Retro Titans - the giants of retro and indie gaming in conversation

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

🔗 Links:

Peter's website - brainjam.ca

Boulder Dash website - boulder-dash.com

X / Twitter - @peterliepa

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

Boulder Dash music, by Peter Liepa

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

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

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

🔗 Links:

Website - goodboygalaxy.com

X / Twitter - @hot_pengu

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

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

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

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

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

🔗 Links:

Website - meanmachinedean.com

Twitch - @meanmachinedean

X / Twitter - @meanmachinedean10

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

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

Chaos Engine soundtrack, by Richard Joseph

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

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

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

🔗 Links:

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

Facebook facebook.com/Crazy-Burger-119134488910841

Instagram instagram.com/crazy_burger_youtube

🎵 Music

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

BBC Live & Kicking show theme, by David Arnold Music

Tomb Raider 1 - Main Theme, by Nathan McCree

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

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

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

🔗 Links:

YouTube - Retro Gaming Revival

Facebook - The Evercade Hangout

X / Twitter - @RetroGaming Rev1

🎵 Music:

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

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

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

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

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

🔗 Links

Twitter / X - @Lethal_Guitar

Blog - lethalguitar.wordpress.com

🎵 Music

Duke Nukem Title Screen, by James Paddock

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

Axis, by Danimal Cannon

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

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

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

🎵 Music

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

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

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

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

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

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

🔗 Links:

X / Twitter - @cleaverslips

🎵 Music

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

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

OutRun 'Spash Wave', by Hiroshi Kawaguchi

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

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

🔗 Links:

Crazy Burger on YouTube - @crazyburger

Nik Tyrell on YouTube - @NikTyrrell

Evercade Evolution on X / Twitter - @EvercadeMag

🎵 Music

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

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

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

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

🔗 Links:

X / Twitter - @andihero

YouTube - @andihamilton

🎵 Music

Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff

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

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