Daily Archive: September 12, 2026

12 September 2026

The Past Has Other Plans

Three retro projects prove old games still have new tricks: Mega Drive VR gives classic 16-bit worlds fresh depth, Monster World RPG turns Wonder Boy nostalgia into a fan-made adventure, and BBC Micro reverse-engineering opens the code behind the magic.

September 2026
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11 September 2026

South Park is becoming “South America” — in a satirical swipe at Donald Trump’s geographic renaming campaign. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone announced the change ahead of the show’s 29th season, with promotional artwork covering “Park” on the familiar town sign with an “America” sticker.

The statement sarcastically credits the “bravery and patriotism” of Apple and Google, which adopted “Lake America” for Lake Ontario on their US maps following Trump’s renaming order. The creators also take a shot at their own parent company, thanking Paramount while describing it as “a Skydance Capitulation”.

Season 29 premieres on 16 September 2026 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Comedy Central, with next-day streaming on Paramount+ in the US, Canada and Australia. Five further episodes are scheduled fortnightly through 25 November.

Whether “South America” will stick permanently remains unclear: the announcement is another satirical provocation, rather than confirmation of a lasting replacement for the original title.

10 September 2026

ZuckOff, an app developed by Pawel Szydlowski, can flag nearby camera-equipped smart glasses by recognising their Bluetooth signals. Supported devices include Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta and Snap Spectacles, giving users a way to spot hardware that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The app examines manufacturer identifiers and other broadcast information, explains why a device was flagged and uses signal strength to estimate proximity. However, it cannot indicate the direction of the glasses or pinpoint their wearer.

On iPhone, basic scanning is free, while ZuckOff Pro adds background monitoring, notifications, widgets and extended detection history. According to the developer, logs remain on the phone unless users explicitly export them or submit a hardware report.

The crucial limitation: detecting glasses does not mean someone is recording. ZuckOff identifies nearby devices, not what their cameras are doing. Conversely, glasses that stop broadcasting may go undetected, so an empty scan is not a guarantee that nobody is filming. It is an awareness tool, not a recording detector.

10 September 2026

Sony’s original grey PlayStation is getting the LEGO treatment. Revealed on 3 September 2026, LEGO PlayStation (72306) is a 1,911-piece, near-life-size recreation of the console, complete with a brick-built version of its original controller. Designed for builders aged 18 and over, it is a display model rather than a working games machine.

The nostalgic details go beyond the familiar shape: the controller plugs into the front, while mechanical Open and Power buttons add something to fiddle with. Hidden inside are two removable dioramas celebrating Gran Turismo and Ape Escape, featuring a miniature racing circuit with tiny cars and a scene incorporating the monkeys’ distinctive helmets. Both can stay concealed or be displayed separately.

The set costs £139.99 / €159.99 / $179.99, with LEGO Insiders early access starting on 1 October 2026 and general availability from 4 October. The finished console measures approximately 26 × 19 × 6 cm—a manageable slice of PlayStation nostalgia for the shelf. The startup sound, unfortunately, is yours to provide.

9 September 2026

Amazon has introduced visual dubbing on Prime Video, using artificial intelligence and visual effects to modify actors’ mouth movements so they match translated dialogue. Crucially, the voices remain human-dubbed: this feature changes the picture rather than replacing voice actors with synthetic speech.

The technology is now available worldwide for the English-dubbed versions of Maxton Hall seasons 1 and 2. It will also feature in the third and final season, scheduled to premiere on 9 December 2026. The aim is to reduce the distracting mismatch between spoken words and the actors’ lips when watching a translated production.

Amazon plans to extend visual dubbing to more titles and says the process operates under creative oversight to preserve the creators’ artistic vision. However, its announcement does not identify the next productions or provide a timetable for additional languages.

9 September 2026

Buried Magic: A Story about the Unseen is seeking support on Kickstarter, promising a spooky, hand-drawn point-and-click adventure from Playful Bunny Interactive. The campaign is led by creator Annika Veigel and combines a witchcraft-school setting with traditional adventure-game puzzle solving.

Players follow Ruby, a young witch student investigating strange disappearances in Hollowmoor, where the centuries-old Trinity Academy of Witchcraft sits at the centre of the mystery. Accompanied by her tiny house-spider companion, Mifi, Ruby must explore unsettling locations and uncover the secrets hidden within her school.

The developer highlights hand-drawn graphics and animation, object-based puzzles, and dynamic interactions and responses. The emphasis is on exploration and piecing together the mystery, giving the project a distinctly traditional point-and-click flavour beneath its supernatural setting.

The campaign has a €3,000 funding target and runs until 16 October 2026, with funding dependent on reaching that goal.

The game is available to wishlist on Steam, where a Windows release is currently planned for May 2027; that remains a development target rather than a guaranteed launch date.

8 September 2026

Developer GammaCorrection has shared a preview of Jacob’s Elevator, a homebrew game in development for the Nintendo Entertainment System. In the accompanying Reddit discussion, the creator confirmed that the project is being programmed in assembly language.

There is a touch of oddball humour, too: when a commenter compared a tree character to Zelda’s Deku Tree, the developer clarified that this is the “Wise Mystical Tree”, a distinct character.

The finished game is planned as a free release on itch.io, with the option to play directly in a web browser. For now, however, this is a development preview rather than a launch: the announcement gives no release date, and Jacob’s Elevator is not yet listed on the developer’s itch.io profile.

Announcement: https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogamedev/comments/1wa02yp/jacobs_elevator_a_homebrew_for_nes/

6 September 2026

Developer Costélinha (GuilhermeJuventino) has released Car Go Vroom!!!, a new homebrew racing game for the original Nintendo Game Boy. The small 2D racer is written in Assembly using RGBDS and challenges players to dodge oncoming cars while pushing for higher scores.

The finished ROM was published on 5 September 2026, with the complete source code also available publicly on GitHub. The project had previously been shown in development posts dating back to 2025.

GitHub: https://github.com/GuilhermeJuventino/GB-Racing-Game

6 September 2026

Unico is preparing the Traveller ULW10, a compact LCD monitor designed specifically for retro gaming, combining a classic 4:3 format and CRT/PVM-inspired styling with modern display technology.

The ULW10 is built around an approximately 10-inch screen and supports RGBs and VGA for older hardware alongside HDMI for modern systems. Unico is positioning it as a convenient modern alternative for players who want the proportions and feel of classic gaming displays without relying on ageing CRT hardware. A Kickstarter campaign is currently being prepared.

Official Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unicousa/travellerulw10-a-modern-take-on-the-retro-4-3-pvm-monitor

6 September 2026

Homebrew developer LackofTrack has released version 1.00 of an unofficial Super Mario Bros. port for the Sega Master System, turning an earlier proof of concept into a complete game.

The port aims to closely reproduce the original NES/Famicom gameplay while also offering an enhanced graphics mode inspired by Super Mario All-Stars. An optional FM soundtrack is available for compatible Master System hardware equipped with a YM2413 chip.

The project was originally developed for the 2026 SMS Power coding competition and is now available as a full release.

Original/official project page: https://www.smspower.org/Homebrew/SuperMarioBrosSmsPort-SMS
Developer repository: https://github.com/lackoftrack27/Super-Mario-Bros.-SMS

6 September 2026

REASSEMBLER has released the first public playable demo of Aonic, an ambitious attempt to bring the original Sonic the Hedgehog experience to the Commodore Amiga. The current build recreates Green Hill Zone Act 1 and targets PAL Amigas with the AGA chipset and just 2 MB of Chip RAM, making a stock Amiga 1200 the project’s main reference system.

Rather than simply creating a Sonic-inspired platformer, Aonic adapts code, game logic and data from the original Mega Drive version while heavily reworking the rendering system for the very different Amiga hardware. The aim is to preserve Sonic’s familiar physics, momentum and speed as closely as possible.

The demo became publicly available on itch.io on 31 August 2026 under a name-your-own-price model and remains a work in progress. REASSEMBLER has also discussed eventually investigating an Amiga 500 version, although finishing the AGA release comes first.

itch.io: https://reassembler68k.itch.io/aonic

5 September 2026

GOG-Games.to, the unofficial piracy website specialising in DRM-free PC games, scheduled its closure for 6 September 2026, following a 90-day notice issued in June. The announcement said new game additions and updates would cease, with the website subsequently going offline.

The operator described the closure as a personal decision, rather than the result of legal pressure. According to the notice, approximately €700 in remaining Monero donations would be passed to the file-sharing community Torrminatorr, alongside a thank-you to everyone who had supported the site.

Despite the similar name, GOG-Games.to is not affiliated with GOG.com. The legitimate DRM-free games store remains online: this announcement concerns the separate piracy website, not the official GOG service or its customers’ game libraries.

Suggested alternatives:
- GOG: https://www.gog.com/
- Torrminatorr: https://forum.torrminatorr.com/
- Appnetica: https://appnetica.com/

5 September 2026

Babylonian Twins creator Rabah Shihab has revealed how he used Anthropic’s Claude to bring his 1993 Amiga puzzle-platformer into Godot. The project tackled both the original Motorola 68000 assembly and the C++ engine developed for its 2010 mobile remake.

According to Shihab, the AI analysed 72,758 lines of Amiga assembly, recovered undocumented level formats and helped rebuild the original game binaries. But this was no flawless, one-click conversion: bugs involving enemies, doors and jumping still required human playtesting and corrections.

For Amiga fans, there is an immediate bonus: the complete original game—not just the previously available demo—is now free on itch.io, supplied as two ADF disk images for emulators or compatible Amiga hardware. The modern Definitive Edition is already available on iOS and Android, while Steam offers a free demo ahead of the full release.

Official itch.io release — https://bithunch.itch.io/babylonian-twins
Official Steam listing — https://store.steampowered.com/app/4981370/Babylonian_Twins/

2 September 2026

Limited Run Games and Cyan Worlds are bringing the modern remakes of Myst and Riven to physical media. Standard editions are planned for PlayStation 5 and Xbox One/Xbox Series, alongside retro-inspired Big Box Editions for PlayStation 5, Xbox and PC via Steam. The new versions retain the surreal worlds and puzzle-driven exploration of the CD-ROM classics while rebuilding them with modern visuals, lighting and full movement. Pre-order dates and prices have not yet been announced, with all editions currently listed as coming soon.

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Daily Archive: September 12, 2026

The Past Has Other Plans

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South Park becomes “South America” in Trump renaming spoof

ZuckOff Detects Nearby Meta Smart Glasses via Bluetooth

LEGO’s original PlayStation brings 1,911 pieces of ’90s nostalgia

Prime Video Uses AI to Match Actors’ Lips to Dubbed Dialogue

Buried Magic seeks Kickstarter backing for a hand-drawn witchcraft mystery

Jacob’s Elevator: new NES homebrew previewed, with a free release planned

Car Go Vroom!!! brings new top-down racing to the Game Boy

Unico unveils Traveller ULW10, a modern 4:3 monitor for retro gaming

Super Mario Bros. gets a full Sega Master System port

Aonic brings Sonic’s Green Hill Zone to the Amiga 1200

GOG-Games.to reaches planned shutdown date—not the official GOG store

Babylonian Twins: AI-assisted Godot revival, Amiga original now free

Myst and Riven remakes are getting physical editions