Hit Save! Podcast

Japanese Feature Phone Preservation update with RockmanCosmo, MemoryHunter, and Kraze

Goodboy Galaxy is an upcoming indie game developed for the classic Game Boy Advance by Rik Nicol and Jeremy Clarke. It follows a space-faring dog named Maxwell as he travels to an alien galaxy seeking help for his dying planet. The game itself is best described as an exploration-focused platformer with some Metroidvania elements, where you'll explore planets and meet all kinds of obstacles, puzzles, bosses, and interesting characters.

Our interview with Rik Nicol provides an interesting look into how Goodboy Galaxy came to be. It started life as a 3 day jam game, called Goodboy Advance for the Ludum Dare 43 game jam, with Rik and Jeremy experimenting to see if they could make a simple playable GBA game quickly. Buoyed by this initial success, they continued to expand the game bit by bit. The extra free time during COVID allowed them to polish a demo that helped fund the project via a successful Kickstarter campaign.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Artemio Urbina, a software

We sat down with Alex Rushdy, CEO and Creative Director at 13AM Games, to talk about their new game Dawn of the Monsters. 13AM Games have previously made Pirate Pop Plus, Runbow, and Double Cross.

Prior to the advent of the iPhone and the rise of worldwide mobile phone gaming in the early 2010s, there was a fervent mobile gaming scene in Japan - feature phone gaming. Feature phones, also known as Japanese "dumbphones," had dedicated mobile internet services to connect users to an assortment of utilities, including storefronts from the likes of Capcom to Square Enix for purchasing and downloading video games. On top of porting existing games, they created completely original games specifically for these devices. Unfortunately, in recent years, this era of gaming history has become susceptible to becoming lost to time.

Super Marxist Twins is a fun and fast parody platformer with an old  Soviet theme, where you play as the communist brothers Mikhail and  Ludmil trying to take down the evil (literal capitalist pig) Tsar  Boarov.  We talked with developers Eric Kesterson, Saun Conlin, Jim Bochanski,  and Nick Zaleski about the genesis of their idea, level design,  characters and themes, and much more.  More info here: https://hitsave.org/super-marxist-twins-a-roundtable-with-the-devs

Jaiden Alemni of Studio Alemni is creating a wonderful role-playing game with an interesting story and game play mechanics.

Check it out: https://www.studioalemni.com/astravia

Matthew has created a beautiful and creative puzzle game, where you control everything on screen at the same time.

I had a blast playing Q-Cubed, and we're so happy to be talking to Carolyn about her game. Apologies for the somewhat crappy audio from my  microphone. More information: https://hitsave.org/blog/q-cubed-with-carolyn-lu-cludosian-games/

We sat down with Jack Breen, the sole developer behind the upcoming Metroidvania game GigaSword. It's a game filled with charm, fun puzzles, great artwork and excellent music. The demo is available on both Itch and Steam, and we highly recommend you try it out. Jack is also currently running a Kickstarter which ends on March 3, so if you're interested in supporting his work on the game and get your name into the credits, head over there now :)