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Weekly Dose of Gaming News - Real Sound: Kaze no Regret, A Game for Blind Players

Posted by Write Meow · February 12, 2021

It's incredibly heartwarming to hear stories about video game developers finding ways to help disabled people play their games.

One such awesome story that we wanted to share is about the retro game Real Sound: Kaze no regret. Kenji Eno, a Japanese video game designer and president of the development studio Warp created the game after finding out about blind fans who loved his game. Sega published Real Sound: Kaze no regret at an exchange for exclusive rights to the game. They donated a thousand Sega Saturn consoles to blind people.

In an interview with 1UP he shared his intentions for the game saying "I thought that if you turn off the monitor, both of you are just hearing the game. So after you finish the game, you can have an equal conversation about it with a blind person."

It was developed with a blank screen and relied on audio cues to guide the player through the game. A visual version of the game was released in 1999 for the Sega Dreamcast, but the concepts stayed the same. You relied exclusively on sound to get through it. It's basically an interactive audio book where the player listens as the story unfolds.

As a sighted person is this something that you'd be interested in playing?

Weekly Dose of Gaming News - Plex Arcade

Posted by Write Meow · February 05, 2021

Plex the free live streaming TV platform is throwing their hat into the subscription gaming service ring. They're calling it the Plex arcade, and when you visit their site it welcomes you with the blurb that says "Let the gaming begin. Play old school Atari classics plus your own collection of game ROMs and emulators on your favorite devices, courtesy of Plex Labs and Atari. It's a guaranteed win!"

It's a subscription service starting at $2.99 a month, if you're a Plex pass holder and $4.99 a month without a Plex pass. Our question is, do you think it will last? In theory, it's a great idea, but it's a tough business model, just ask Google Stadia and Amazon Luna. Well, neither are failures per se, they haven't exactly made a splash in the gaming industry. And in fact, just recently it was announced Stadia is shutting down their internal game studio.

There's something to be said for buying a game and being able to download it and actually own the game. However, subscription services can be a great fit if you just want to try out a bunch of different games without the commitment of spending 30 to $60 per game.

Do you like gaming subscription services? Would you be interested in giving Plex Arcade a shot?

Weekly Dose of Gaming News - The NBA Jam - Tournament Edition Got a New Romhack

Posted by Write Meow · January 29, 2021

The NBA Jam: Tournament Edition originally released for the SNES got a new rom hack with the NBA Jam 2k21 on Romhacking.net.

The info page kicks off by saying, "With the delayed 2020 NBA season having come to a close, eskayelle / Double Z has provided a roster update to his popular NBA Jam 2KTE series." It goes on to list all of the amazing upgrades like new players, updated rosters, and new extended announcer clips, just to name a few. You also get the added perk of keeping all the great features from 2K20TE with all 30 teams remaining playable as well as access to Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman, and Bill Laimbeer.

This particular rom hack took a total of 148 hours of prep time which doesn't include play testing that's some serious dedication.

You're able to use several emulators to open and play 2K21 including zSNES or SNES9x for Windows, and SuperRetro16 for Android, as well as RetroArch and Raspberry Pi.

Are you ready to get your NBA Jam on?

Weekly Dose of Gaming News - Ray Tracing on an SNES!

Posted by Write Meow · January 22, 2021

Did you ever think you would see the day when you could have Ray Tracing on an SNES? Well, thanks to an engineer by the name of Ben Carter, that day is here. Man, what a time to be alive!

According to a blog post by Carter, he's been working on the SuperRT chip for about a year, using a completely unmodified Super Famicom and a ton of wires. This is a hobby project and not associated with Nintendo in any way, but it would be so cool if this was available to the public one day.

He breaks down how it works in his blog with this particular tidbit saying "The SuperRT chip constructs the scene using a specialized command language which is executed by one of three parallel execution units on the chip - essentially specialized CISC processors - to perform ray intersection tests." He goes into incredible detail on the fascinating process and it is definitely worth the read.

Would you like to see Ray Tracing in your SNES games?

Chiptune Mixtape with Alex Sy

Posted by Write Meow · January 21, 2021

Let’s talk about Chiptunes, synthesized electronic 8-bit music that reminds us of simple times. There’s just so much emotion to unpack with each track. You can go from funky, to whimsical, to downright terrifying. If you’re having trouble choosing, well, we’ve got options.

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