Evercade Showcase volume 2 hits hard with new indie announcements!

 A few months after showing a stellar Retro line-up for their Evercade  consoles, Blaze Entertainment returned today as promised with volume 2 of their Showcase. Focusing this time on the indie scene, the Evercade showcase brought some exiting new games to expand their library with some fantastic games. They announced multiple new cartridge collections for Evercade, completing the Evercade 2023 cartridge line-up. During the Evercade Showcase Vol.2 pre-recorded broadcast, four new collections were announced, bringing 12 more games to Evercade including a new one game exclusive cartridge.  All available this year.

 
Evercade Showcase Vol. 2 was not only a way for Evercade to show and announce upcoming collections, they also took the opportunity to put indiegames in the spotlight and emphasize on the how important indie games and indie development is to them and they solidified them to have a bit spot in their lineup. The incredible quality and originaliy found in indie games provieds the Evercade gamers with  many titles that may often be overlooked or lost on modern consoles vast digital storefronts.Not only is the Evercade ecosytem a place for nostalgia and retro games or collectors, but also for new exiting indie content. 

 
The biggest showstopper today was Evercade’s first ever single game cartridge. A bit of a surprise to see, as we are so used to the great deals of multigame cartridges. However this new single game cartridge is a sign of Evercade willing to invest in some new and groundbreaking content. The honor of the first game goes to "Full Void" from OutOfTheBit. Full Void is a cinematic 2D platformer that draws strong comparisons of games such as "Another world" and "Flashback". This game is built native for the Evercade system, meaning that unlike some of the other releases it is not emulated, and marks the first physical release for this game since it was recently released last week on Steam.

As with all their physical releases, the game also comes with a full colour manual as well as a Prologue comic. This cartridge will be available at the standard Evercade SRP of £17.99|$19.99|€19.99, and is set to release in October 2023. Pre-orders open August 1st 2023 at various retailers. Want more? Well for those collectors out there there is another option. In addition to the regular version you can also opt for the special edition release. This version of the cartridge comes with an exclusive blue cartridge and Special Edition cart inlay, stickers, a double-sided poster, and an exclusive artbook of the beautiful hand-drawn environments and animations created for the game. This comes in a Special Edition cardboard Sleeve and will retail at £24.99|$29.99|€29.99 and will be released in October 2023. Pre-orders for this version of the cartridge also open August 1st 2023.

 

Next up is the upcoming release of the "Home Computer Heroes" collection. This new collection is an offshoot of Evercades popular “Indie Heroes” cartridge line. This time fully focused on modern retro indie games that have been made specifically for home computers including the C64, Amiga and even the MSX2, a system some people here in the USA might not be to familiar with. Despite their technical limitations these systems can still support fantastic games, and now you can play them without the need to load them from a tape. Wont that be a nice experience. 

The seven game collection are curated from a mixture of YouTube personalities, passionate programmers, game jam projects and even a AAA gaming side project. Alongside the successful The Attack of the PETSCII Robots and Planet X2 by David Murray (The 8-bit Guy), There is even a C64 demake version of Giants Software’s incredibly successful Farming Simulator,Yes believe it or not you can experience the thrill and charm of farming in pure 8bit bliss. More of a first person shooter person? Then perhaps the remastered version of 3D Amiga hit Citadel will hit the spot. Beyond that there is more Amiga goodness with  "Bridge Strike" and "Tanks Furry", and for some sword swinging action you must check out the impressibe MSX2 based adventure "The Sword of Ianna"!

This cartridge will be available for  £17.99|$19.99|€19.99, and will be released in October 2023. Pre-orders open August 1st 2023.

 
Evercade has seen a few “Dual Cart” releases already featuring more established indie developers on Evercade while maintaining a reasonable cost. At two games a cartridge you might feel you are getting less value then with some of the classic releases but the games included are often bigger and definetely no slouch. Previous entries included Xenocrisis by Bitmap Buearu, Tanglewood by Big Evil Corp, Alwa’s Awakening 8-bit Edition from Elden Pixels and Cathedral by Decemberborn. In 2023, Evercade is continuing this high qualioty trend by releasing two new collections, each with two great games that show off amazing games build on 8, 16 and 32-bit hardware. Firt there is the  "Goodboy Galaxy" and "Witch n’ Wiz"  Goodboy Galaxy is a 32-bit handheld game featuring a literal good boi with protagonist pooch Maxwell on a mission to save his home, and the 8-bit puzzler Witch n’ Wiz where you try to save your best friend from an evil sorceress. The artwork and animations on "Good Boy Galaxy" especially is amazing and looks like a blast to play and explore.

Cartridge number two consists out of "Demons of Asteborg" and "Astebros". Both spawned from the braintrust of Neofid studios these games made specifically for 16-bit home consoles. The games bring great metroidvania style and dungeon crawlers to Evercade with multiple hours of enjoyment and impressive graphics and gameplay. It looks that Demons of Asteborg brings some amazing boss battles and exploration in a huge fantasy world. Whilst Astebros brings single and multiplayer dungeon crawling in a procedurally generated world, meaning no adventure is ever the same! Both cartridges will be available for £17.99|$19.99|€19.99 each and will be released in December 2023. You will have to wait bit longer to get these reserved as preorders will open in September 2023.

 

 
Lastly, Evercade also reaffirmed that we will see a collection of this year's Game of the Month feature as a physical release early 2024. If you did not know, this whole year (just like last) you can get a one-month access to a new indie game with a firmware update which will be replace each month for a new game allowing you to experience the full game for limited time. Each month a new game takes its place. As stated early next year all these games will be on one cartridge.

As you can see Blaze Entertainment is working hard to reach beyond just retro nostalgia and offer a way to collect and save classic games for the future as well as bring a bunch of exciting indie titles to the system enticing more people to come part of the Evercade family. There are many competitors on the market but a lot of them rely on questionable rom downloads or can get technical in nature with the need to hard and or software installations that might just need be for everyone. The Evercade systems offer a good alternative to start a collection and get access too classic and indie games for a low entree price. Let's see where they take it from here.