Retro Titans - the Evercade podcast Phil Szomszor

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

If you're serious about retro gaming and can recall all your devices from days gone by, you'll love this episode with retro gaming journalist and author, Mike Diver. Publisher of three books on retro gaming, with another in the works, Mike has an encyclopedic knowledge of arcades, consoles and computer games. Here we delve into his latest book and talk about why retro gaming holds such a fascination for many of us. 
As always we get our guest's take on what's happening at Blaze Entertainment and in the Evercade universe, plus our regular Desert Island Carts feature. Turns out Mike is also a big music fan, so we cover that too. 
 
🔗 Links:
X / Twitter - @mikediver
Muck Rack - Mike Diver
Amazon - Mike's retro gaming books 
 
🎵 Music 
Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff
Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra
Xenon 2 - Megablast (Amiga Music), by Bomb the Bass and Dave Whittaker
 
 
 
 

In a packed episode, we talk to IT lecturer and media commentator Andy Caomhanach about his love of retro gaming, which goes back to his Commodore 64 days and the Light Fantastic Pack. He describes how is love of computing and gaming led to the discovery of the Evercade platform and what makes it so special. 
We also tackle the thorny issue of cart failures, which has come up on various groups and forums, in an attempt to get to the bottom of why they might be happening, whether we should be worried and what gamers can do about it. 
Finally, as always, we have the Desert Island Carts feature and Andy explains his love of retro gaming music, especially from Richard Joseph. 
 
🔗 Links:
X / Twitter - @andycaomhanach
LinkedIn - @andycaomhanach
University of Galway - www.universityofgalway.ie
Andy on RTE - www.rte.ie
 
🎵 Music 
Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff
Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra
The Chaos Engine (1993) World 2 music ('The Workshops') by Richard Joseph

Witch n' Wiz is one of my all-time favourite games on Evercade, so I've been chomping at the bit to speak to the game's developer Matt Hughson. It was everything I hoped and more. We discussed how he came up with the idea for Witch n' Wiz and developed it into the game we all love. He explained his process for devising the levels and gets the difficulty level just right, before moving on to tell the story of his involvement with Evercade. 
Matt, who is based in Vancouver and works as a developer in his day job too, is also a fierce supporter of the homebrew developer scene and he explains why the community is so supportive, and tells us about some of his own favourite games. 
As always, we covered his top choices of a device and carts to take away for the Desert Island Carts feature. 
If you enjoyed Witch n' Wiz or have any interest in how games actually get made, this episode is for you. 
 
🔗 Links:
Linktr.ee - @matthughson
X / Twitter - @matthughson
 
🎵 Music 
Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff
Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra
Nebs 'n Debs, by kulor (thanks to Chris Cacciatore)
   
 
 

The Evercade Facebook groups have been lit up in the past few weeks discussing collecting and selling carts. As a non-collector myself, I am intrigued by the desire to own the whole collection and equally curious about the prices some of these carts can command. So, to understand more about the art of collecting on Evercade, I spoke to reviewer, collector and all-round retro gaming fan Connor (aka Connor The Braixen) from Seafoam Gaming. 
We also have time to discuss licensing, why some carts go legacy and which ones could be up for deletion next. Connor has an extensive knowledge of Evercade and retro gaming in general, and his enthusiasm is infectious. 
As always, we have time to discuss Connor's desert island carts and play out with one of his favourite retro gaming tunes. 
 
🔗 Links:
Website - seafoamgaming.com
Blue Sky - @seafoamgaming.bsky.social
 
🎵 Music 
Neon Gaming, by Dope Stuff
Desert Island Disc theme tune, by Eric Coates and his orchestra
Valis III - Nizetti, by Hisao Inoue, Jun Hasebe & Shingo Murakami