DANK ZINE

Huzzah! The big double stuffed issue is out and already mailed to backers of my Patreon. If you want to get your copy, make sure you visit the Dank Shop and get yours as it’s a special two in one issue magazine full of interviews, articles and of course Dank Art. This month’s cover is a nod to Crystal Castles, a rather unique Atari arcade game that used a trackball. Check out gameplay from this gem here:

Stay tuned for the next issue coming out soon with all fresh content and art.

Dank Art

I have been focusing on a lot more larger pieces these days as I have needed to get my art fix going. The best is when someone starts to play a longer RPG or puts more effort into a game where that gives me a bit more time to come up with something brilliant.

Adventures in Collecting

Two Sunday’s ago, Old Buddy Greg and I went to a retro gaming convention located in Mississauga for a good time and to check out what deals people were bringing out. Greg has told me before that his list is near 99% these days, so his enjoyment is now just on checking out the atmosphere and seeing what’s out on the tables. As for myself, I still have an active list going and I’m always trying to go out to events like this to heckle and find deals but mainly to meet new people and open new doors for friendships.

This was also our first retro show in almost 4 months due to a lot of changes going down for me at work and my availability. That and being limited to finding a lot of the shows on Facebook and social media means that often we’ve gone and missed an event because of poor promotion. Still, social media is way better than posting a flyer up on a pole and hoping for the best.

The biggest story I have from the event was finding two major wants off my list of games. The first one was Danan the Jungle Fighter for Master System. I made sure by telling Greg that I was looking for the Master System game that sounds like a brand of Yogurt cause he looked at me like I was nuts when I said: “Yo dude- keep your eyes peeled for Danan!”

Danan is probably one of the more sophisticated games for the Sega Master System coming out in 1990 and developed by a company called Whiteboard. It stars a barbarian warrior on some sort of mystical hack and slash quest who has magic animal elements to assist along the way. Eventually, you go on to meet a bunch of crazy characters who you battle and befriend along the way and ultimately Danan goes on to fight Nazis in a war submarine. Did I say this game was interesting? It’s an absolute must for your Master System collection and worth the high price tag. I still can’t believe it though when the more gimmicky and horrible obscure games for the Master System such as ALF fetch higher prices- you couldn’t pay me to put that game into my collection.

 

The other major pick up I got was Snatcher for Sega CD. Yes. I found my holy grail of games and almost died when I saw that the seller had two copies. When looking for a copy of Snatcher to buy always check the CD and feel it. The ink should be raised which will rule out a mass-produced stamp as well as serials on both sides of the inside CD ring. There are a lot of really convincing counterfeits out there which is why I prefer going to shows like these where I can feel and inspect things before buying. I’m not the best myself when it comes to spotting a counterfeit game so it’s always best to trust your own gut and check out the seller as well. The guy who sold it to me was straight up professional, had a lot of unique things at his booth and was patient with me to firm up the sale after I transferred my money to him. I will admit that in that time I was waiting for the transfer to go thru I was walking around the place sweating buckets in some sort of half worry if I was doing the right thing. I was relieved though when I got the game in my hands and it dawned on me that I finally owned a copy of Snatcher.

When I was a little kid, Snatcher always dazzled me. If you’ve seen my streams in the past I always fall back on playing Snatcher around Christmas and most recently I explored SD Snatcher for the MSX2. The first time I saw Snatcher as a little girl was a preview in Mean Machines Magazine when they were doing these huge 3-4 spread pictorial reviews for Sega CD Games back in those days and the thought of having a cyberpunk-noir thriller game seemed sexy and dark.

It wasn’t until I got home and put the CD into my Sega CD that I noticed that something was off. My Sega CD wasn’t working. Oh Shucks! Of course, I finally get a working copy of Snatcher and as soon as I get home I’m faced with this crushing blow that my Sega CD is busted. FYI- the Sega CD is not the best-made game system out there and common problems range from leaking capacitors to worn out CD belts to the laser and even internal wiring going. I was so irritated because only a few weeks ago everything was working alright as I keep going back to Shining Force CD, one of the few Sega CD games I own. My collection of Sega CD games is rather low mostly because Sega CD games are hard to come by and you really have to have a love for the system or be crazy rich to invest in collecting for it. Many of the games I want for the system cost well over $300 each and I find myself in disagreement with people on buying ripped CDs for it. What’s the point in that? I can simply emulate and skip all the pointless frustration of wires, cleaning and dealing with complications with rotting AV cables if I just want to play a bootleg. There’s a reason people like me go for collecting retro games and yeah emulation and everdrives are alright in some cases, but there’s always going to be a few games we all would love to own that are just out of reach.

I got the Sega CD to work eventually as it turns out it was just a bad combination of rotting AV cables and poor shielding, but I got a lot of help from the kindness of friends, so shout out to Lou, The Enforcer, Krazlin, Puri and especially Old Buddy Greg who eventually saved the day with just his own quick wit and smarts.

Cool Finds

Check out this new book that just dropped from the folks over at Bitmap Books: The Art of Point-and-Click Adventure Games. It’s a visually stunning hardcover book with over 460 pages featuring all your favourite point and click games from back in the day. It’s got contributions and interviews from a lot of people who used to work on these games too so it’s a must want book for my collection.