One Day at Midwest Gaming Classic!

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Over the weekend, I went to Midwest Gaming Classic and had a blast. I enjoyed finding my old favorite retro games and discovering new ones!

Light from Within

I even tried out some rad Homebrew games there! One of the highlights is Light From Within, a Zelda-like with gorgeous pixel art!

Gameplay snippet from the Nintendo Entertainment System Homebrew Video Game, Light From Within. The main character walks around in a green field battling skeleton enemies and walking right outside of the stream.

The game is a fully open world experience so there’s many options to try out in the demo.

The Storied Sword

Another Rad NES Homebrew game I tried out is is The Storied Sword a swashbuckling platformer, inspired by The Princess Bride and the Batman NES games. You can tell the Batman influence with the game’s wall jump.

Screencap from the Nintendo Entertainment System Homebrew Video Game, The Storied Sword. The main character is standing in the middle of a castle full of ivy, chandeliers, and gold.

The pixel art is impressive and I’d love to dive into learning more about NES development. The Game is made by Bite The Chili, same devs who made Anguna another NES homebrew game.

GunTner

I also played GunTner by LoBlast. It’s a arcade space shoot-em-up that looks incredible on a CRT.

Radio Ghosts

Screencap from the GB Studio game, Radio Ghosts. The main character is stands in a forest to meet a ghost who was attracted by the music of a radio. The dialogue choices are "Um, hey?" and "GADZOOKS! A RADIO GHOST!"

I found this game called Radio Ghosts, a top-down adventure game created in GB Studio about a girl lost in a forest. The story and writing is silly in the demo so I’m curious to see more about it. I’d love to pick this dev’s brain more about working in GB Studio and how he exported his game to a physical cartridge.

IVOR

There’s also a plethora of non-Homebrew indie games shown off there such as, IVOR a Norse-inspired, Arena Shooter. The demo was a survival arena where I needed to defeat waves of enemies to progress. They give you a good amount of weapons to deal with the enemies that show up.

Screencap from the independent video game, IVOR. The screen shows the main character's running through a brick building with a shotgun, battling against dwarven creatures with bright red eyes.

I was having a tough time against these long range magic wizards until I found a crossbow and could snipe them. Shooter’s aren’t my bag, and I feel like a clown trying to aim my shots, but it felt good to run around and strafe, so check it out if you hunger for more boomshoots.

Scouter

I also played a demo of Scouter by Mighty Obstacle Games. It’s a 2.5D Sonic style, speed platformer with combat and combos.

I’m not good with Sonic type games so it was tough for me to build up speed. I’m also not as knowlagable about what makes a good combat system, so I was mashing a bunch. Not many dodging options for the bosses so it was tough to get the hang of battling them.

Besides video games, I enjoyed myself walking around and seeing the cool sights like the World of Nintendo Exhibit and the gallery of large Yoshitaka Amano prints.

I stopped at some fun panels like Joel Hodgson’s riff of the Atari Jaguar informercial “The Cave” and The History of Activision with David Crane,Gerry Kitchen, and Dan Kitchen.

Finally, I walked around the vendor hall and impulse purchased a Game Boy Pocket, Link’s Awakening, Final Fantasy Adventure, and Final Fantasy Legend II.

Despite already having an emulator handheld of my Ambernic RG35XX ,it’s been nice to have some real hardware to get myself in the mindset of developing a game for a this console.

Photo of a Nintendo Game Boy Pocket Handheld System next to an Anbernic RG35XX Handheld System

Thanks to some fine conversations with some of the Homebrewers there, I have a hankering to learn how to get my pixel art on a real cartridge. Maybe one day.

It’s always nice to step outside to events and check out the cool things people are up to in video games. Next weekend, I’m hanging out at C2E2 with friends as I’m still on my year break from selling my work at conventions. If you’re out in Chicago on Sunday, perhaps you might see me!