Best games for your Retro Gaming Device
What to play on your WaveShare GameHat after you install RetroPie, Lakka or RecallBox? Usually, people search for shady places on the internet where one can download ROM files. But Nintendo will hate you for that, even if you "legally" owned these games on cartridges.
Did you know that there are games for retro console emulation systems that you can enjoy without violating any laws?
- Of course, you can buy new games (for example Astebros, "Tanglewood" and "Xeno Crysis") that are developed for vintage platforms.
- Some games have copyright expired or lost. Check Abandonware. You will be surprised how much popular old-school titles are now free.
- Ton of games (so called homebrews) was created by enthusiasts and released for free. Retrobrews tries to keep track of most of them.
- Another good places to look are Retro Veteran and PDRoms
- itch.io has a lot of homebrews in development. Just search for you platform name example.
So there is a lot of free games. Let me save you a bit of time and recommend a couple of titles, that are actually good.
I mostly enjoy "flow" games, to play while listening to audiobooks and podcasts.
Retro City Rampage
Retro City Rampage is a true work of art in software optimization. The author implemented a GTA-like open-world game that could fit into NES cartridge or floppy disk for vintage 486 PCs with 4MB RAM. Result proves that such advanced games might be possible in time of these platforms. If you interested in software development, be sure to check developers videos. This is an amazing story of software optimization. Also, the gameplay is good.
If you buy the game on Steam, you can find .exe:
- In Steam Go to Retro City Rampage
Properties - Click
Local Files→Browse Local Files - Extract
RetroCityRampage486_MS-DOS_v1.0.zipto your Retro Gaming Device - Play using DOSBox emulator
Games from RetroSouls
SGDK development kit made possible to create a lot of new games for Sega MegaDrive/Genesis. RetroSouls took advantage of that. Their games have the perfect combination of gameplay, sound, and graphics. Old towers is my favorite.
2048
2048 is a perfect example of a mindless flow game. Plays well on a joystick. There are implementations of 2048 for almost any retro platform. I've checked them all. Simplest and minimalistic is Gameboy port. Best is Sega MegaDrive version.
2048
Crystalclearclone for GBA is another example of great logic game with nice graphics.
Bottled
Another example of a good game to play while listening to podcasts is Tower Defense. There is version for Sega Mega Drive. It is good. Download.
Breakanegg
Breakanegg is a cool and simple game with nice graphics. Control a hen, save eggs.
Retroid
Simple and nice version of Breakout for Gameboy.
Star chaser
Nice mindless game Star Chaser. You control a sphere, the task is to collect stars. The trick is that there are 3 other spheres that try to achieve the same goal.
Bonus
- "Angry Birds" made into MegaDrive too
- Explore the world of crazy Sega Bootlegs. You will find mind-blowing spinoffs of popular games. Counter-Strike? Duke Nukem? Silent Hill? Frozen? Some of these games are still sold in Russia and Brazil.
