I am finally finished with work for the year, and so this weekend I am finally able to finish some 2024 blog posts I had been working on, but never had time until now to complete!
So for regular readers, you will get a bunch of posts all at once! Hope it makes up for being a bit too quiet this year because of my workload..
Especially of interest is the new release games for Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Atari Lynx and more.
are Critter Championship, Hotdog, 8-bit slicks and Cosmo Cats. All are excellent games.
I am impressed someone went to the trouble to convert the Commodore 16 games to run on an original Gameboy in 2024.
Not only that, but packaged in this great box, with manual and professional Commodore 16+4 pack label:
The large Commodore Logo just looks great slid into the Analogue Pocket:
As you may know, the Analogue Pocket automatically detects Gameboy original cartridges, and changes the screen display to match the original Gameboy color scheme. You can change the screen setting to Gameboy Pocket if you prefer a clearer screen of course, but I keep it original old school:
There are 16 C16 games available in this collection, selectable from a menu, and some real classics in there too:
Have to admit this game is a lot of fun still in 2024.
The classic game Jet Set Willy is also there:
Turned out I wasn't very good at it. Perhaps dungeon crawler Tower of Evil is more my speed:
I also enjoyed playing Auto Zone, which reminds me a bit of Carvup on the Amiga:
It is definitely worth picking up this
C16 collection for the Gameboy if you have one still, or have an Gameboy player for SNES, Gamecube or indeed an Analogue Pocket.
I really love this Analogue Pocket system, and always take it with me and use it when travelling now.
I discovered the slim travel container I used for my Nintendo 3DS also fits the Pocket perfectly, making it very compact compared to using the optional official perspex container, and much easier to take travelling now.
Even better now that I have the Amiga FPGA core with Amiga Vision prebuilt hdf (hard disk file) running on it using the MicroSD card - I can play nearly all my favourite Amiga games and demos on the go.
Amiga Vision has especially set this environment up to work on the Analogue Pocket, with good instructions provided on how to get it up and running.
The interface menu makes it easy to select games and demos to run on the Pocket, and before you know, you have Agony running on the go:
You can bring up a virtual keyboard to access keys you might need to start a game, options or other settings that need an Amiga keyboard to use.
I use it mainly for the DEL key, to quit the game, and return to the main menu to select another game/demo to run. This is because these games and demos are setup to use WHDLOAD to launch, so it is possible to quit without having to reboot the Amiga virtually.
Time for some Lotus 2 methinks:
The games run at full speed - no slowdown or audio issues.
Even games like Shadow of the Beast work perfectly:
Demos are of course the real test, and they also work well too:
AGA and OCS demos that don't need 030-060 work perfectly. They have not included any demos from that era (1996-2019) in this collection, so no problems. All demos in the collection run fine.
For example, TBL's EON winning Amiga 500 demo from Revision 2019 works perfectly:
Batman Rises from Batman Group - a stunning Amiga 500 OCS demo from 2022, also works well.
The Analogue Pocket's screen suits Amiga demos and games perfectly - the right screen ratio, and display looks crisp - controls suit most games that don't need a keyboard (which is a large amount of them):
You can dock the Analogue Pocket and connect a usb keyboard and mouse for games that work better with them.
For Example, Populous, Mega Lo Mania, or flight simulators that use a lot of keys on the keyboard to operate the planes...or indeed the Workbench screen, if you want to exit the menu interface (Press Escape) and play with adding your favourite Amiga applications and tools to the Amiga Vision hdf image.
The choice of FPGA cores is not limited to Amiga of course. You can run the Game & Watch core - here is Octopus running on the Pocket:
As an aside, I now have the original Game & Watch Octopus game too. It was given to me by my wife as a birthday present this year, imported from Japan - always wanted to have the original game:
BTW, I strongly advise not to get into Game & Watch game system collecting.
It is a seriously expensive hobby to collect these games now, and it will make a serious dent in your savings. My wife just bought this Octopus game as I wanted it as a child (and never owned it). I finally I have one!
I suggest to use the Game & watch cores in the Pocket instead, which are free and you can play every Game & watch game on it.
You can download all the FPGA cores for the Analogue Pocket from
here. You can make your life even easier by using a
Pocket updater software (Windows) to prep and setup a SD card with all the cores preconfigured ready for use, and
keep it in sync (Windows and Mac) automatically with new versions, etc.
The arcade emulation cores allow you to play the original arcade games on your pocket too - like UN Squadron:
I loved this game in the arcades, enjoyed the Amiga version too. Now I can play the original arcade version of UN Squadron on the go:
You can even play other handhelds like Gamate, tiger.com, and Wonderswan. Consoles like Atari 2600/7800, Vectrex, Odyssey 2, SNES, NES, Sega Megadrive, and even Intellivision games on the Pocket now with the Intellivision FPGA core:
Using the controller keypad numbers is an exercise in patience and memory, as each number from the original controller pad is mapped to a function key + something. Always pressing the wrong one...but the games look and run terrific on the Pocket.
You can even run a Tamagotchi core on the Pocket:
This nicely brings me to another purchase - I bought a Tamagotchi locally a few weeks ago. In 2024. Brand new, in Target.
Amazing, they still sell them! I have seen them in other stores here too.
I never owned Tamagotchi back in the days when it was at its peak popularity in the late 1990's.
My youngest brother had one, but I never had one of these "virtual pets" to take care of, and I was curious to try it out after I found out they still sell them in stores in 2024!
I know these devices are kept with you, and you need to feed, clean up, heal when sick, put them to sleep and play games with your pet as they slowly grow up. If you fail to look after the pet, they die and you have to start over.
The Tamagotchi beeps at you when it needs something, or warning you that a task needs doing. I gather they were banned in schools at the time as the random beeping across every student who had one drove the teachers crazy!
This is a Gen 2 unit.
I watched some YouTube videos to learn more - turns out there is so much more that was done since the 1990's with the Tamagotchi series.
This Gen 2 unit however is the basic features only, LCD screen, no backlight, no colour, with only one game to play with your Tamagotchi. There is no connectivity to other devices or sync with mobile phones and web portals for customisation, new outfits, etc, that came later.
This Tamagotchi runs standalone. It is the classic, and most popular version. I am ok with that, I just wanted to try something I never have used before. Because, why not?
You set the current time, as the virtual pet works with your timezone - when the pet is awake and when it sleeps are relative to it, as are meal times.
It starts as an egg waiting to be born - after five minutes it is born, and starts initially needing a lot of attention - food, food and more food. Games, games and more games.
You have to play games with the Tamagotchi to keep it happy, and also to keep its weight under control.
I put it next to my sofa while watching tv and it would beep now and again, needing something else. BTW in the Retro Gamer magazine I was reading, the PSP is 20 years old this year! It is now retro! Hard to believe it.
I didn't realise how important the weight was until I killed my pet a few times...I overfed it.
The "I killed my virtual pet" screen:
I started over and tried again - I learnt there is a base weight in different eras of the pet's life - baby, child, teen, adult. You apparently need to keep them in that range to be healthy, same as for humans too!
Putting the pet's weight in pounds is annoying though, you would have thought they would use metric given we are in Australia. Apparently not. USA all the way it seems - even though the system is Japanese, and Japan doesn't use pounds either...
The pet develops into a child and then a teen if you keep doing all the tasks to keep your Tamagotchi happy:
It might be a bit childish for a grown man to play this game, but I feel satisfied now that I didn't miss out on this era of games.
Actually, I found it kinda fun. So there you go. Tamagotchi is still a thing in 2024. Who knew?
The Analogue Pocket has been the system I have probably used the most this year, mainly due to the amount of travel I had to do!
I know there are many other copycat cheaper openFPGA handheld systems around too, but I am very happy with this one as I can use real cartridges from Gameboy, Gameboy color, Gameboy Advance, Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear and Neo Geo Pocket systems. The screen and build quality is also just amazing, and worth it for that alone.
I would like to take the opportunity to wish you all a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. I will be taking a break now for some well earned time off.
I hope you all enjoyed my blog entries this year, and I will see you all again here in 2025!
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