that

54:56

that's like that old game. I'll go to that again. So

54:59

it was definitely like design led first. And the

55:01

reason it's a flea is because frogs

55:03

and rabbits were kind of done to death already. Now

55:06

there's another things that kind of jump. And

55:08

I also like the idea that the fleas

55:10

are like small and sore pixels. So

55:13

you could like zoom out and then you could

55:15

see the like a big high fidelity scene at

55:17

some point. I mean, you mentioned that you

55:19

used a NES maker as well. I mean, I guess

55:21

that was really essential then to the project. And what

55:24

do you admire about these, you know, these kind of

55:26

suites to help you make in a

55:28

developed games for retro systems? It must really

55:30

make life a lot easier than

55:33

I imagine when they're trying to do them back

55:35

in the day. We've heard stories of people trying

55:37

to make NES games on writing them out on

55:39

graph paper and typing them into

55:41

an interpreter. I guess it kind of changes

55:43

the process quite a lot having these custom

55:46

development tools. Yeah, like flea would not have

55:48

happened on the NES if it wasn't for an NES maker.

55:50

I'm just really happy that happened. And

55:53

it was and it was documented well enough

55:56

to use. And the community was really,

55:58

really helpful and kind of fixing any of the

56:00

problems that I came across. Yeah, again,

56:03

because I was used to kind of visual editors

56:05

in general through my things, I'm not a

56:08

coder very much. I definitely couldn't have

56:10

did the coding for an S game myself.

56:13

And then that kind of got

56:15

me in the NES scene because

56:17

people liked the design of Flea. And

56:20

then through my audio guy on Flea

56:23

to me, he's like one of

56:25

the best now, whereas he was kind of just

56:27

starting back at Flea and he just cold called

56:29

me on the forums one day. And

56:31

I was like, yeah, I'll give you a go. You

56:34

seem pretty cool. But he

56:36

introduced me to the programmer for

56:38

Tapeworm Disco Puzzle. And

56:40

I pitched him the idea of Tapeworm

56:43

and he went off that

56:46

night and made the first demo

56:48

or the first playable something. And

56:50

it was already fun. So we're like, yep,

56:52

let's commit to a demo and then

56:54

we'll do a Kickstarter. And then I

56:56

think it's funded. We'll go further with it. That's

56:59

great. You kind of made a connection

57:01

over the forum and through

57:03

the community and then made a project

57:05

kind of come alive through that. Yeah,

57:08

I definitely had it lucky. And I found

57:10

really good people really quickly. If

57:12

I had kind of gone down a project route

57:14

that failed somewhere along the way, I

57:17

might not be where I'm now. I

57:19

mean, 80 levels in Flea, that is

57:22

a massive game, particularly for NES standards.

57:24

How did you manage to maintain the balance in

57:27

level designs and also keep them fresh as well? I

57:30

imagine that must have been quite a challenge. Yeah, 80 levels. That

57:32

was 60 at first. And

57:34

then the Kickstarter said stretch

57:36

goal for more levels. So I added an extra 20

57:39

and a dash move, which

57:42

really, really helps. And I kind of wanted to do the dash move the

57:44

whole way through. The way I kind

57:46

of do stuff is just make levels that are kind

57:48

of fun, just in any order,

57:51

just kind of exploring specific

57:53

mechanics and then play

57:56

them all and then make a big spreadsheet and

57:58

rank them all like hard. difficult

58:01

rage and then kind

58:03

of rearrange them in the right order

58:05

but kind of sprinkle in easy ones

58:08

amongst the hard ones and hard ones amongst the easy ones.

58:10

As long as there's not too many rage ones

58:13

right next to each other, I think it's quite a good balance.

58:15

And they got funded in three days

58:18

as well, which is mad. And I

58:20

think you started it just as COVID

58:22

struck. Did that

58:25

actually help with you sitting at

58:27

home and developing, I guess, being locked

58:30

in? Yeah, it was crazy that

58:32

it went live four years ago.

58:35

And halfway through, it went into lockdown.

58:38

And we didn't know how long it was going to be.

58:40

But it definitely did help with development. It

58:42

probably would not have shipped on time if it

58:44

wasn't for COVID. There was a lot of late

58:47

nights and weekends that I

58:49

would have been busy otherwise, but it

58:51

wasn't because of COVID. Sounds

58:55

like you're more productive than most of us

58:57

when we're doing just Zoom quizzes for like,

58:59

say, yeah, I was just eating. Yeah,

59:02

I mean, I was pretty dedicated before anyway, like

59:04

I went over to New Zealand with Ninja Kiwi.

59:07

And even then, like in my spare time,

59:09

I was kind of dabbling away at

59:12

Flea. Still try to find all

59:14

the fun and where it was and stuff. And it

59:16

was structured really differently as well. It was almost Metroidvania-like

59:18

at first. But I noticed that

59:20

the Nest maker wasn't

59:22

really built for that kind of

59:24

game yet. So I just

59:27

changed it to kind of like what they called

59:29

linear. And

59:33

I realized that I kind of

59:35

don't like Metroidvanias that much either

59:37

if they're not basically

59:39

structured like a linear game. Well,

59:41

I mean, you mentioned, you know, Ravi said then it

59:43

was funded in three days, which is just nuts. I

59:45

mean, we are blown away that there was that much

59:48

demand for an NES title. Or did you kind of

59:50

anticipate that it might be on that level? Yeah,

59:52

you're always really scared when you go into Kickstarter,

59:54

you don't know what the response is going to

59:56

be. It was my first one I'd ever did. And

59:59

there'd been. another couple recently

1:00:02

funded. So I had a

1:00:04

good chance, but there was also three other Nest

1:00:07

Kickstarter games on at exactly the same time,

1:00:10

which was less than ideal. I

1:00:12

wonder if it would have got even more if it wasn't.

1:00:15

But yeah, those three days were definitely nail-biting. I was like,

1:00:17

is it ever going to get there? Because

1:00:19

I had the tracking apps and stuff, and it was showing that

1:00:21

they were going to be really good, and then it was kind

1:00:23

of tailing off as the days were going on. But

1:00:26

no, I tried to

1:00:28

make it sure that it could

1:00:30

get funded on the early bird backers

1:00:33

alone, which I

1:00:36

think is a good strategy, because it feels

1:00:38

that they're early investors, and if

1:00:40

all of them get go, you

1:00:42

get over the line. It's interesting to

1:00:45

see that you did a Dreamcast

1:00:47

port as well, and I think

1:00:49

the method that you used was

1:00:52

really smart, because the Dreamcast

1:00:54

homebrew scene was quite

1:00:56

a big one, because early on they

1:00:58

had boot CDs and stuff like

1:01:00

that. So how did you kind

1:01:02

of go through that process

1:01:05

of getting it directly onto Dreamcast? Yeah,

1:01:07

so I had been watching all

1:01:09

the homebrew scenes and seeing what ones were

1:01:12

active and people were buying stuff for. The

1:01:16

main ones were Nest and Dreamcast, mainly because

1:01:18

you didn't need a modified system to play

1:01:20

the homebrew for them. And then

1:01:22

I remember a friend at school just

1:01:25

gave me a burned CD that said

1:01:27

like Nest Games and said, run that on your Dreamcast.

1:01:30

So then years later when I was making

1:01:32

Fleas, I wonder if I could port

1:01:34

it to Dreamcast using that. It

1:01:37

turned out it was just an open source software

1:01:39

thing called Nestor DC. Now

1:01:42

the license that we could use for commercial use.

1:01:45

So we ported it over, added

1:01:48

the VMU support, and just

1:01:50

auto-boot into one game rather than having

1:01:52

one of those horrible 90s menus. And

1:01:55

yeah, made it available for everybody else to

1:01:57

use as well. So there's been a few

1:01:59

in-game. releases since then using NES, what

1:02:01

do we call it? I just call it

1:02:03

NES to DC I think. Yeah

1:02:06

so you're basically there, you've got NES

1:02:08

Maker which is this great

1:02:10

piece of software for creating original

1:02:13

titles for the NES and then you can

1:02:15

port that really easily on this new open

1:02:18

sourced one straight to the Dreamcast and it

1:02:20

speeds up the whole process and I guess

1:02:22

it's now a development route

1:02:24

that some people will actually consider.

1:02:27

Yep definitely. Annoyingly the

1:02:30

emulator itself doesn't

1:02:32

support the native

1:02:34

mapper type that we're using on

1:02:36

NES Maker. NES Maker uses

1:02:38

mapper 30 which is a derivative of the mapper

1:02:41

2 board back in the day so it's

1:02:43

like that but it's got more memory and some more

1:02:45

features it's got like flash saving and some

1:02:48

other stuff. It's not properly supported you

1:02:50

can like convert the ROM to be

1:02:53

mapper 2 that

1:02:56

works in some emulators and it just so happened that it

1:02:58

did work in this so it was kind of lucky there

1:03:00

but for flea 2 it needs

1:03:02

to update because I've used some of the

1:03:05

features that are only available in mapper

1:03:07

30. So you think there's going to

1:03:09

be some updates to that nested

1:03:12

Dreamcast? Yeah which hopefully will

1:03:15

just benefit the whole community again because

1:03:17

there's been a few people that messaged

1:03:19

me about using it and then their

1:03:21

game was more of a like multi-session

1:03:23

Metroidvania or something and they were

1:03:25

like oh so I just need to make it so you either

1:03:28

a password system or you play the whole

1:03:30

game in a winner which

1:03:32

in the bigger games is definitely not the best

1:03:34

idea. You know it is very heartwarming to see

1:03:36

new games coming out on the Dreamcast and there

1:03:38

seems to be more and more of them all the

1:03:40

time which for you know what is generally considered I

1:03:43

suppose a failed system it's great to

1:03:45

see how much support it gets from indie devs these days.

1:03:47

I mean what do you think kind of draws people to

1:03:49

developing for the Dreamcast? I think

1:03:51

it's one of them just because we see lots of

1:03:53

other stuff already happening and

1:03:55

because it is kind of big in a lot

1:03:57

of people's hearts for being the kind of consular.

1:04:00

all that never got its

1:04:02

shot. Plus it's relatively

1:04:04

easy to zeb for from what

1:04:06

I've heard in the 2D side

1:04:08

at least. Ross is doing

1:04:10

the 3D stuff at the moment and he's

1:04:13

definitely banging his head off the wall and some of that

1:04:15

stuff. And I guess the

1:04:17

process of getting a CD printed and

1:04:20

all the kind of headlights and stuff

1:04:22

is a bit easier than getting

1:04:24

an actual cut for the NAS. Yeah,

1:04:27

the cost is so much lower. That's

1:04:29

one of the reasons I did it as well. The

1:04:31

first run was just me. I

1:04:34

sent away to a CD factory and asked them

1:04:36

to make the CDs blank so I could write

1:04:38

them myself because I didn't trust that

1:04:40

they would do them without messing it up. And

1:04:42

then that way I could verify everything. But it turns

1:04:45

out the collecting community

1:04:47

frowns upon that real homebrew style

1:04:49

of stuff. They just have

1:04:52

a bad taste in their mouth about burn

1:04:55

discs. Which makes

1:04:57

sense to me though. I'd imagine most CD printing

1:04:59

factories probably don't have a Dreamcast on hand to

1:05:01

test it on. Yeah, I feel like

1:05:03

you really need to make a nuisance of yourself at one

1:05:05

of these factories and they could easily just tell you to

1:05:08

go away. So I didn't want

1:05:10

to risk that and just kind of wanted to

1:05:12

test the market seeing if people would buy an

1:05:14

S-Game on the Dreamcast. Well,

1:05:17

I kind of love the

1:05:19

whole thing with Flee. You

1:05:22

did it on a leap year and

1:05:25

you're kind of running in

1:05:27

parts of it so you're fleeing. Another

1:05:30

problem was a tapeworm as well, which

1:05:34

was your follow on title.

1:05:37

What's the idea behind the game and kind

1:05:39

of the absolute banging soundtrack as well?

1:05:42

Yeah, so most of my games are based on

1:05:44

a pun in the first place and then I'm like, right, how do

1:05:46

I make the characters or

1:05:49

the gameplay work around that? A

1:05:51

tapeworm just happened to be a really

1:05:53

cool character that people liked. And I

1:05:56

was working on ideas for the Playdate at the

1:05:58

time actually. I like

1:06:01

the idea that the worm was

1:06:03

inside the cassette tape. You would move them down a path and then

1:06:06

you would use the crank to wind them back in the tape. And

1:06:08

then we were going to build it

1:06:10

for the play date, but the SDK took way

1:06:12

too long to arrive. So

1:06:15

we just went ahead and built it on Nest because we heard

1:06:17

that play day SDK could support

1:06:19

C and we could also build the

1:06:21

Nest game in C as well. So we

1:06:24

built a kind of platform agnostic. So

1:06:26

we could just swap out some of the rendering things and stuff that

1:06:28

didn't work on the play date. And yeah,

1:06:30

the tune, again, it was 2-E. He

1:06:33

did an amazing job on Flea. I

1:06:35

just kind of asked for more of that. I gave him

1:06:37

a big spreadsheet of like, I want all

1:06:39

these different like, club songs or whatever, but

1:06:41

in Flea. And everything I

1:06:43

asked for is, give me that, but itchy. Itchy

1:06:46

and lumbering is usually what I say. Now, although Take

1:06:49

One was a bit more upbeat than

1:06:51

Flea. A disco

1:06:53

puzzle I heard it referred to. Yeah.

1:06:55

And weirdly, at first, I was going to make

1:06:57

a like, rhythm

1:07:00

style game, kind of like Cadence

1:07:02

of Hyrule. What's the other one that was based on?

1:07:05

Necrodancer. Yeah. But

1:07:08

again, I played a bit more of a Necrodancer

1:07:10

and realized I didn't like that kind of movement.

1:07:13

It felt really restrictive. And then when

1:07:15

we were trying it in our game, it was really, really restrictive

1:07:18

and just didn't feel fun. So it

1:07:20

was within the first week we cut that as

1:07:22

a thing because it just wasn't working. Fair

1:07:24

enough. You don't know unless you try that, do you? Yeah. Yeah.

1:07:26

And it was annoying because it was a nightmare to get set

1:07:29

up as well. Well,

1:07:31

something else is extremely impressive. And you

1:07:33

know, it is kind of a bit of

1:07:35

a meme in the retro gaming scene

1:07:37

today that Doom runs on literally anything.

1:07:39

Yeah. But for people who haven't seen

1:07:41

this video, which I put in the show

1:07:43

notes, tell us about Cross Stitch Doom.

1:07:47

Yeah, Cross Stitch Doom is weird. I like doing weird

1:07:49

stuff, weird video game things. And

1:07:52

I was making a cross stitch

1:07:54

animation tool that you kind

1:07:56

of digitally animate cross stitch. And then the

1:07:58

benefit of that was. that you would see the

1:08:00

threads going in and out as it

1:08:03

animated that leave this cool ripple trail

1:08:05

behind. And then one day

1:08:07

in the park I was going to walk with a friend and we

1:08:09

were talking about it and I was like, that could work in

1:08:12

reality. And I had an idea

1:08:14

of using some motors and some bits of threads to

1:08:16

kind of pull the thread through

1:08:18

that had different colored paint on them. And

1:08:20

so then I made a really, really small prototype of

1:08:23

a two by two cross stitch grid and

1:08:26

I could make the animate like on and off.

1:08:28

So I had a two by two pixel display

1:08:31

made out of cross stitch. It was really, really

1:08:33

cool. To scale that was really, really difficult.

1:08:36

So I didn't, but

1:08:39

it was around the same time as April

1:08:41

Fool's Day was coming up and someone had

1:08:43

already asked, does it run Doom? So I was

1:08:46

like, this is the perfect opportunity for this. So

1:08:49

I made a fake version

1:08:51

of Doom using my cross stitch animation tool

1:08:54

and then superimposed it over some like actual

1:08:56

cross stitch in the real world and

1:08:58

made it look like I'd made it play

1:09:01

Doom, which is really, really

1:09:03

good because we teamed up for the

1:09:05

Scottish Games Network and some other random

1:09:07

games news outlets to make it

1:09:09

look like it was real. And they came up

1:09:11

with a really cool thing. They called it multi-threaded.

1:09:13

Thought that was genius. Pun intended.

1:09:16

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And

1:09:18

then a whole bunch of people fell

1:09:20

for it and reposted it like Bethesda

1:09:22

and Ed and Arduino. And it

1:09:24

was really great to see. And then the next

1:09:26

day, like I seen people defending me in the

1:09:28

comments like this guy's a mad genius. Like, no,

1:09:30

it's fake. It's April Fool's Day. What

1:09:32

do you expect? And then a lot of my

1:09:35

friends were like, you've did it to me again,

1:09:37

haven't you Ali? Because I always try to do some April

1:09:39

Fool's Day and they always forget. And

1:09:42

then some of the write

1:09:45

ups on blog

1:09:47

posts and stuff were removed after the fact

1:09:49

because they felt bad that they'd

1:09:51

been tricked. Yeah,

1:09:53

don't just add a thing on April Fool's

1:09:56

Day. No, I Love that. With

1:10:00

your tires as well because you're getting

1:10:02

on for lots of lots of different

1:10:04

platforms that not just crossed Hm. So

1:10:06

am I getting on an stream. And.

1:10:09

The Advocate as well and In

1:10:12

As as a switch version of

1:10:14

the Parasite Pack. What's it

1:10:16

like getting approval for all of these? Different

1:10:19

devices in and and is it

1:10:21

a hot process pouring through these

1:10:23

devices as well. As

1:10:25

it's really goods, I ice think the Scattershot

1:10:27

approach really works for me. and ever Cade

1:10:30

specifically was really, really. Great

1:10:32

at can a publicizing fleet at the time,

1:10:34

and it because. It was

1:10:36

cove it's everybody was watching a youtube

1:10:38

videos and. Lately put fleet and

1:10:40

a like. Front and center in the

1:10:42

middle of that cartridge. I was very, very

1:10:45

happy. That happens. And then

1:10:47

li earth syrup and she must have I

1:10:49

was just a an event I am shown

1:10:51

off the games and answering were from the

1:10:53

can make sponsor at it like talking to

1:10:55

the when the guys there. And he

1:10:57

says why we should, we should bring your own. I think

1:10:59

I was one of the and wasn't the first By was one of the

1:11:01

first. Like New Retro Whom breeze on

1:11:04

there as well and they really embraced as

1:11:06

well. So the the Princely on their banners

1:11:08

and stuff. so like fleas. Next, the Pacman

1:11:10

when they go events and it again it's

1:11:12

just as boosting my brand for and they're

1:11:14

They're paying me to do so however as

1:11:16

I was gets and then they have the

1:11:18

sweat stuff at well it's often but modem

1:11:21

councils like everything from from nest gets five

1:11:23

as was a adjusted that through a partner

1:11:25

I everybody was trying to get. Stuff

1:11:27

like Mess Maker Games on to. Modern.

1:11:30

Consoles. And I have

1:11:32

whisperings that raw like a had

1:11:34

some emulation tech. There was an

1:11:37

adjustable rate ago. Announced.

1:11:43

Collection and Molly system Emily Or

1:11:45

and it could just could just

1:11:48

run. Hey and I

1:11:50

live there. The interface see it

1:11:52

was very just. Book. Standards

1:11:54

and emulate or stuff as I asked him

1:11:56

if he gets back and customize that make

1:11:58

it look nicer than now. The not is

1:12:00

not under budget. The method we got we

1:12:03

just it on earth I can split deal

1:12:05

I add so I just get paid for.

1:12:08

For. It being up there to get a little statement every

1:12:10

month seen him as has made. Through

1:12:12

the go see it is by the can

1:12:14

get and only platforms as I guess it

1:12:16

as can removing the barriers as net to

1:12:18

ensure you know people don't play whatever system

1:12:20

they've got which is a definite good thing

1:12:22

and and and a play date system and

1:12:24

they really committed some that before the people

1:12:26

might not be familiar with the the play

1:12:28

Dykes is it is quite interesting console and

1:12:30

tell us about it and. What? Appeals

1:12:32

to you about it. They have played it

1:12:34

as a is a little yellow console that

1:12:36

looks like a gameboy. It's

1:12:38

a black and white screen does not backlit

1:12:41

that is really high a pixel density and

1:12:43

I refresh rate. It's got

1:12:45

crank on the sites which isn't used for pairing it

1:12:47

as used as an Mp device. And. You

1:12:49

can kind of interface with it and waverly you want,

1:12:51

which is really cool. So. He can

1:12:53

just the gop. I just had a big

1:12:55

spreadsheet again of. All. The ideas that

1:12:57

could work with the crank and the the

1:12:59

one with a worm. Was. The one we

1:13:02

we stuck with at first. I have a

1:13:04

bit whole bunch of stuff and as well as

1:13:06

got a a microphone and a gyroscope. And.

1:13:09

A blue to see why. Funny. As

1:13:11

as as get can a modern device with

1:13:14

a retro retro pew. And having

1:13:16

these new input devices as well I imagine that

1:13:18

can. A It's changes game designers well. Doesn't that

1:13:20

make seats able to do all these different things

1:13:22

even normally do with the stand? the controller? Yeah,

1:13:24

definitely A and. The. Edges

1:13:26

combining a altogether as well as with the

1:13:28

kill the I made. A few

1:13:31

music apps on it is the was

1:13:33

one guy made this this app called

1:13:35

friends harmed. It's ridiculous. It's

1:13:37

like I used to crank

1:13:39

extend spike press instruments. Pardon

1:13:42

section and it is almost lessons about like

1:13:44

a phantom and come back and forth and

1:13:47

I played with so much and I realized

1:13:49

that it was. Like. Consistent.

1:13:51

And it's. Weirdness. Say

1:13:53

the so I am meet a tablet or

1:13:55

system and so I could please song specifically

1:13:57

and share them with with other people with.

1:14:00

It a. Bit. From that was I

1:14:02

want to be abandoned. So I made like a

1:14:04

drum kit to start off with and this was

1:14:06

be learning Lou as well so that kinda forced

1:14:08

him a touch lawyer and can have. Not.

1:14:11

Visual code adding the first them eat not

1:14:13

using like an editor at all it was

1:14:15

just a video could use code and then

1:14:17

we'll see them he commit an ocarina because

1:14:20

I i really like all korea from agree

1:14:22

attain days and got the collection as or

1:14:24

sampled my favorite author enough and then it

1:14:26

meets why things are really cold and system

1:14:29

for for whole on the d pad and

1:14:31

that the in be one and then a

1:14:33

you tube the wind live the the microphone

1:14:35

to the can activate the. As.

1:14:38

If you're blowing on the occurred in a

1:14:40

nice and then the other one on the

1:14:42

playdate like if everybody kept talking about it

1:14:44

a hard to gardy to like her. I

1:14:47

can a boot string instrument. That

1:14:49

has. A A Crank. Marks

1:14:52

as the both hey guys like right that he

1:14:54

has made some. I'm going to make it under

1:14:56

the first as a. Fitness

1:14:59

I made a a thing and at it's

1:15:01

relatively clear bubble but. That.

1:15:03

Does needle a bit more? It. Under.

1:15:06

Another thing the made the i thought

1:15:08

that was absolutely fantastic was the light

1:15:10

book as well as a are you

1:15:12

planning on making now I. Have.

1:15:15

A proper products and I saw a

1:15:17

minor have like millions of views. And

1:15:20

what is a my book as well as

1:15:22

if we I explain in Sf desolate book

1:15:24

as a projection map pop up book game.

1:15:27

System. Saying. Hey. We're

1:15:29

trying to bring it to market the moment. The

1:15:31

it has gone viral a few times, went

1:15:33

viral, forced into a nineteen wheel accessories and

1:15:36

unlike some were the first thing I'd ever

1:15:38

seen that went viral and that the I'd

1:15:40

made. And then com it

1:15:42

happens we were gunfight a few things and

1:15:44

we can make it because because. I

1:15:48

apply for Gdc a few years layer that

1:15:50

was last year. And the and

1:15:52

accepted as one of them I can of micro talks.

1:15:55

And. is why i worked on it lane and

1:15:57

like made it more portable stuff because was really

1:16:00

quite prototyping in the first place. But

1:16:02

you basically, there's a little

1:16:04

projector about a foot away from this pop-up book.

1:16:06

And when you change the pages, it detects what

1:16:08

page you're on and changes the

1:16:11

layout of the platforms and stuff. And then there's

1:16:14

a little platform game where you go pick up

1:16:16

stuff and pick up keys and you

1:16:19

interact with stuff on different pages from where you

1:16:21

are. And then there's a colouring

1:16:23

in mode so you can paint the pages with

1:16:25

colour. Or there's a golf mode where

1:16:27

you can shoot a golf

1:16:30

ball around the same geometry. So you want as

1:16:32

many ways to reuse the same book as possible.

1:16:34

And the idea is to basically make

1:16:36

a new console that is a projection

1:16:38

mapping system that will work

1:16:40

with pop-up books. And then pop-up

1:16:43

book will be its own kind of thing.

1:16:45

And the licensing that we could get with

1:16:47

that just excites me a lot.

1:16:50

It's a really hard concept to explain but I

1:16:52

think you've done it quite well considering this

1:16:55

is audio only. But yeah, having

1:16:57

that kind of turning

1:17:00

of a page and then that idea that

1:17:02

you can play on a page on

1:17:04

a pop-up book is

1:17:07

insane. We're definitely going to have the video

1:17:09

in the show notes for that one. Yeah, definitely

1:17:12

do. And in the age of all this AR

1:17:14

stuff, like the Apple Vision Pro and those

1:17:17

are so high-end headsets, like

1:17:20

four grand a piece. We are

1:17:22

hoping to give you like sub 200 pounds. And

1:17:25

it's a shared experience. Not

1:17:28

everybody needs a headset to be able to see it. So

1:17:30

I think it's got legs to do pretty

1:17:32

well in the sector. Yeah, particularly like with parents and

1:17:35

kids as well. I think that market, it looks like

1:17:37

you said wearing a headset is

1:17:39

very isolating, isn't it? It's definitely just a

1:17:41

one-person experience generally. Yeah, and people

1:17:43

are always asking, can it have an automatic

1:17:45

page turner? That's not the point. It's good

1:17:47

seeing the kids play it with their parents,

1:17:50

either one playing or one reading.

1:17:52

Yeah, it could be like a

1:17:54

bedtime story. But yeah, definitely something

1:17:57

that's not going to have blue

1:17:59

light. that's going to keep the kid up with

1:18:01

an iPad, you know, but still have that fun

1:18:03

element and interactivity. I hope it doesn't

1:18:06

keep them too hyper. I've not done

1:18:08

those tests yet. I'm going

1:18:10

to have to get my niece play with it

1:18:12

just before bedtime. Yeah, to get

1:18:14

the bad books with the parents. You need a

1:18:16

kind of therapeutic element to it. Well

1:18:20

you work collaboratively with another one, our

1:18:22

recent guest actually, John Riggs of Eric

1:18:24

Games. So how did you and

1:18:26

John meet then? Me

1:18:29

and John, we talked online before because I'd

1:18:31

sent him copies of Flea and Tapeworm and

1:18:33

he really liked Tapeworm. He likes the puzzle

1:18:35

games and he played it a few times on his stream.

1:18:38

He always said it was one of his favourites

1:18:40

whenever anybody asked him, which was really nice. And

1:18:44

then I bumped into him at

1:18:46

Midwest Gaming Classic, which I

1:18:49

only went to because I realised it was

1:18:51

the week after GDC and I was

1:18:53

already in the US. I was like, yep, I'll just stay

1:18:55

an extra day, spend some time in

1:18:57

Milwaukee. Don't do that. There's

1:18:59

not much to do in Milwaukee. Sorry for

1:19:01

anyone from Milwaukee, but you know. And

1:19:04

then yeah, so there was a whole bunch of retro

1:19:07

YouTubers around there and he came

1:19:09

around, saw the book and instantly just

1:19:11

picked up his phone and started filming it. He

1:19:13

was like, just tell me what you just

1:19:15

told me again. This is super cool. And

1:19:18

I think at that point he didn't even realise it was the Tapeworm guy.

1:19:20

He was just like, what is this book? This is amazing. And

1:19:23

then he posted it on Instagram and

1:19:25

it got, I think it's sitting right now at 14 million

1:19:28

views on that video. Nice publicity.

1:19:30

Yeah, it was very, very good. I'm very,

1:19:32

very grateful for that. So

1:19:34

yeah, from that point we were kind of talking back and

1:19:37

forth and he pitched me the

1:19:39

game idea. He said he was pitching it

1:19:41

around a few other people. I was like, I

1:19:44

can't remember what he said. He was waiting

1:19:46

to make a give out a mimic and

1:19:48

you would set a route,

1:19:51

kind of puzzle game wise and then get

1:19:53

the nights to the mimic. I was like, oh, so

1:19:55

like, did you rock it? And he says, yes. Yep,

1:19:58

exactly. Yeah, let's do that. And

1:20:00

then it went really, really quick again. I made a

1:20:02

really quick design doc, teamed

1:20:05

up with Aldi here for it again. So it wasn't, let's make it

1:20:07

this time, was a straight C

1:20:09

again, which meant that we could publish

1:20:11

to Play Night. Take one did pretty

1:20:13

well on Play Night. So I wanted to kind of replicate that

1:20:15

again on there. So

1:20:18

kind of, you know, taking Choo

1:20:20

Choo Rocket and it

1:20:22

came out on the Dreamcast. What was it like, you

1:20:25

know, recreating that on the NES

1:20:27

and essentially demaking the game? Yeah,

1:20:30

it was really good. So I never want to

1:20:32

make the same game, but just a

1:20:35

demake. I always like to put kind of our

1:20:37

own spin on it. And I did play

1:20:39

a lot of Choo Choo Rocket

1:20:41

at my after school club when I was

1:20:43

a kid. And

1:20:46

there was some elements that I was like, I

1:20:48

wish it could do this or that, or

1:20:50

that this is a bit too restrictive. So

1:20:53

it was really cool with that kind

1:20:55

of thing. The really difficult bit, which I suppose

1:20:57

turned into a positive in the end was on

1:21:00

the Dreamcast, it was really

1:21:02

nice and straightforward. Your directional

1:21:06

buttons, your face buttons did

1:21:08

the directions that you were going to place in the arrows,

1:21:10

which made a lot of sense as a kid. But how

1:21:13

do you do that on a controller that's only got two

1:21:15

buttons rather than the four for the four directions? So we

1:21:17

came up with the idea of just having like a pallet

1:21:19

up the top that had all the different things. You just

1:21:21

select them with one button and you can delete them or

1:21:24

like back out with the other button. And for

1:21:26

the most part, I think it works pretty

1:21:28

good. There was a Choo Choo Rocket game

1:21:31

on the Game Boy Advanced as well, which

1:21:33

was less successful, I think. It

1:21:36

used some weird combinations of buttons

1:21:39

to do it, even though you were still limited by the

1:21:41

pallet of arrows on

1:21:43

the side, which was

1:21:45

weird. And I was really happy with it,

1:21:47

it turned out. But then it also meant

1:21:49

that we could do things that weren't just

1:21:51

arrows. So we've also got springs and pushable

1:21:53

blocks in Choo Choo Mimic, which

1:21:56

do just add a whole bunch of

1:21:58

puzzle opportunities, especially the box. We've

1:22:01

got a few different night types in

1:22:03

each of them, in the bulk of their own unique

1:22:05

behaviors. Like one of them turns left, when he hits

1:22:07

a wall, the other one turns right. Another one can

1:22:10

jump over holes, and another one can push boxes. When

1:22:12

you combine all of these together in the later

1:22:14

levels, you've got like one night

1:22:16

pushing a box so that then the next night can

1:22:19

use it as a blocker to

1:22:21

change its path, and it gets quite complex. It

1:22:24

felt like one of those games that

1:22:26

people could play on, on

1:22:28

Twitch or something, and have people going. Yeah, yeah,

1:22:30

definitely. Push this, you know. Help it out, like,

1:22:33

ah, put that one up, one over. Well,

1:22:35

you did touch on before that, you know, Flea 2 is

1:22:37

on the way. So

1:22:40

give us kind of the lowdown on what people

1:22:43

can expect from Flea 2, and is there any

1:22:45

kind of exciting new features that you can mention

1:22:47

already? Yep, Flea 2 is on the

1:22:49

way. I was taking Flea around a whole

1:22:51

bunch of conventions, and people just seemed

1:22:53

to really love it. I didn't want to do

1:22:55

a direct sequel for a long time, but

1:22:58

then people just kept asking for it. So

1:23:00

I was like, yep, I'll do it, but it can't just be

1:23:03

for the sake of it. It needs either to

1:23:05

have the features that I wanted in Flea 1 that I had

1:23:07

to cut, or

1:23:09

something special. So

1:23:12

I found a way to do animated tiles in

1:23:15

this, much like in Tapeworm, the

1:23:18

blood pickups and stuff animate now. There's just

1:23:20

so many like quality-of-life things that I wanted

1:23:22

to fix in Flea 1, but they

1:23:25

were like consistently annoying. So

1:23:28

we got them all fixed. There's also this

1:23:30

new ability that, again, I'd concepted

1:23:33

for Flea 1, but never knew how to do, where

1:23:36

you hold the A

1:23:38

button, and it kind of

1:23:40

charges up this bubble around you. And then when

1:23:42

you hit the ground, when the bubble, it gives

1:23:44

you like a double jump. So

1:23:46

it mixes between like the mashing to get the

1:23:49

small jump, the big double jump. And the

1:23:51

mashing was a weird thing that I was taking

1:23:53

around conventions and stuff, and someone

1:23:55

was like, this game's really

1:23:57

easy. Just do this. And I didn't know that it was a

1:23:59

thing. It

1:24:02

turned out to be one of the key features of Flee

1:24:04

that made it different from any other auto jumpers. It

1:24:07

was definitely just made from a bug that I

1:24:09

didn't know how to fix. I turned it into

1:24:11

a feature, designed a whole bunch of

1:24:13

levels that you have to jump less. It

1:24:15

feels weird at first, but you get used to it and I think

1:24:18

the speed runners quite like it. Are

1:24:21

you going with the initial NES

1:24:23

launch and then are you going

1:24:25

to have support for other systems later? Yeah,

1:24:27

it's going to be NES primarily again and then

1:24:30

it will come out to Dreamcast and stuff later. So

1:24:32

we still need to do edits to the Dreamcast emulator to make it work

1:24:35

and then we'll try to get to as many systems

1:24:37

as we can in the future. There's

1:24:39

some stretch goals for Switch and

1:24:42

Playdate on the Kickstarter, but they

1:24:44

are pretty high because the

1:24:46

Playdate specifically needs to be like

1:24:48

redone for it to work because NES Maker doesn't,

1:24:51

there's no emulator for the Playdate yet that runs

1:24:54

NES games. People do want

1:24:56

to support it. By

1:24:58

the time this podcast comes out, it should be live on Kickstarter.

1:25:00

It's only planning on going live on 29th of February. So

1:25:03

it should be available now. If you love

1:25:05

the original Flea, you want more of it,

1:25:07

even bigger, even better and obviously supporting indie

1:25:09

devs who are making games for systems like

1:25:11

the NES and the Dreamcast, I think it's

1:25:13

really important that people get behind it and

1:25:16

especially quality titles like you'll make now. So

1:25:18

I'll link up with Kickstarter in

1:25:21

the show notes as well. So best of luck with it all. We

1:25:23

can't wait to see it. Thanks for having

1:25:25

me. Bye-bye.