It’s been longer than I thought. Well anyway, here are the news as I filter them on the projects this list of articles concentrates (feel free to tell me of other projects I should have in my radar).
- CoinOps. I will copy/past what I wrote in the previous article, to give it one more chance: Unless something drastically changes and someone points me to a real NEW project that is worth mentioning, I will not reference it at all in future updates.
- CORE Type-R. A few new add-ons official and unofficial. Not just new systems, but what seems to be special to Type-R, also new “collections” (thematic collections). To be honest, I find it a little confusing nowadays, but this is the view of an outsider, as I am sure people that follow the project step by step, know what is what. It is just overwhelming for a newcomer though, but definitely a great project (and very nice looking).
- Complete Play. Patreon is more expensive now, but CP78 needs to get around the expenses of dedicated seed-box and storage etc. Still worth it. There has been a steady stream of new systems and “2.0” rebuilds (that really – mostly – cleanup things rather well and modernize them too). Also a steady stream of “patreon-to-free” packs. I really love how I can really use my own themes and usually fully work. “Usually” because sometimes a specific theme may need resources that the expected theme doesn’t use so CP78 doesn’t fully have them. Usually the community fills the gaps though.
Also I almost forgot, there is a brand new “Emu-Deck” edition as it seems to be… a thing nowadays. 😀
- RGS. Unfortunately some bad news here and some good news. Sleyk no longer participates in RGS’s projects, as he needs to move on to make his own personal collection. We’ll see how it goes. If you ask me (and for people that know me in the field, all these years), it is always bad to fragment an already too fragmented and small field. But the sun will still shine tomorrow, life goes on.
The good news are that both batocera and retrobat projects are still on track.
Other things I usually update you on:
- Zomb (C64 Dreams) is (still) not actively moving towards a next release, but DOES keep the project organized and follows all C64 news that can affect his project. I am sure soon he will revert to “full steam ahead”.
- Gruby’s AdventurePack. No news here unfortunately. It could very well be dead (the project I mean), which is a pity. We’ll see. At least I have some good news if you read below.
- TOSEC. I am very sad to say that I don’t follow much nowadays. I want to, but cannot (at least for now). I really hope for the best for this “Mother Of All Retro Cataloguing Projects”, that TOSEC is. Maybe they are re-forming, maybe all is for the best. Definitely hope so.
- eXo. Well eXo is full of surprises and the quality of his (team) projects are in an other level. Could very well be professional. Well we HAVE a new eXoScummVM! Yeap. We do. This is BIG news for adventure lovers, esp. now that Gruby’s project seems to be dead. The size is way smaller than that of the latter (Gruby’s was closing to a TB), but this is because of two factors… eXo is concentrating in English versions for now AND is only ScummVM whereas Gruby’s also had a few couple non-ScummVM additions. I am not sure how complete eXoScummVM is though (didn’t have much time to go really deep), but I couldn’t find things like DejaVu or Colosal Cave adventure, which is weird. I will definitely ask…
- I need to mention about two C64 projects (that Zomb takes actively into consideration when releasing new versions), that people that love C64 need to have in their radars:
OneLoad64 (which actually includes MultiLoad64) is now on version 5. No need for introductions for this GREAT cartridge project.
Ultimate Tape Archive is also on version 5 now (after a quick pass from version 4.5… go figure). This project is definitely nice, but does have a long way to organize their work process.
- In the same vein, Amiga projects that Amiga lovers should be aware:
AmigaVision (ex MegaAGS). Very nice project that AFAIK is also great for real Amigas, MiSTer etc.
AGS UAE. Yeap, the name… They both come from the same older project, but both need mention.
DamienD’s WinUAE Collection. While the two above take you to Amiga environment and you select titles from WITHIN Amiga, this one has separate config per game in WinUAE, so you can either use WinUAE OR a very simplistic own launcher (on PC side).
- I mentioned MARS FPGA in my last article and I was excited about it. Well… things may turn out good, but for now, they are mostly… sketchy. They still don’t have an organized web page (or project page), no videos in their YouTube channel for months and their X (yeah yeah… twitter) is only… MiSTer related news retweets!
But here things become more curious… I actually commented on a retweet, very politely, told them they should eventually post some news of their own project instead. Next thing I know… I got blocked. 😀 😀 😀
Food for thought.
That’s all for now folks, till next time.