Amateur old-school gaming consoles creates a game for the Sega Mega Drive

What? Old games for many years do not go out for retro consoles and want something new? This desire is feasible. On the eve of (well, almost) New Year, developer Matt Phillips decided to create a game for the 16-bit Sega Genesis / Mega Drive console. Realizing that this would take a lot of time, he decided to raise funds for working at Kickstarter. Now the campaign has gained a fourth of the required amount (about 12 thousand pounds instead of 48 thousand). Before the end of the campaign, there are still 33 days, which means that the project has a rather large chance of being fully funded.

The game Phillips makes (while in his spare time) is called Tanglewood. It should be released in the winter of 2017. Just at this time, the darkness of the day is stretched out, and you can while away such evenings with the joystick of your favorite console in your hands. In the story, the protagonist of the game gets into an unpleasant situation - he fights off his relatives and disappears in the forest after sunset. And this is a very dangerous time for young puppies, one of which is Nymn (that is the name of the main character).

The world of a creature that looks like a fox is very dangerous after the sun sets over the horizon. The player’s task is to prevent Nymn from dying in the dark. Dangers, by the way, lurk at every turn. You must learn to escape from the dangers, including traps and predators.
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The game is a good old platformer with puzzle elements. The author himself considers his game something average between Another World and The Lion King.

Supported consoles and OS (in case of using .exe):

• SEGA Mega Drive I, II, compatible clones (PAL, NTSC-J)
• SEGA Genesis I, II, III, compatible clones (NTSC-US)
• Windows
• Mac
• Linux

Versions not for consoles, but for Windows, Linux, Mac OS will be available as downloadable files. If you wish, you can download ROM games to play on the emulator. The image is compatible with most console emulators for any platform.

At the moment, there are already three levels that are complete. The developer says that his favorite platformers were The Lion King , Another World , Flashback and Sonic the Hedgehog . At one point, he decided to create his own game, which would contain most of the favorite elements of other games. There are also ideas borrowed from the more modern LIMBO and Ori and the Blind Forest. Part of the game elements the developer spied from Abe's Oddysee and Heart of Darkness for the PlayStation. It is clear that all these elements are not simply “lent”, but adapted to modern realities and the atmosphere of the game itself.

The experience of baby Nymn grows from level to level. There are new features that support the interest of the player from the first to the last level. There are in Tanglewood elements such as research, testing puzzles, encounters with monsters, running to race with the enemy, battles and hidden locations.

The hero can collect some things that subsequently give a variety of bonuses. If you find all the game collection items, the gamer gets a generous reward. Rather, it does not receive the player himself, and his character.

Nymn is a member of the Djunn race. His relatives, like himself, live underground and come to the surface in rare cases - and only during the day. Night and evening - extremely dangerous time of day for the hero of the game. At night, there are strong enemies who have only one desire - to eat as many members of the Djunn race as possible, those who gape and did not manage to hide before the onset of darkness.

The main enemy of our hero is the monster Djakk, a representative of the ancient race of night hunters. We will meet him often, much more often than we would like. On his fangs - the blood of previously eaten victims, and Nymn could be one of them. This should not be allowed. Monster runs much faster than the main character, so you need to leave using various clever tricks.

You can avoid persecution, but it is difficult, and each time the way to escape from the danger changes - you have to learn new techniques from level to level.



Nymn can help other creatures, for which he will receive rewards and extra points. The character can change the color scheme from level to level, and depending on his color, the enemies will react to the presence of the hero in different ways. Nymn will receive energy of different types, which will allow him for a short time to get a new skill, ability.



In general, the game world is a planet in a double star system. This planet has several moons. All this gives unusual effects when illuminating the world of Nymn.

Unusual in the development is that the creator of the game used the original Sega toolkit for developers.



The game is written in the original 68000 assembler. Tanglewood , thus, is a “warm tube” game, which was created for those who like the old game hits of the 90s. Tools developer collects here .

By the way, in Brazil, Sega Mega Drive is still popular. This is explained by the fact that in this country there are very high barrage duties on electronics. And the cost of new gaming consoles here reaches two thousand dollars.

Now, realizing the situation in the video game market in this country, Tectoy has opened pre-orders for the Sega Mega Drive, an exact copy of the original 22-game console on a flash card.

Perhaps Tanglewood will become popular precisely in this country, where some kind of alternative reality has emerged in the field of video games. There are still exchanging cartridges for 8-bit and 16-bit consoles, and the PlayStation 2 is sold tens of thousands.